THE RELIGION OF TRUTH

PREFACE

Since superstitious religious belief systems have the potential to decimate the human population of the earth, the following document will devote a significant amount of time cataloging the many flaws, evils, violence and even homicides, that such belief systems bring to bear upon the reality of our existence.

This is done with the determination to show that not only is a new belief system absolutely necessary, but also to show that the Religion Of Truth is eminently qualified to be the evolutionary successor to those superstitious and mythical belief systems.

Throughout those significant examples, the context of the Religion Of The Truth will be liberally dispersed. Some areas will be devoted expressly to explaining what the ROT is, and what it definitely is not.

At the end of the document, there will be a list of 19 potential questions that might be asked of me concerning my desire to bring the ROT into existence and why I think it will succeed. It is my express hope that when you are finished reading this document, or better still, somewhere during the course of reading this document, you will find yourself eagerly wanting to know more and more about the Religion Of Truth.

It is my unequivocal and definitive belief that this religion will ultimately replace the existing superstitious religions that seem to have dominance over the human population as a whole. I believe that this dominance is extremely superficial, and with time and patience, the Religion Of Truth will become one of the bedrocks of our species religious belief systems.

In closing, I wish to paraphrase one of the greatest politicians and leaders of the free world who has ever graced the annals of human existence, --- the great Winston Churchill himself. “Let us therefore conduct ourselves in such a manner, so that if the human race should continue to exist for another million y ears, men and women will still say ---THIS WAS THEIR FINEST HOUR!!”

THE RELIGION OF TRUTH

In regards to the creation of a new religion, one could easily say that endeavor is the last thing that this old world needs. With the level of violence that is now occurring in one God’s name or the other, who needs another one to compound our existing problems?

Sometimes however, what we think is required the least of all, turns out to be exactly what is needed. And so, with those thoughts in mind, I hereby put forward the new religion called, --- The Religion Of Truth. There are two negative connotations to this name, one of which is that with a host of such names for various branches of Protestantism, it could easily be dismissed as one more branch of Christianity, when in fact it seeks to replace, not only Christianity, but also all other superstitiously based existing religious belief systems which definitely includes Islam.

The second negative connotation for this religion is the fact that the acronym for its name comes out as the “ROT”, which can be used by its critics to imply a negative connotation for its value. Neither of these two negatives can overcome the obvious value of this religions name. We will seek out the truth no matter where it leads us. We will glorify the search for the truth and we will experience the liberating value that such a search has to offer to those who have the courage to seek it.

Christianity declares that the originator of that religion is God’s son. Why shouldn’t another part of the world have their own messenger from God in the name of Allah? The Religion Of Truth is being started by a Canadian citizen of English ancestry who does not pretend that he has some special status with God. Unless of course, you want to say that all of us are our Creator’s children and then I will most definitely agree with that.

The point is, that the R of T is a religion for the entire human race and should not be seen as being especially favored or specifically aimed at any one segment of the human family. To be sure, these words are being written in English, but that should not, and I find these next words to be inviolate, --- SHOULD NOT indicate any bias towards any one language or group of people.

The first words to be written about this religion necessarily had to appear in one language, but it should be seen as one that is universal to the world at large. I like the capacity of the computer age that will allow someone to write in ones own language and have the computer translate it individually into the language of the recipient of the words. It is this kind of universality that I am talking about for the R of T.

This does not mean that I believe the day will come when the Religion Of Truth will be the only religion being practiced. On the contrary, a host of other religions will compete with the R of T as well as the belief in Atheism also. But I believe the ROT will expand exponentially and it will force other belief systems who want to compete with it, to eliminate as many superstitious and mythical beliefs from their tenets as they possibly can.

Besides, competition forces each of the participants in the competition to face reality more completely. Without competition, one might accept some aspect of ones belief system without completely delving into the heart of the idea put forward, but ones competition will have no such tendency to write a blank check for whatever the idea or new belief is --- in question.

