I believe in a God. I believe in the continuation of the spirit and that, at some point, all of us will have to account for ourselves. The church that I attended as a child emphasized the individual's responsibility to seek a moral way of life. The only politics I ever heard were prayers that our leaders would be guided. We were never told how to vote. We were not taught that everyone who disagreed with us was wrong. Rather, we were to look for the beam in our one eye before complaining about the mote in our brother's eye.

Religion has changed dramatically. It has now become incorporated and infused with politics. It seems to have deserted God in favor of attaining political power. It seems to vicious attack anyone who does not agree with all of its ideas.

Here are some things that bother me.

• Do you remember "Justice Sunday"? At that time, a US Senator made the statement "Democrats are against people of faith.". I was dismayed by this and even more so by the fact that the statement was applauded when it should have been criticized. At that time, I was still sort of attending church. When I mentioned it to someone there, I was told that most Democrats were atheists.
• I studied math and physics. I still read science books and watch programs on science. Some fundamentalists want to pass science through of sieve of religious dogma. This does not enhance religion and is destructive of science. Climate change, I believe, is real. Yet, some fundamentalists have argued that God's promise after Noah's flood was that he would not send another flood should be taken into consideration when discussing global warming. Some fundamentalists have said that 9/11 and hurricane Katrina occurred because of feminists, homosexuals, and the like. I cannot accept any of these comments. It reminds me of the middle ages when the plague was blamed on God's wrath or the Jews.
• Morality, according to some religious people, consists of being against abortion and homosexuality. It is as if these were the only topics. There are many other issues; poverty, child abuse, the destruction of our planet, hypocrisy, and so on. I cannot narrow my views to the extent that they demand.
• At the insistence of an acquaintance, I read one of the books in the "left behind" series. When I said that I did not believe in the "rapture", I was accused of being a closet "atheist". It ended a friendship.
• In the last several weeks, I have received E-mail messages from "Christian" groups. One discussed the movie "Expelled". At one point, it said that those who didn't agree were atheists. The word atheists was in boldface and underlined. Only today, I had another message which was touted as a comparison between creationism and evolution. It wasn't. I keep trying to "unsubscribe" to these groups and they keep coming back.

When I quite going to church, I still had respect for religion. I simply believed that it had changed to much to be the religion that I was taught. As time passes, I have become afraid of it. "Religious" people seem to be increasingly nasty. The only way I can preserve my own faith is to avoid them.

I wish there were a forum here so that I could find out if others feel the same.

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