The Old Testament god is tribal, vengeful, and lives on a mountain-top in the Mid-East. Somehow this character evolved into a universal God of love and compassion in the Christian scriptures

It's kind of like when the imperious and intimidating Wizard ("Do not arouse the wrath of the Great and Powerful Oz!') gets outed by Toto ("Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"), and then turns into a kindly old grandfather kind of guy taking care of getting folks what they need. (...Ain't it the truth! Ain't it the truth!)

And he lives in a cool city that could be like a castle in heaven.

Unfortunately, its all just a fairy-tale. We have some very real problems in the world that can't be solved by closing our eyes, tapping our heels together three times, and thinking to ourselves "There's no place like home; there's no place like home; there's no place like home".

Why worry about some old stories about an ancient vengeful god? He's like so BC!

Well some people think that god is very important to our country. We need to remember that the wrathful god and the loving god are the same guy. We can't just forget about Yahweh as we cheer for Jesus, lest we be smited. *

Or we can be rational about our world and leave all the old stories behind.

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*For example, consider, if you will,  what God did to the Haitians, according to brother Pat Robertson.