THE FIRST TENET

The first tenet of this religion will be as follows: We believe in a First Cause, a Life Force, a Creator. This Life Force created the Universe and every living thing that dwells therein. Unfortunately, at this time in our history, and because of our mental limitations, we are unable to comprehend the actual form of our Creator’s existence. Later in this document, we will discuss further, the differences between a belief in Atheism as opposed to the belief in a Creator. (Question # 4, Page # 47)

I believe that a silent majority of Christians are dismayed at the ever increasing evidence that proves that the basic tenets of Christianity are mythical in nature. They want to believe in a Creator and if they give up their present religion, no matter how contaminated it is with human frailties and/or mythical beliefs; if they reject it, where will they go to continue their belief in a Creator??

A further disincentive to change, is the belief that since the Christian religion has had 2000 years of acceptance, that in itself must confer some basic value to the belief system itself. There is indeed much value in the Christian belief system, but there are also far too many superstitious beliefs, which show themselves up in negative attitudes and behaviors of its followers.

To a large extent the Christian religion has discarded many of its more horrific practices of past generations, (The Inquisition, the Crusades, acceptance of slavery, etc. etc.), but the Islamic religion still provokes some of its followers who take these superstitious beliefs as the gospel truth.

They then convince themselves, or they are convinced by others, to commit acts of terror and deliberately commit suicide in the mistaken belief that they are doing so for the protection and proliferation of their cause and their religion.

It is to provide a realistic and alternative belief system for such people that this religion is being put forward. It is to discard superstitious beliefs that were formulated as long ago as 2000 years; and to replace them with ideas that identify with the truth as much as we possibly can achieve at this time. This religion will not ask its followers to believe every word, every “jot” that is put forward or used in this document.

It will readily accept the fact that some truths that seemed to be valid at one time in human history, have been proven to be invalid as a result of the acquisition of new knowledge. This religion will not adhere to old ideas in an attempt to make this original document appear to have some kind of absolute truth in it that is beyond questioning.

CHIPPING AWAY!

I am reminded here of a difference of opinion about the value of circumcising male babies in the Jewish religion. After exhausting most of the pros and cons of this procedure, the Rabbi in the discussion stated that the tenets of his religion were under constant criticism and to protect the sanctity of the religion, they could not allow any further chipping away of its basic tenets.

“Chipping away” certainly was a poor choice of words in this situation. It must be comforting for a young Jewish boy to know that the chipping away decision was not necessarily decided by medical issues, but by the need to fortify Jewish tradition and stop the onslaught of criticisms about ancient practices in the Jewish faith. This type of attitude prevails to some degree or another in most, if not all, of the existing religions.

PROCRASTINATION

Charles Darwin admitted that his constant procrastination was finally ended when a contemporary of his times, whose last name was Wallace, wrote a long letter to him in which he outlined almost verbatim, Darwin’s theory of natural selection from evolutionary concepts. Fearing that all of his work would be usurped by another, or that the theory of evolution would be put forward less perfectly than his own version, which could further jeopardize the acceptance of the theory, he wrote more feverishly than ever before and finished the book for publication shortly thereafter.

He then discovered that the criticism which he received from writing and publishing the book, both constructive and otherwise, provided him with the opportunity to refine his ideas which, when kept to himself during the long period of time that he took to write the book, --- did not make themselves self-evident. Another appropriate quotation on this subject is from Priscilla Effrey: “The paradox of course is that you can never have enough information. But you cannot gather information forever either.” And so I press on.

FERTILE GROUND

Christianity had to get started 2000 years ago in an age of abject poverty, brutal barbarity and almost universal illiteracy. These three negatives provided fertile ground for the cultivation of superstitious beliefs. If Christianity tried to get started today, DNA testing would show that Joseph, or some other man was Jesus’ biological father and the whole mythical foundation of the religion would never get off the ground.

Less than two thousand years ago, (nothing was actually written down about Christianity for at least 60 years after Jesus’ death), without an educated populace to address, it is my considered opinion that the writers of the Bible concluded that the best chance to change people’s behavior for the better, was to put forward the belief that the tenets of their religion were to be accepted as absolute truths that should never be challenged or questioned.

