This is the same old theodicy question decked out for Memorial Day. One might just as well ask how anyone keeps his or her faith in the face of the Holocaust, or child abuse, or modern slavery, or any of the myriad forms of violence and evil that humans are capable of perpetrating on one another.

Yes, yes, "free will" is the standard religious answer. God is all-powerful and all-loving, yet he allows his creatures the free will to slaughter one another if they so choose. It's all part of the divine plan. In the words of the old spiritual, "Farther along, we'll know more about it, farther along, we'll understand why...." If that answer is good enough for you, you can keep your faith in the face of anything. If it isn't, you may reach the conclusion I have reached--that there is no divine being watching over the affairs of his creatures.

The reason I changed my mind and decided to comment, however, has nothing to do with the unanswerable theodicy question and everything to do with my disgust at the annual American celebration of a melding of patriotism and religion so often used to justify war. I was at home working on Memorial Day and wanted to take a break to watch a movie on television. Fat chance. Nonstop movies glorifying war were the only movies being shown. Iwo Jima. Custer's last stand. The Civil War, including the "glorious" lost southern cause as well as the cause of ending slavery. Alvin York overcoming his pacifism. General George Patton, as certifiable a military lunatic as America has ever produced, quoting scripture and slapping a soldier with what would today be called post-traumatic stress disorder.

The endless references in these movies to the Bible, and to God keeping watch over soldiers, are as nauseating as the endless television news stories about the "miracle" of a slain U.S. soldier's family finding an Iraqi puppy who was, apparently, the last creature the doomed young soldier had a chance to cuddle.

The real face of war appears on the front page of the May 28 New York Times, in the form of a heartrending photograph of a young woman stretched out full length on the ground--a Pieta with no one to hold--in front of her fiance's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Empty arms, not answered prayers and warm puppies, are what war is about.

Make no mistake: the association of faith and sentimental "miracles" with war is not only tasteless but dangerous. Faith is used not only as consolation for the pointless deaths of young men and women but often as a rationalization for those deaths. We know that George W. Bush's consultation with a "Higher Father"--his sense of himself as the leader of his nation in a righteous, God-sanctioned mission--played an important role in his decision to launch the war.

The cliche about there being no atheists in foxholes is not entirely true, as evinced by the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers. What is true, as demonstrated by the annual parade of faith-based (in more ways than one) war movies, is that the American public and the media are addicted to the notion that God is on our side and watching out for our soldiers in any conflict.

This reflexive equation of patriotism with religion is a blot on our moral landscape, and it cannot be disentangled from the ubiquity of personal faith in America. Of course, there are many people whose faith moves them to oppose war. But they are still letting God off the hook in a way that requires the deepest form of denial--for individuals and for a society. Such people will argue, in circular fashion, that they are following God's will by working for peace. And why do innocent people have to be killed for the peacemakers to live out their faith and follow God's will? Don't ask, because there is no answer that makes sense.

There is nothing good to be said for keeping one's faith in the supernatural in the face of war--a
man-made disaster that we are apparently doomed to repeat as long as our species endures. In time of war, we would be much better off if we lost our faith and hung on to our sense of reason.