Re: As a soldier, how did my NDE change me?

I was brought up in a very conservative church. It was racist, anti-catholic, anti-communist, and openly denounced Russians and Muslims as evil. Today, I believe those churches have morphed into something different but they still carry the same old message, rehashed with more subtlety. The revamped message just changed to "support the leaders of our nation" and "support the troops." It is a message few will question and in a subtle way suggests that those who question our nation's motivations is a traitor to God and country. That subtle message makes it taboo to oppose war.

I have walked out of churches where they asked the congregation to stand up and pledge alliegence to the flag. Once, I just changed the words and put "lamb" in place of flag. Imagine if you were in ancient Rome and the christian church preist asked you to stand up and praise Ceasar in church. Would you do it? As for me, the God of my prayers- the loving God of my NDE- is not the same God as the "God" in that pledge. My God is love and there is no other dimension that describes my God more than that word. I believe there is a god of this world that is often called "God" but that god is a lesser god than the God I met in heaven. I believe that god of this world is often the "God" that preachers and politicians want me to pledge my alliegence to.

The hellfire and brimstone message may not be espoused by the church today as it was in childhood but the revamped old message is still there as well... and a sinner's hell is often hinted for Atheists and Muslims like a shadow of the former damnation for sinner's message. The God I met in heaven loves me but more...the God I met in heaven loves every soul from every nation and every person of faith or lack of it. Our souls are the light of God and a part of God. Our neighbors of other faiths or lack of faith that have souls are literally our spiritual brothers and sisters. Killing the flesh over our brothers and sisters is not the lesson that the God I met in heaven asked me to learn about love. When my country prays for the destruction of its enemies, it should first pray for the destruction of the enemy inside of its own sons and daughters before it chooses to wage war against the sons and daughters of other nations.

As far as "just wars" go, I don't believe in them as far as going to another nation to kill another nations' sons and daughters. If my home were attacked though, I am certain I would do my best to get my family out of harm's way. I would do everything in my power to protect my family from direct harm but the motives of those who wage foreign wars are far from sincere. I have not been able to watch the news on television since my army days, when those same men who planned wars said that we must control the media and insure that the propaganda we created and gave the media supported what we were doing, regardless of the truth. We were told to lie. Once you learn this fundamental one thing about the media, you can't go back to believing everthing you are told. The church is used to back the same propaganda. So, from what I know from hearing God's voice and comparing it to what I learned while I was a soldier over 20 years ago, I have a highly sensitive B.S. meter. I am not easily fooled. You can fantasize about the Easter Bunny but once you make the eggs and put them in the yard, you can't go back to your fantasy days again.

As far as being the world's police force, I believe America needs to solve its own
problems before going on crusades on behalf of Christianity. Catholics are still taking a beating for their own crusades, you would think the Protestants would have learned from their Catholic counterpart's mistakes.