I am not saying that they deliberately deceived the public at large. In reality they convinced themselves that what they were putting forward was the truth; and the rules for living that they put forward also came from divine inspiration rather than from the experiences and knowledge that they had accrued through their lives of which went into their decision about what should be considered right or wrong.

The concept of heaven and hell was considered to be the best possible way that they could see to try to overcome some of the barbarity and horrors of life that were occurring at that time and bring about a higher level of decent behavior between as many other members of the human race as possible.

Perhaps without even realizing it, they resorted to the use of fear to try to control human behavior. On the assumption that with the general lack of knowledge available to the illiterate masses of that time, trying to achieve such a goal would be next to impossible by employing common sense from the mouths of other normal human beings.

If they could say that these ideas were inspired by our Creator, which we refer to as God, then the chances that they would be more readily accepted were increased exponentially. Ultimately, the higher level of order that this religion helped to usher in for the human race as a whole, also ushered in a new emphasis on education which ultimately would become the downfall of the religion itself.

NO HEAVEN OR HELL

There is no heaven or hell in the Religion Of Truth. There is no life after death. What there is, --- is an acceptance of the mortality of life and the belief that the proper living of it, --- is life’s more than adequate reward. Who are we to dictate to our Creator that we should be provided with some form of immortal life?

It is as if we are saying that the incredible miracle of life is not enough. Unless our Creator is willing to give us a chance at immortality, then he or she or it must be some kind of a nut case. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for such a Creator. It is a belief that evolution is our Creator’s method of bringing forth life on this planet and perhaps on other planets also. Evolutionary theory has shown that we, in our present form, are the products of an evolutionary system that was put in place to bring into being a life system as intelligent as we are.

This does not mean that we are the end result of this evolutionary process. We may very well be the “missing link” to some far more intelligent life force that will come into existence in the future. Even if we are the end result of the evolutionary process on this planet, I still believe that evolutionary principles have given us the potential to increasing our knowledge sufficiently to avoid extinction for the human race itself.

Of course if we preserve the intellectual knowledge that we have so far accumulated, these more enlightened sentient beings of the future will not have to contemplate a “missing link” syndrome, as we seem to be saddled with today; we will have left them a written record of our existence. The following quotation from Albert Einstein is appropriate. “Men of clarity and vision are few and far apart in anyone’s lifetime. What is preserved of their work is mankind’s most valuable possession.”

TWO VITAL PURPOSES

This religion will advocate two vital purposes for life itself. Firstly, there is the successful embracing of the responsibilities of life as we are living it. Secondly, there is the quest to constantly increase the knowledge of the human race as a whole, so as to embrace the necessary success in achievements that are required to insure that the human race will not become extinct.

This is part of the answer to why we are here. Although we do not know the definitive answer to such a question, we do know that unless the human race continues to exist, we will never have the potential to determine exactly what the answer is to the question --- Why are we here?

How did we get here is a two sided question also. Obviously one side of the answer is that we were created by the sexual union of our natural father and mother. The other side of the question still remains beyond our understanding. When evolution was first put forward, Atheists said that we got here because of evolution and they stated that no God was necessary in the equation of life.

On the last page of Richard Dawkins book, “The Greatest Show On Earth”, he definitively states that evolution is “no accident” it is a result of the non-random natural selection that is the process whereby evolution occurs. Rather than prove that a Creator is not necessary, in my opinion, evolution simply proves that our previous level of understanding about how life was created was much shallower than we now understand. Another way of saying this is that our Creator is even more miraculous then we previously believed possible.

Still further, another way of looking at this situation is as follows: When mankind makes new discoveries and reaches a new plateau of knowledge, from this new platform we become aware that the extent of the unknown is even greater than we previously visualized it to be.

This is not to say that the journey towards new knowledge is infinite and we should become disheartened by it. Actually the quest for such knowledge is so rewarding to the searcher, that I really don’t believe we have to worry about the immensity of it all leaving us in a state of disillusion. The journey towards more understanding is also, like life itself, ---its own reward.

