Sometimes, late at night, a tiny question tugs at the back of my mind. The familiar god of our society seems to specialize in hate, it is clear, but just who deserves her greatest wrath?

Clearly, the god of the Baptists cannot abide the god of the Catholics, nor can the god of the Catholics stand to be in the same heaven as the god of the Muslims. In fact, the gods of the various sects of the Baptists seem to have a violent dislike for all those other Baptist sects, a disunity that is shared by the various subdivisions of most churchly organizations.

But what about those of us who cannot believe in any human-invented god at all? Are we singled out for specific rancor? It does not seem that we are, since we are not breaking any of any gods’ laws of proprietary religions, such as “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” It is true, we are equal-opportunity unbelievers. It also occurs to me that all gods, when one considers their stance towards other deities, are breaking one of those famous ten commandments, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house”, since each of the various gods clearly covets the houses of worship of all other gods.

Still, it seems that the disciples of all those gods and religions have a special dislike for those of us that choose not to believe in any brand of magic at all. I suppose we are fortunate that it is the gods that call their flocks to war, rather than those sheep determining on their own who should be destroyed. Believers mainly look down their self-righteous noses at Atheists, Agnostics, Infidels, and Unbelievers, rather than declaring organized war upon us as an almighty church might do.

Instead of outright war, those true believers remind us that we are going to a hell that we do not believe in, that we will not be saved because we will not bow before magical deities that we know better than to believe in, and that we will not live forever in a heaven that we are too wise to believe in.

I can live with that.