I'm an atheist, but that doesn't make us enemies. Not necessarily. Growing up, if someone said God bless you, I just said thanks. And if someone said Merry Christmas to Jews or Muslims, the point was that it was wishing someone well, right? And if someone wanted to say grace, I just bowed my head and listened politely.

But long about the mid-80's, evangelicals decided that just my existence, or that of Jews or Muslims or Buddhists, was somehow persecuting them even though I'd never said a bad word about them, and frankly felt more kinship to them than those traditions that were foreign to me.

Circumstances have taught me that we are all united in a struggle to survive, to lift one another up and thus lift ourselves up, and leave a better world behind than the one we entered. And that includes people with whom I disagree — sometimes vehemently.

I think faith is a dangerous thing, but for some it can be ennobling. Whatever issues I might have with doctrine and dogma, people who truly embrace the teachings of Jesus in the Bible are my brother in cause, if not in spirit ('cause I don't believe in that stuff).