WHEN WILL THE ROT GAIN PROMINENCE?

It is almost impossible to say when this new religion will reach a point where it begins to accelerate into the eminent position that I believe that it will eventually attain. I cannot expect a large number of people in their 30’s or older to simply set aside their long held beliefs for this new one.

It is the younger generation who have not yet invested a large amount of their mental energy in choosing one belief system or the other, that will be more willing to embrace this new belief system. Of course this is also the domain of the existing religions. Get them while they are young when the tableau of their minds is still capable of being molded into the shape or belief system that the teacher wishes to achieve.

It is no accident that the best chance that Christianity has of increasing its followers is in areas of the world that are somewhat behind in their educational systems. It is to those who are more readily willing to accept superstitious beliefs that this religion (Christianity) and others like it have the best chance to find new followers for the religious beliefs that they are putting forward.

Another factor, even though it implies much more suffering for the human race in the meantime, is also in favor of the ultimate acceptance of the Religion of Truth. I call it the Red Light syndrome. That is, before a new traffic light is installed at an intersection, it usually takes a number of accidents or even deaths to finally bring the new traffic light into existence.

In this regard, the acceptance of a superstitious belief system in combination with an escalating population, finally exposes the flaws of such a system. Islam is a perfect example of this phenomena. The forced acceptance of this belief system by its followers, in combination with a surplus of superstitious beliefs, eventually causes horrific acts of violence to be visited upon the human race.

Whereas this violence is intended to cower those opposing the religion into accepting Islam’s “superior” understanding of the realities of life, on the contrary, each act of violence convinces many others that the religion itself, in its present form, is totally unacceptable.

If the “red light” is the acceptance of the Religion Of Truth, then the violence that is being perpetrated in the name of other religions, of whatever kind, is the horrific negative action that will help make the acceptance of the Religion Of Truth more self-evident to those who are reading these words.

It is my hope that the acceptance of new ideas about the type of religious beliefs that we should embrace would race ahead of the violence that the continued acceptance of the existing religions will cause to happen. Obviously there is no guarantee that this will happen and evolution can certainly appear to be cruel indeed.

But one way or another, this religion that I am proposing, or a refined and more accurate and complete version thereof, will replace what we are practicing now. The only questions to be answered are when, and after how much ancillary violence, --- will that acceptance occur?

To be sure, most followers of the existing religions, Christianity and Islam etc, downplay the negatives involved in their religions and concentrate on the positives and live decent and caring lives. But one cannot allocate all of the violence that occurs in the name of religion, to the possible mental problems of some of its followers.

If one faces reality, one must acknowledge that the superstitious aspects of a religion have the capacity to reshape what otherwise could be a normal mental approach to life and turn it into something horrific and destructive. The following stories are examples of what superstitious beliefs can cause to happen.

THE SAVAGE GOD

The book called, “The Savage God”, which was authored by A. Alvarez is a prime example of the above stated problem: “Although indeed the Christians were thrown to the lions in ancient Rome, more often than we care to admit, the Christians made public nuisances of themselves by voluntarily jumping into the arena in the hope of being immediately united with Jesus in heaven.”

“Due to an unrelenting rash of suicidal martyrs and further to underline the reluctance to accept change in this religion, it wasn't until the --- Council of Toledo in 693 A.D., --- that the Church officially banned such suicidal behavior.”

If your desire is to face the truth and accept reality in all of its sublimely positive shapes and unfortunately, in its twisted distortions also, it becomes imminently obvious that when you accept superstitious beliefs, --- there is always a price to pay.

RELIGION AND MENTAL HEALTH

The behavioral scientist, Albert Ellis, has concluded that: ---"an irrefutable causal relationship exists between supernatural [superstitious] religions and emotional and mental health.” “Rigid adherence to a religious view of life, characterized in the extreme as "religiosity", produces many levels of disturbed behavior; ranging from thinly disguised levels of religious intolerance and culminating in the extreme, in the acceptance of suicidal martyrdom to achieve a glorious after death existence in a place called heaven, whose existence only resides in the imaginary world of the believer.”

