Point....COUNTER point...to a prayer

I've been enjoying Mustang and Leslie's exchanges, one taking the conservative viewpoint and the other (though conservative) taking the liberal talking point to the same subject. As I read Christian Soldier's (Carol's) post today, I couldn't help hear in my mind what a liberal talking point would be, line by line. Here it is:

The Cadet Prayer -West Point - (Carol adds that this has become her 'official' prayer:)
(Z's COUNTERPOINT: Let me start here: First of all...PRAYER at WEST POINT? I thought we were past that. Religion has no place in West Point. This could hurt an atheist's feelings.)

CADET PRAYER O God, our Father, Thou Searcher of human hearts, (GOD? at West POINT? that has got to go)
help us to draw near to Thee in sincerity and truth. (whose 'sincerity' and what 'truth'? These things are relative)
May our religion be filled with gladness and may our worship
of Thee be natural. ("OUR" religion? Which religion? How non-inclusive, how cruel)
Strengthen and increase our admiration for honest dealing and clean thinking, and suffer not our hatred of hypocrisy and pretense ever to diminish. (You people keep with this 'clean thinking' and 'honesty' as if your faith has a stranglehold on that. You hate hypocrisy? That's a laugh...)
Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. ('common life', you're so judgmental)
Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be content with a half truth when the whole can be won. (Always 'the right'....who are YOU to say what's 'wrong'?)
Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when truth and right are in jeopardy. (Again, you draw such black/white truths and that can only be viewed as judgmental and hypocritical...)
Guard us against flippancy and irreverence in the sacred things of life. Grant us new ties of friendship and new opportunities of service. Kindle our hearts in fellowship with those of a cheerful countenance, and soften our hearts with sympathy for those who sorrow and suffer. (If you conservative Christians would just stop with the praying for sorrow and suffering and actually do something about it. People need to be supported, you need to be paying for the poor, not praying.)
Help us to maintain the honor of the Corps untarnished and unsullied and to show forth in our lives the ideals of West Point in doing our duty to Thee and to our Country. (after what you people did in Iraq? America's tarnished and sullied by those actions. War mongering is never a good thing and schools like West Point brainwash and encourage people to want to fight)
All of which we ask in the name of the Great Friend and Master of All. Amen. (There you go again......)

Beautiful prayer without my remarks in parentheses and italics, isn't it? PLEASE read it without my additions. There's honor and there's relativity....We need to get back to honor. And we need to get back to faith, to a higher power above ourselves, to encourage selflessness yet going back to our American roots of self-reliance. Thanks, Carol, I had never read that beautiful prayer and I hope more people will. And, let's pray that nobody stops that prayer at West Point...I give it two years, myself. How long do YOU give it?

z (Please see my Father's Day post below.......I want to wish all Dad's a great day..)
z