So help me God, in God we trust. One nation under God, ah-chooo! God bless you.

But who in God’s name is this God guy anyway? And how do I get on his goddamn good side?

For most of Western civilization, God is the Christian God. When President Bush asks God to bless America, it’s understood that he’s referring to the God who so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

That Son is Jesus Christ, delivered on the first Christmas morning to free us from our sins. And no one gets to heaven unless they go through Him, got it? That, of course, excludes scores and scores of people from walking through the gates of paradise.

Like all you Jews, for example. By rejecting the Messiah as your savior and hanging on to this crazy notion that the true Son of God is yet to come, you’ve bought yourself a one-way ticket to hell. Bummer, right? But while my Sunday School teachers may not have phrased it in such blunt terms, that’s the bottom-line reality of many Christian sects. ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No man enters the kingdom of heaven but through Me.’

I always asked those teachers what would come of my poor unsaved Jewish friends. Their greatest sin was being raised on an alternate version of mythology, and their punishment seemed a tad severe. In fact, my mind still has a little difficulty differentiating between this aspect of Christianity and the beliefs of the Nazi party or Hamas. Christianity is obviously kinder and gentler, allowing the Jews a brief Earthly existence. But ultimately what’s the difference between suffering through the Holocaust, suffering through suicide bombings and suffering through eternal damnation?

Somewhere today, a nice Jewish couple is lighting the Menorah with their nice Jewish child, working to shape him into a nice Jewish man who will practice Judaism and contribute positively to society. When that nice Jewish man’s time comes, should he really go to hell just because his parents taught him the wrong story? What a gyp!

My teachers and Christian friends would tell me it was not my place to question the mysterious ways in which God works. Others would allude to a loophole of sorts that excuses cases like the hypothetical Jewish child. If, for instance, some jungle tribe that’s completely sheltered from the world has never had the opportunity to accept or reject Christ, they’ll be OK.

But if that’s the case, why do churches spend so much money sending missionaries to such places? Let that tribe worship the sun, live in ignorant bliss and win the Get Out of Hell Free card. No sense mucking up their brains with confusing abstractions in a language they hardly understand.

Unfortunately, I do not have that immunity. At our seventh-grade church youth group retreat, a Christian rock singer asked the audience if any of us felt lonely. Like something was missing in our lives. He asked if we wanted to fill that void, and it was as if he was speaking directly to me. Or any other helpless, awkward middle schooler who couldn’t get to first base. On that day, I answered the altar call, inviting Christ into my heart. And for a couple years it felt pretty good. A warm security blanket to shield me from the uncertainty of puberty and the cruelty of high school.

But somewhere along the line I lost that faith. Other Christians seemed to communicate with God on a regular basis. He would advise them to take certain jobs or help them win the Super Bowl. I never got that treatment though. God never ‘spoke’ to me with the same assuring clarity that he ‘spoke’ to the other Christians with. And eventually I gave up waiting.

Perhaps my faith wasn’t strong enough, but how can anyone living in the year 2002 be expected to rely on faith alone? I had faith that a president would never get head from an intern and faith that the World Trade Center would never crumble. I had faith that once Carrot Top disappeared, I’d never see him again. These things seemed concrete, but alas, they were not.

Now aside from my parents, a couple relatives, and some seasoned friends, I don’t have faith in anything. It’s a challenge to believe the reality I see every day. Yet given no absolute evidence, I’m expected to have faith in this colossal, invisible and seemingly implausible concept?

I didn’t get to see anyone walk on water. I never lived inside a whale for three days or sat around a campfire watching Jesus turn water into wine. One time I did see David Blaine levitate, and it nearly blew my mind. But I’ve never witnessed any of this Biblical stuff.

I do admire Jesus Christ, and if it turns out he’s the Son of God, I guess it wouldn’t surprise me that much. Every day I make an honest effort to live the way He would. I open a door for someone and I send a thank-you note. I refrain from killing the people I want to kill.

Although that’s not necessarily a requirement for salvation David Berkowitz and Ted Bundy killed a couple dozen people between them. And after doing so, they found their faith and accepted the infinite redemption that Christ offers. So theoretically, Dave and Ted will sing hymns with the angels as well as some of their victims.

While the hypothetical nice Jewish child burns in hell. Isn’t that bizarre?

If there is a God, I wonder what he makes of all this.

I wonder what he thinks about the way we celebrate his Son’s birth. Wal-Mart opening at 5 a.m. on Black Friday to welcome a stampede of shoppers rushing through the doors like camels through the eye of a needle.

I wonder if he’s proud of all the killing and revenge killing that’s done in his name. I wonder if he meant it when he told us to turn the other cheek. Or if we’re just supposed to turn the other cheek when it doesn’t hurt too badly. What does the cheek-turning doctrine say about preeminent strikes on potential threats?

And I wonder what He’d do with me and that nice Jewish kid. Confused or unintentionally misguided though we may be, I guess I’m banking on Him understanding that it isn’t easy down here. There’s crazy stuff going on and lots of choices on the table. The limitations of our human minds make it difficult to find truth. Hopefully He’ll reward our efforts to live well, and at least give us some points for thinking about things like good and evil and right and wrong.

If not, I’ll see you in hell. Don’t be too worried about it, though. There’ll be some real nice folks down there.