“Seriously religious people have difficulty accepting the real world and trying to change what can be changed for the better. For the most part, it is the secular world that brings about positive change in our world. This must be achieved in spite of ingrained religious indignation to change.”

“It is rather a sad commentary to report that it is the religious establishment which, all too often, must be led kicking and screaming into newer and better solutions to bring about better conditions for the human race."

YOU ARE WHAT YOU BELIEVE: AMISS WITH THE AMISH

The following are my thoughts on a murder and suicide catastrophe, after reading an in-depth account of the background to the story. These thoughts do not mean that this interpretation of the story is perfect in every detail. But it is based upon the words ascribed to the killer in the time before this disaster occurred. In this recent, (perhaps 2002) horror story that occurred in an Amish community, the Amish are being lauded for their ability to forgive and accept. But our Creator deliberately gave us the intellectual capacity to transfer horrors that we had to accept in the past into understanding that helped us overcome, to a great extent, some of those same horrors today.

There is something rather benign, or even negligent, in an endless acceptance of horrors such as this that might otherwise be overcome with increased knowledge. Nobody seems to be talking about the fact that superstitious religious beliefs helped to cause this horror to happen.

After committing his original sin, [dreaming about sexually assaulting other children] which he probably blamed on Satin and/or the Devil, the killer built up deep levels of guilt inside his mind. When his own baby girl died a few years later, after only 2 or 3 hours of life, the killer blamed God for “getting even” with him for his past sins. And so he hated God and himself also.

Compounding these problems is the mistaken psychological belief that ones dreams must represent ones “true” self, when in reality, they are almost always either strong fears or strong wishes that are at all times negotiable to a person whose basic beliefs are not negatively influenced by superstitious beliefs in the first place.

So in reality, the killer’s strict religious upbringing, his conglomerated failures in life, (at least in his own mind), his suppressed build-up of hatred, and a host of other thoughts that he now has taken to his grave, inexorably led him to kill himself before he violated his own children or other children. Apparently he had confessed to someone, perhaps his wife and then again, perhaps not, that he dreamed about sexual activity with minors.

Why did he kill other children instead of just killing himself? Partly because he hated God. “If God can kill my innocent child, then I am going to take other innocent children with me to the grave.” So go ahead, look at the positives that your religion has to offer and accept or ignore the negatives, but the next time some other person uses the superstitious foundations of his religious beliefs to make “sense” out of the senseless, (World Trade Center), don’t innocently sit back and ask --- why?

THE REFORMATION

These next four quotes are from the book called, Holy Horrors and it was written by, James Haught: # 1 --- (Sorry, no page # at this time) --- “Corruption in the medieval Catholic hierarchy was infamous...Pope John X11 openly had love affairs, gave church treasure to a mistress, castrated one opponent, blinded another and donned armor to lead an army.”

“..Benedict IX sold the papacy to a successor for 1,500 pounds of gold...Urban VI tortured and murdered his cardinals ...Innocent VIII proudly acknowledged his illegitimate children and loaded them with church riches.”

“Pope Boniface VII, whose name is omitted from official church listings, murdered two Popes in the 10 th. century...Likewise, Sergius III also killed two rivals for the Catholic Papal throne...Pope Boniface VIII sent troops to kill every resident of Palestrina and raze the city.”

“A previous Pope, John XXIII was deposed by a council in 1414...An historian noted that the most serious charges against John XXIII were suppressed by the church...He was only accused of piracy, murder, rape, sodomy and incest...Alexander VI bought the papacy by bribing cardinals to elect him...Then he hosted sex orgies attended by his illegitimate children, Cesare and Borgia.”

# 2 --- (Page 67-68)

“The Catholic Inquisition blighted many lands for centuries...The horror persisted until modern times...The Spanish Inquisition was suppressed in 1808, restored in 1814, suppressed again in 1820, restored again in 1823, and finally, eradicated in 1834.”

