by James Glaser
June 15, 2004

I was looking at a list of Christian denominations here in the United States and just guessing, there are well over a hundred. All of these churches think that they have the right ideas about how God says we should live.

It bothers me that some ministers are all in favor of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, while others are against them. Each one is following his or her beliefs. I am also upset that our President keeps bringing his God, into his decision, about going to war.

I really doubt that God sanctions any of the wars we have going on in the world today. Sometimes it gets to the point that I start to think that there are many Gods and each church is praying to a different one. Maybe that is why there is a Commandment in the Bible that says, "You shall have no other gods before me."

Well that sounds like there are other Gods and maybe each of these churches is praying to a different god. Of course, each domination thinks their God is the one true God.

I have to tell you that I like the separation of Church and State. If George Bush is pushing for a State Religion, which god is going to be in charge of the one he picks? Remember some Christian Churches allow for Gay Marriage, while others think abortion is OK. Every "Christian" church thinks their teachings are the right ones.

Who gets to decide which "Christian" faith is going to be in charge of America? I like to think that I am working on getting myself to heaven and I don't think that I want to try and tag along on George Bush's ticket.

If it wasn't so sad I would laugh about the Catholic Church deciding to use the Eucharist, as a tool to keep politicians in line about abortion. Through out history, the rich women have been able to have an abortion, while poor women, even poor raped women had to have the child.

Heck, years ago, rich people could just kill the kid and who could say anything against them? Really let's face it, laws are for the poor people, through out history, the rich and powerful could do what ever they wanted and that is still true today, even right here in America. Now they just have to be a little sneakier and pay off more people.

President Bush was just at the Vatican looking for some help from the Pope with his War in Iraq and even tried giving the Catholic Pontiff a medal to wear. I think giving a Catholic Pope, a medal that is associated with the Military and war is a total insult to both the Pope and the Church. The Pope is supposed to be a man of peace and giving a man of peace a medal with a shiny ribbon on it, is pretty stupid.

If we would leave God out of our decisions about going to war I think we would all be better off. It is bad enough to have one country attack another, but when you tell your enemy that your God is behind this war, well, don't you think that gets "his" God upset.

It is bad enough man fighting man, do we really have to get Gods fighting Gods? Did the Vietnamese God defeat our God? Is there some local God in Fallujah that stopped the United States Marine Corps from taking that city?

I don't know if God swears, but he must get to that point some times as he watches us down here. For thousands of years he has had to watch as we screw up over and over again. He spelled it out for us in the Bible about loving your enemy. He even said we should pray for those that persecute us. We don't even read the bible, because what we do is shoot and bomb our enemies and if we happen to kill innocent people doing that, so what?

Have you ever noticed that people with different gods than our Christian God, don't seem to have the troubles we have? When was the last Hindu or Buddhist World War?

You know, we have a lot of work to do right here at home. We keep claiming that we are a Christian country, but we aren't even close. Our whole country revolves around sex. Every day you can read about sex crimes and now major corporations are making billions on pornography. Just in the last twenty years, instead of keeping all the gambling confined to one State, it has now spread out to all fifty, with the government the biggest pusher of gambling with lotteries.

George Bush claims to be a Christian, but he has done nothing to make this country closer to God. No, George wants to help other countries. We are now trying to bring freedom and liberty to the Middle East as we watch our own slip away. Right here in Minnesota we are trying to figure out what we can do with all of our older sex offenders. We have been putting them in rest homes with vulnerable adults.

I don't claim to know which denomination has the right teachings. I do know that we are each responsible for our own lives and certainly with the track record they have, Washington is not the place to look to for enlightenment.

It is hard enough to keep this country going with enough freedom and liberty so that we can each search out our own way to heaven. To try and add religion to the responsibilities we place on our elected officials will turn our nation into chaos, probably something like we see in Iraq today.

If you listen to the people on the Religious Right, you will see that they have no room for tolerance, and if George Bush and his brand of religion get their way, there will soon be blood in the streets of America. You can tell a man he is wrong about something political and he will argue with you and try and elect some one new. You tell that man, there is something wrong with his God and he will hate you and die a martyr, trying to make you one.

POST SCRIPT
My dad always said it was best not to talk about religion and I hope I have offended no one. We all have to follow those teachings we think will keep us on the right track. However, I believe that shooting and bombing other people is wrong. I believe that killing little children is wrong too. That is why I find it so hard to believe that we are still a Christian country, because that is what America does. We kill people that don't think the way we think they should, and in the process of killing those people, we kill their children too. The President and his people can twist things around so it seems like we have a right to do that and their god approves of it. I figure that God, the "real God," the most powerful God, the one who created everything, will tell him if he is right.

I respect........... The Wrath of God.