Things that God told me
                      by James Higdon

                      Yes, it's true.  That being that BartCop refers to as "the imaginary
                      being" talks to me almost every day.  I'd say every day, but I'm sure
                      there are some days we've missed.  I won't go into great detail about how
                      these conversations occur.  Let me just say that as a man of some faith,
                      God and I have developed a relationship over time.  We don't spend a
                      lot of time discussing the Bible.  It's ancient history, and has too many
                      translations to serve as anything more than anecdotal value.  I won't go
                      into a lot of detail about what God and I talk about.  Frankly, it's personal.
                      But I will tell you some things, because I think it's important.

                      I've been reading more and more lately that George W. Bush believes
                      that he has been called by God "to defend freedom."  You might be
                      interested to know that God says, first off, that Bush has never made that
                      claim to his inner circle.  It is a Carl Rove invented fiction to keep the
                      vicious followers of the witch doctors (Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson)
                      on board.  George W. Bush has never even talked to God when God is
                      willing to listen, because he only asks for things that God would never
                      grant.  For that matter, the same is true of Falwell and Robertson.

                      The naked truth is that God only grants one thing to an individual, and
                      that is peace of mind.  God's eternal gift to man is the ability to
                      think and reason, and when an individual uses those gifts to the best of
                      one's ability to do so, God will grant comfort in the knowledge that all
                      available avenues have been explored, and the best course of action has
                      been taken.  You might be interested in knowing that God has granted
                      Bush no such comfort.  In fact, God has never granted Bush any peace of
                      mind because of Bush's near complete inability to use God's gifts.

                      You see, violence is antithetical to God's gifts.  God understood that
                      mankind did not have the physical stamina nor strength to compete in
                      the violence of nature with many of the rest of His creatures, so He gave
                      man the ability to find nonviolent solutions to problems.  On this basis,
                      even though God would never bad mouth one of his creations to another
                      creation, I might suspect that God views Bush as one of his larger
                      disappointments.  But I would be wrong.  Bush is not a disappointment
                      because he serves a larger purpose.  Bush is a problem for whom the rest
                      of us must find a nonviolent solution.  He's our problem because we've
                      never taken the care to make sure that Bush received proper therapy.
                      Bush is not God's problem, and God will take no action regarding Bush or
                      the war in Iraq.

                      I am sorry to report that the prayers for the safety of our troops will
                      go unanswered.  But that is true for the Iraqi soldiers, citizens, and
                      the like as well.  God understands the need for soldiers because he
                      understands the need for self-defense.  He did, after all, ingrain us with
                      a very strong sense of self preservation.  But whether or not a soldier
                      acts to defend his homeland, the soldier's life or death depends on the
                      rest of us.  It is God's view (and I suspect that He's right; after
                      all, he is God) that a soldier, by design, is limited in the free will to
                      make choices, and thereby is merely an agent for the rest of us.  In
                      battle, whatever a soldier does, both good and bad things, belong to the
                      rest of us.  If our agent commits an heroically compassionate act, it
                      belongs to the rest of us.  If our agent commits a war crime, it belongs
                      to the rest of us.  And to be brutally honest, since we sent our
                      soldiers into a situation where their presence could reasonably inspire
                      Iraqis to commit war crimes, we will own those crimes as well.

                      God makes no distinction about Muslim or Christian, Jew or Buddhist.
                      Whatever traditions or associations that man adopts in an attempt to
                      bring oneself closer to God is not important.  It is not important if one
                      is agnostic or atheist.  God will grant no more nor less than peace of
                      mind to any individual, whether they believe they have more coming, or
                      less, based on dedication, or lack thereof, to any tradition or group.
                      I suspect, actually, that God has more of an affinity for atheists who
                      use their ability to think and reason to further the dignity of their
                      fellow man than for a pious church goer who believes his traditions and
                      associations are his ticket to Heaven.  As an example, BartCop is an
                      avowed atheist, but God really likes him and recognizes BartCop's ability
                      to think, the depth of his compassion, and his constant struggle to
                      understand more than he does.  On the other hand, God doesn't hate anybody
                      so he doesn't hate Jerry Falwell, but I will tell you that God has shed
                      more than a few tears over Falwell's thoughtless flock of sheep, who
                      have decided to let an unthinking man do all of their thinking for them.