“Lord Acton, himself a Catholic, wrote in the late 1800's: "The principle of the Inquisition was murderous....The Popes were not only murderers in the great style, but they also made murder a condition of salvation." (Author’s note: Perhaps the above horrors were instrumental in motivating the Catholic Church to inculcate the rule of celibacy for its clergy.)

# 3 --- (page 160-161)

“Jesuit theologian Peter de Rosa, who quit the priesthood, lamented that Catholicism's --- "disastrous theology had prepared the way for Hitler and his 'final solution' of the Jewish race."

#4 --- (Page 191)

“In reference to the mass suicides at Jonestown, both voluntary and forced, an article in Newsweek said the tragedy --- "shows how easily saintliness and faith can turn into insanity and mass hysteria." --- (author’s note, --- I think that explanation should be reworded to say how easily saintliness and faith under the auspices of a superstitious belief system, can turn into insanity and mass hysteria.)

A STUDY IN IRRATIONALITY

The following is one of the most preposterous statements in the entire Bible. It occurs in Mathew 27, Verses 52 and 53 [re. the resurrection.]

52 -- And the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.

53 -- And coming out of the tombs after His [Jesus’] resurrection, they entered the Holy city and appeared to many.

So, all these dead people came back to life and were seen by many in the Holy city and not another wordis mentioned about them by any other writer in the Bible!! Nobody asked them what Heaven was like, or what lies beyond the grave???

That makes the whole statement irrational. It would be similar to John F. Kennedy coming up out of his grave and walking into the White House to shake hands with Barack O’bama and not another word was ever spoken or written about it.

I believe that the rules for living a good life as put forward by the Christian religion are extremely valuable. Our Creator has graciously given us an incredible mind and the free will to use or misuse it. The truth is a magnet that draws people to it.

If the foundation of Christianity was the absolute truth, after 2000 years of exposure to it, most, if not all of the people on the face of the earth would have accepted it by now. It is superstitious and mythical stories, such as the one from the gospel of Matthew mentioned above, that convinces people to walk away from this belief system. That is not merely my personal opinion; it is a simple fact of life.

Just in case someone might ask --- what is the point in retelling old history. The Church has learned from these kind of mistakes and corrected them, (except of course for the above story in Matthew.) Why beat this into the ground again? The answer is, --- just the facts my friend, --- just the facts.

THE FUTURE

For centuries slavery existed until finally we came to realize that the ultimate rewards, or should I say costs, of such a system leads to violence. A similar fate awaits supernatural and superstitious religious belief systems. The positives that can be gained from these systems have, to a certain extent, blinded us to the negatives that they also contain.

Radical elements of Islam are still existing in a climate that Christianity overcame 500 years ago. As is the case with a new traffic light at a local intersection, enough accidents or deaths must occur before the problem is corrected.

There is a real possibility that the next attack on America could be nuclear in nature. Sadly, it might take such a catastrophe before we wake up to the inherent dangers that have the potential to occur when we fail to confront superstitious religious beliefs.

Most people in the western world, as well as elsewhere, marginalize religion and get on with the realities of everyday life. Such an attack, as mentioned above, will force all of us to confront superstitious religious beliefs in the same way that we now have confronted slavery and other social evils.

In spite of the above thoughts, I do not totally despair for the future. If we could get through the horrors of the Second World War, then other horrendous problems can be overcome also. But I do despair for the unimaginable level of violence and death that radicalized religious beliefs can inflict upon the human race.

Let us hope that Woody Allen’s following quotation, uttered I presume, mostly in jest and partly in all seriousness, will not apply to our future: “More than at any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

RELIGIOUS EVOLUTION

Wouldn’t it be constructive to find a new belief system that incorporated all of the wonderful ideas and excellent rules for living that are put forward by the existing religions; while at the same time, rejecting the superstitious aspects of those religions that have the potential to cause mental problems and/or physical violence in our world today?

