One Nation, Invisible

When some kids hear the Pledge of Allegiance for the first time, that's what it sounds like to them. Truth is, that's not so far off. The idea of a unified American nation is largely a myth. I think the closest we ever came to it was during World War II. Of course that was a pretty short war by modern standards. If the Vietnam War had only lasted four years it probably wouldn't have generated so much divisiveness among our people. Be that as it may, there is little unity of culture or ethics in this country.

As I said before, people can believe anything they want to about religion but, when you join a church, it seems like you should be comfortable with most of their doctrines, but that's just me. As I also said before, some people join a church for purely social reasons. I guess there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want to do it. "If that's what most Christians believe isn't that what Christianity is?" No, I don't think so. Every Christian church has a set of core beliefs that are preserved in writing, and that's what Christianity is. They don't all have identical doctrines, but the one thing they have in common is the belief in Jesus Christ. If you want to start a church of your own, there is nothing wrong with that, but you shouldn't call it "Christian" if you don't believe in Jesus Christ. Okay, let's say that Uncle Ken has a church that worships the mythological tree in his mythological back yard, and he calls it "The Church of the Immortal Tree". Meanwhile, his neighbor founds a church that worships rose bushes and denies the divinity of Uncle Ken's tree. Should that neighbor call his church "The Neighborly Church of the Immortal Tree"? I think not.

One man's superstition is another man's religion. I'm sure that those hunter-gatherers felt at least as strongly about their religious beliefs as the Greeks in the time of Socrates. Socrates was sentenced to death for blasphemy, you know. I'm also sure that those hunter-gatherers had some kind of code of conduct. People lived in relatively small groups in those days, and all the groups probably didn't have the same rules, but people were expected to abide by the rules of their own group. It seems likely that there was some connection between the rules and the religious beliefs, but I don't know that for an absolute fact.