                      Oh, yeah.  I forgot to tell you.  There is no Heaven, and there is no Hell.
                      As it is not really relevant here, I'll avoid the discussion of the afterlife,
                      but suffice it to say that, for the most part, folks enjoy their punishments
                      and rewards in real time.  I think it is important to say that we often must
                      use our ability to think and reason to distinguish reward from punishment.
                      But it is an imperative that we can only support our troops, and thereby
                      save ourselves, by recalling our agents and preventing them from
                      committing violence in an act of aggression.

                      I think it would also be helpful to point out that God does not side
                      with one nation over another.  While God does take note of the many
                      fences we use to divide ourselves, he does not make preference.  God sees
                      what is going on in Iraq as His children killing each other.  God also
                      views both George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein equally as His children.  He
                      assigns no greater good nor evil to either of them.  Nor does he assign
                      them any greater shame than to the rest of us.  They are, after all,
                      merely immature and challenged individuals who the rest of us have
                      mistakenly allowed to achieve too high a level of leadership.  Granted, we
                      never elected by majority either one of them, but we allowed the
                      conditions that created them.  For instance, it may be true that George W. Bush
                      was appointed by the Supreme Court, but we allowed the religiously
                      insane, and reason challenged Antonin Scalia (as well as others) to be
                      promoted to the Supreme Court in spite of a clear procedure to prevent it.
                      When Scalia (who's sworn duty is to uphold the secular,
                      democratic/republican based constitution) openly argues that Democracy is poisoning
                      man's relationship with God, and describes the death penalty as God's
                      vengeful hand, one would think that as thinking and reasonable people we
                      could have managed to draw those views out of Scalia at a confirmation
                      hearing somewhere, and voted against his inclusion on the Supreme Court.

                      God once told me that arrogance is the great disguise of those who lack
                      the ability to think and reason, and that the disguise should be easily
                      penetrated by those with these same abilities intact.  When you think
                      of the presence of arrogance surrounding an empty vessel of reason,
                      think of Bill Bennett, think of Michael Savage, think of Ari Fleicher,
                      Britt Hume, Dick Cheney, Tim Russert.  Can you see through the disguise?
                      Of course you can.  God has never lied to me.

                      He has also told me that we, each of us, has to the power to create our
                      very own Heaven or Hell on Earth.  We also have the ability to create
                      them for others, and others have the ability to create them for us.  God
                      told me that the one suggestion he has ever made that has been handed
                      down over history intact is the "golden rule."  It's been misnamed over
                      time.  It is not a rule at all, but a suggestion for our own survival which we
                      can either embrace or dismiss.  With our proclivity to dismiss it, God is truly
                      impressed that we have survived for so long.  God notes, however, that the
                      number of Hells on Earth certainly outnumber the Heavens.  God tells me
                      that he has been told by more than one Republican that if He doesn't like it,
                      He can pack his bags and leave the planet. Did I tell you that God has a
                      sense of humor?

                      He also has a sense of irony.  He notes that the richly arrogant and
                      intellectually challenged that make up the current American regime, seek
                      to control the planet by taking claim to the rotted waist of creatures
                      that once controlled the world, but lacked the reasoning ability to
                      adapt to its changes.

                      But the long and the short of what God told me is that a group of young
                      men just killed a family-a human family of flesh and blood and reason,
                      seeking only safety from the fighting-by decapitating them with machinegun fire.
                      The family is dead, so nothing can be done for them.  But we propose to show
                      support for these young men by saying, "This is a war to insure our safety by
                      threatening and perpetrating savagery on the rest of the world.  Be proud of
                      the memory of the killing you have done to further that goal."

                      My sense of reason tells me there is no sense in that.  Best to leave
                      any violence that may ever become necessary to issues of self-defense.
                      We best support our troops by preventing them from developing memories
                      that will create a Hell on Earth to last a lifetime.  How many of the men that
                      we "supported" in Vietnam have been living in that Hell?  God told me flat out
                      that I was right in that assessment.  He granted me my peace of mind.  I hope
                      that you have come to the same conclusions, with or without any help from God.
                      I hope you will convince others to work for peace.  God told me that it's alright
                      to say that if they do, He will be on their side.


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