Is it possible that such an approach could be recognized as the natural evolutionary development for mankind’s inherent desire to embrace religious thoughts and actions? Isn’t that exactly what I am trying to achieve by putting forward this new religion called, The Religion Of Truth? The answer of course is - Yes - Yes - Yes.

SMOKING

In reference to the acceptance of new ideas, the habit of smoking sheds light on the manner in which old ideas are given up for better ideas and the amount of time required for those new ideas to take hold. When I was about12 years old I remember saying to myself that I must be living on the wrong planet. It seemed to me that smoking was a ridiculous habit, but a majority of people were smokers and I mistakenly concluded that I would have to learn to put up with it.

I failed to realize that with the passage of time and the population explosion that time itself causes to happen, the smoking habit would, in essence, strangle itself with its own rope. How many people have to die of cancer of the lungs, throat or other ways that this habit inflicts upon its users, before more people would begin to say enough is enough? How much smoke filling up the air that we all must breath, ---would it take before someone said enough is enough.

I never thought I would see the day when smokers would congregate outside in the cold instead of non-smokers being forced to endure clouds of smoke in the work place and elsewhere. Apparently a reporter was zeroing in on some of Babe Ruth’s bad habits, (alcohol, infidelity) and to back the reporter off, Ruth said, “ I suppose the next thing you’ll do is start telling me I smoke too much. What’s wrong with a relaxing smoke to calm my nerves?” Well anyway, at least Babe Ruth knew how to hit a baseball.

I remember attending the funeral of the father of one of my friends when I was in my 30’s. It was a blisteringly hot summer day and after the funeral we were all going to meet at the home of one of the sons of the deceased man. I arrived early at the home and went down into the basement where everyone would meet and chat for a while.

I couldn’t get over how comfortable and cool it was in that room. About half an hour later, when everybody had been chatting and smoking during that time, I realized that I had to go outside to get away from all of the smoke, just to breathe in some fresh air.

The point of this story is that changing people’s habits takes a long time. But just as the population explosion and the negative implications of the habit of smoking, dictated that it would eventually be rejected, so too does the negative implications of the superstitious beliefs in the existing religions dictate that they too will eventually be rejected.

Even though my writing style is not perfect, even though these words may not be read by many people at first or even later, nevertheless, the ideas that I am putting forward will come to pass sometime in, I hope, --- the not too distant future.

Perhaps this opening document is only the precursor of other internet articles, other statements or even television programs that will cause the change to happen. Perhaps I will be on the cutting edge of such change, perhaps not. But the main point is that I am persuaded that the changes that I am proposing --- will eventually come to pass and/or --- they will occur.

CLINGING TO OLD HABITS

I find it difficult to understand how so many people cling to the Christian belief system when there are so many examples to prove that it is not valid. But as stated elsewhere, the question for a believer in a Creator was simply this. If I give up my current religious beliefs, where will I go to continue to show respect and to honor my Creator. Even though the existing religions leave much to be confused and disorientated about, at least they give me the chance to believe in a Creator

It is a basic flaw of the atheistic movement for them to believe that they can eventually attract all of those who now worship one of the existing mythical religious belief systems. They never should have lasted until the time of Galileo but look at that situation. Now, four or five hundred years later the Catholic church has finally got around to apologizing for their behavior towards him.

Other so-called heretics would have been put to death but the Catholic Church graciously consented to house arrest for Galileo if he would denounce the truth that he had discovered which directly conflicted with “Biblical Knowledge.”

Once again, I think part of the continued success of the Christian religion was mankind’s desire to believe in a Creator and there was no other option that seemed worthwhile to the people at that time.Contrary to what is occurring now, the general attitude in the past, was that the laity accepted almost without question what the hierarchy of a religion said they should accept and a tight lid was kept on any form of dissent.

Now the invention of computers and the internet is virtually robbing the existing religions of the control that they previously treasured so deeply. In any religions favor of course is the human desire, by far too many people, to go with the established flow and not be singled out as a dissenter, heretic or heathen.

