My friend Herb Caen, the late Pulitzer Prize columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, made the following observation in one of his weekly columns, "the trouble with 'born agains' is that they are a bigger pain in the ass the second time around."

An interesting thought to go with your morning coffee. If we were REALLY born again, we would return to atheism. We would all be atheists…because that is how we were born the first time around. All babies come into this world with no belief in God… Goddesses… Jesus… Buddha… Lao-Tzu… Shiva… Muhammad… or anything else until we indoctrinate them into some adult belief system, usually the same one we were brainwashed into as children. Religious beliefs are an accident of birth.

Through enculturation we become something other than what we were at birth. The only reason you are a Methodist Christian is that you were born in America. I used to ask students in my university class, "Why are you a Methodist Christian?" They would say "… my parents were Methodists and they made me go to Sunday school and church with them from the time I was born." Then I would say, "Right…you are an enculturated Methodist …you did not choose to be that…you were born into it."

...they did not study all of the other great religious traditions of the world and then make Christianity their choice. They did not choose to be a Methodist after they had studied all of the other 400 Protestant denominations.

Had you been born in Japan, you would be a Buddhist. Had you been born in Israel, you would have been a Jew in Judaism. Had you been born in a Muslim country, you would be Muslim.

You were born an atheist but through enculturation, by indoctrination and coercion, you become something else.

I do not know of any phrase that is more meaningless and nonsensical than a "bible Christian." To illustrate this point, I used to invite representatives from ten different "Christian" groups to speak to my university class about their beliefs.

I would begin with a Christian Science practitioner…next would be the Jehovah's Witnesses…then Seventh Day Adventists…Mormons…Pentecostals…a Roman Catholic priest…a Unity minister…Greek Orthodox…Missouri Synod Luther…and Methodist or Presbyterian. They ALL quoted the bible to affirm and justify their positions. The students soon realized they were listening to TEN TOTALLY DIFFERENT RELIGIONS, all calling themselves "Christian" and all reading from the same book, the bible, to "prove" their beliefs.

No other religion studied by historians has been…or is…so completely fragmented as the one we call "Christianity." Protestantism alone has more than 400 different denominations, all quoting the bible to validate their beliefs.

Perhaps it was this quagmire of babble that moved nationally syndicated conservative columnist William Buckley to write a recent column asking, "Are Churches No Longer Relevant?" documenting their impotence.

So now…over your morning coffee…you might ask yourself an honest question…"if I were really born again…is it not true that I would be a born again atheist…since that is what I was when I came into the world…back before all the childhood indoctrination and brainwashing of my parents' religion…and my country's religion…do I dare to face that question…?

You may need to get up and get a stronger cup of coffee.