The Ranting

Semi-coherent rant ahoy
I'm hoping it's semi-coherent, at least. Right, off we go.

The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship is working with Amnesty International this week to raise awareness of human trafficking, particularly children and particularly in the sense of sex slavery. I went through their exhibits and was utterly stunned at how little I knew about this. For example, there are more people enslaved today than were traded on the Middle Passage during the entirety of the existence of the Triangle Trade. This is real, this is a hideous problem, and this is not what my rant is about. For those of you interested, check out the International Justice Mission (www.ijm.com) for more information.
After I finished the exhibit, I got to talking with a girl named Emily who was part of the response team they had going. She talked about the more spiritual side of fixing this problem in the context of Christianity, then asked me what I thought. Of course, the first thing out of my mouth was, "Well, I'm not Christian..." She looked at me a little oddly, but she kind of relaxed when I went on to say, "...but I completely agree with you, here's why, blahblah stuff about my religious beliefs that's not relevant." She nodded, and told me after I'd finished that, "Yeah, I understand." Then, she said something that has stuck with me ever since.
She said, "Righteousness crosses beliefs."
Holy shit.
That's it, right there, that's more or less the extent of my interfaith belief. You can be a righteous person without being Christian, or Muslim, or Buddhist, or Shinto, or what-the-fuck-ever. You can be a righteous person without believing in any God. Righteousness is faith in fellow humans, is compassion, is friendship and love for every living thing. Righteousness is the belief that justice exists and that it is universal. Righteousness is the belief that everyone has the right to freedom and to life, and that everyone should have what you have. Righteousness is the willingness, and in some ways the compulsion, to give back.
I have known maybe one truly righteous person in my life, a Baptist kid who engaged in one of the most lively and interesting religious debates it has ever been my pleasure to participate in without ever once putting down a religion or a person. He truly, honestly believed that everyone had the capacity to be righteous, and I think he also believed it was his duty to help other people fulfill that capacity (yes, FG folks, Josh is fairly heavily based off that kid, though he has a personality and a life of his own). He thought there was validity in every religion as long as it promoted righteousness.
We're currently studying Islam in my World Religions class, specifically a gentleman by the name of Farid Esack, a Muslim scholar. Currently, he's trying through "intense Muslim scholarship" to prove that people who are just and righteous should be counted as Muslim believers. Not just righteous people, not just righteous outsides, but actual, Muslim believers. Now, I don't think it's really necessary for him to do so--the form of God that I believe in, after all, makes no distinction between religious trappings so long as you are righteous. But I think it shows a great deal about humanity in general that truly pious people like Farid Esack and the Dalai Lama can see that.
There is truth in all religions, and there are righteous people in all of them. Granted, there are assholes in all of them too. I think, though, if the equation ever leans more heavily towards the righteous than the assholes, we'll be on the right track.
So. Any thoughts? Please share them. I will be happy beyond reason if this turns into an honest-to-God discussion.