Way back when I was on Blogster, I had a run-in with another blogger and wrote a letter but decided not to message her with it. I thought it best to let the whole matter drop. Here is the letter. Can you guess who I wrote it to?

Dear …
I think you are, at the least, aberrational, and at worst, deranged, because you confuse yourself with God. I did not attack your mother (another blogger). I merely said God was “out to lunch” and characterizing him in this way was actually very kind. To believe everything he does is thoughtful and considered would be to acknowledge that he does cruel, vicious, unfair, hurtful things by design. If he exists, I prefer to think of him as merely grossly incompetent and also self-delusional if he thinks he is doing "good works".

If you can’t see the difference, you are not only deranged but unintelligent. Joe is more bombastic, but you share the same narrow view of the rights of others to hold their own beliefs.

I am entitled to be offended by Bush and by God both, or do the results of a “benevolent” God (Sept. 11, the holocaust, apartheid, Bosnia, the Chechnians, genocide everywhere, religious wars from the beginning of recorded history by the devout against other devout that result in mass killing) mean nothing to you. When people defend God as working in “mysterious ways his wonders to perform,” they believe blindly and have not the wit to question the obvious. If that is indeed rain God is sending and not something else, why does it smell so very bad?

Your mother is a grown woman. She does not need you to defend her from something that did not happen. By stepping in, you are treating her like a child and giving me, at least, the impression that you think she is compromised intellectually and emotionally and needs you to make things okay.

I have e mail correspondence with a chaplain who has a local newspaper column. We have had lively debates. He is not offended with my being an agnostic, nor am I offended by his religious calling. At the same time he is not trying to convert me nor is he acting superior, behaviors I find the devout, such as you, live by.

Take a tip from the professionals. Not every remark is about you or your mother.

You won’t be hearing from me again, unless you choose to make an issue of me not being you. If you do, I will post this message as an open letter to you and then “après moi le deluge”.

Sincerely, Teal