Dear God

I know I’ve never prayed to you before.  Truth to tell I don’t believe in you.  No disrespect intended to either you or your followers, but I think you don’t exist.

Before you get too angry with me saying you don’t exist, understand, I’m merely a lowly human who, if you did exist, you supposedly gifted with rationality and who can only go by the evidence of his senses and things that science and rationality (your gift, if you’re there) have given us, such as “objective evidence”.

But, Barack Obama and Congress wants me to pray to you.  So much so that, instead of prosecuting thieves and criminals who wreck lives so badly that they are despoiling your supposed creation and putting little old ladies out on the street, his Justice Department is instead working to ensure that gay people can’t get married or serve in the military, and that his government’s call to demand people to pray to you is enforced and upheld by our country’s laws, despite the First Amendment.

And, Dear God, whom I sincerely hold and believe you don’t exist, it’s not as if I bear any malice toward those who feel otherwise, that you do exist.  But, understand, God, that I all too often think that Belief In You is used for nefarious things, things that if your Books were to believed, even unholy things, done in Your Name, while at the same time no objective evidence exists that we are talking about anything at all.

Dear God, we know that it is held that you love all your Children, even those such as don’t believe in you, or otherwise believe that the running of a just society is possible without a belief in your existence, but who otherwise hold in a belief in Human Morality, which, if you did exist, would be Your Gift, also.

It is in this spirit, I would like to Ask You, to please Inform the Hearts of your Followers, such that they stop doing things like this, yes, even to those who believe in Human Morality as opposed to God-based Morality:

In the late 1980s, protesters burned Crabb’s likeness in effigy after she allowed Indian tribes to spearfish off their reservations – a practice some white fishermen believed ruined their sport. Demonstrators threw rocks, uttered racial slurs and accused Crabb of giving Indians special treatment.

It is Often Asked, by those who profess a Belief in You, What would Jesus do?  I know, Dear God, that if you Do Exist, you would not want to have your Followers Burning People in Effigy, even such as those who don’t Believe that a Belief in You, Personally, is Necessary or Consonant with the running of a Just Government.

In this spirit, so ordered and requested by Barack Obama, among others, that I would like to Abjure, Request and Plead with you for the following.

Please, God, Enlighten the Hearts of our Politicians, so that they understand they are not the Holy Designates of the Earth, to give Religious Commandments from On High, but instead are Ordinary Human Beings with no Special Morality, nay, even that they may have in many cases Inferior Morality to those they Govern, so that they may Look Into Their Own Hearts for Guidance and to Do the Proper Thing for People and the Planet, instead of Spending Their Time Self Righteously Lecturing and Moralizing To Others.

Please, God, let President Obama Remember His Commitment to the Constitutional Law, such that the Government of Just Men shall not Perish from the Earth.

Please, God, Enlighten your Followers, and Inform them that Praying for the Death and Ill Fortune of Those Who Do Not Believe in You is not consistent with your Wishes, your Instructions or Commandments.

Please, God, if you Exist, Make it Clear to those who would Beseech You, that to Your Holiness, it is More Important to You that Your Followers minister to your Creation, and all of your Children, than it is to have your Followers Act Arrogantly on your Behalf in Torturing, Belittling, Visiting Destruction Upon, that Creation and those of Your Children who do Not Believe.

Please, God, should, as your Followers Aver, this being a Christian Nation, with a Constitution that they Believe You Smiled Upon, that it is Good to you that they Follow that Constitution, especially Whereas It Concerns the Free Choices and Beliefs of Men, rather than Dogmatically Insisting they Respect You, in that if you do exist, I Believe it would be  more important to you that your Followers Act according to your Wishes than it would be for your Followers to Demand that those who don’t Believe In You, acknowledge your Existence.

Dear God, whom I believe and sincerely Aver that You Do Not Exist, you could Enlighten Me that You Do Exist, were you Capable, in your Omnipotent Benevolence and Power, were to Make it Possible for all the Above to Come to Pass.

In respectful disbelief, but sincere Desire that All this should be So,

Your loving (but Disbelieving) Child,

Andy