There are times when I think I'm a flat-out atheist. There are other times when I figure that, if there is a God or some kind of Uber-Intelligence that created the cosmos, He, She, or It is so far beyond human comprehension that it's futile to even try. Other times I thing that God is a sort of Jungian archetype, and exists, not as an actual physical entity somewhere (I certainly don't believe in the cranky old may wearing a bed-sheet and hurling lightning bolts or marking the fall of every sparrow and granting wishes), but as a human concept of "that which is the ultimate Good" (i.e., "God" with two "O's"). And you can tell a lot about a religious person by what he or she thinks that God thinks!!

As I said somewhere else, I'm more of a philosopher than a theologian.

So if I'm so "iffy" about this issue, why do I support a church?

I feel that what Jesus was trying to get across as the very core of the matter—and that so few people seem to grasp—is stated succinctly in Matthew 25:35-40. And that's a good thing.

By contributing to this particular church, I can see directly how those contributions are being used. In fact, I can get periodic financial reports and find out how every penny is being used. I know where my money goes.

I don't have that kind of assurance with a contribution to, say, United Way.

Don Firth

P. S. Sorry, don't mean to drift the thread. I'm absolutely dead-set against any connection at all between government and religion. Whenever any particular religion obtains secular power (the joining of religion and government), the usual result is something like the Taliban, the Inquisition, the Dark Ages . . . .