Spent 42 days in the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center with my wife. 42 days as in 16+ hours a day. Met with many patients. Met with many family members. Still keep in contact with some as very strong bonds are built between people sharing the same foxhole.

Never met a single person, no matter how convinced they had been the day before in their religion, that wouldn't have sold their soul right there and then for a cure. Belief in a wonderful hereafter never survives the test of facing it for real except in the mentally challenged who were incapable of reasoned thought in the first place.

The same is true in war. And again I have just a little bit of personal experience. All people in combat know the very incoming round may have their name on it. They know, for sure, they may be no more than an instant away from finding out, first hand, whether their religion is fact or fiction.

And how many, in that situation, throw down their weapons and follow the advice of Jesus Christ, turn the other cheek, forgive their enemies, and stand-up as an act of religious conviction and let god take them if he wishes. Think of a very very small number.

DA Morgan