Acknowledging that the litany of evidence against Christianity being the absolute truth that it purports to be, should make the following story unnecessary, I nevertheless find it to be so overwhelming and all encompassing that I include it herewith. The Bible states that God made man in his image and all other living things in their own particular image. First of all, no one can actually know what the image of our Creator might be so it is disingenuous to pretend that you are in possession of such knowledge.

Evolution says that we evolved from other living entities into the form that we now present to each other. It also states that we are no accident. That the progression of the evolutionary state is to finally bring into existence a living being with intellectual powers on the level that we possess and further to have the potential to change us into even more intellectual beings in the future. Whether that would be accompanied by physical changes or not is another matter, beyond which I will not contemplate at this time.

Under these terms of reference, the elongated vas deferens on the right side verifies the validity of evolutionary principles. It also proves that Intelligent Design is valid. It also proves that the Christian concept of our Creator is not exactly false but it certainly requires a more up to date analysis which I believe that I am putting forward in the Religion of Truth. In reference to the elongated vas deferens tubes. The future might find us realizing that with increased knowledge, comes the realization that the elongated design was more efficient than we previously recognized.

There are untold examples in life where we look at something that we think is ridiculous, only to discover with increased knowledge, that the “something” in question is not only, not ridiculous, --- but absolutely necessary and indeed, makes perfect sense.

What I am saying is that there are far too many examples of this kind of “tangled” design inside the human body and in other living entities also, to avoid coming to the conclusion that rather than a Creator designing each species of life separately, as put forward in the Bible, the manner in which evolution explains these tangles is, in my not so humble opinion, beyond a reasonable doubt.

Nevertheless, reasonable doubt certainly exists and we are lucky that it does. It is this facility of an open society that seeks deeper and deeper levels of truth that the Religion Of Truth will support wholeheartedly. Such an attitude is undoubtedly the bane of all absolutist thinking. And so I hereby introduce Jonathan Wells.

JONATHAN WELLS

He is the author of, “Icons Of Evolution, (science or myth), and he correctly points out that Charles Darwin’s theory advocated gradual change culminating in different species after a considerable period of time usually measured in millions of years.

The Richard Lenski and associates experiments with 45,000 generations of bacteria proves definitively that abrupt change is indeed possible. Extrapolating from bacteria to mammals is not definitive, but it is definitely persuasive. Jonathan Wells labels evolution as a myth because Charles Darwin’s original theory of gradual change is wrong. We now know that both gradual and abrupt change is possible under evolutionary processes.

Systemic Darwinian errors in other evolutionary concepts is also indicated by Jonathan Wells. However it is also important to realize that Mr. Wells agrees with other Darwinian concepts such as the age of the planet earth and its living entities. That is, the biblical theory of the age of the earth and its living entities is wrong and evolutionary theories about the age of the earth and its living entities are more in keeping with reality. Not absolute mind you, but definitively more accurate.

FRUIT FLIES IN THE SOUP

Jonathan Wells offers up the tantalizing history of the fruit fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) and uses it as an example of a failed evolutionary Icon. To be sure, one would expect such an Icon to show a mutational change that favored the continued existence of the common fruit fly. Instead it shows how human ingenuity has kept alive a mutational change which would have become extinct in the natural world.

The mutation in question is the one (actually 3) which changes the balancers or “Halteres” which appear just behind the normal two wings of the evolutionarily successful fruit fly, and turns them into another set of wings which makes this mutation of the fruit fly one that has four wings. Unfortunately, in the absence of the Halteres the fly’s ability to hover is severely curtailed. This curtailment prevents the 4 winged fruit fly from hovering over a food supply long enough to obtain the necessary nourishment for its continued good health. In fact most of these flies die in the natural world before they reach the mating age.

If by some lucky chance, the newly born 4 winged fruit fly finds a veritable nest egg of nutrients that allows him to reach the mating age, the males inability to hover over the female successfully, prevents him from impregnating her and the final nail in the coffin of this mutational change occurs because of the failure of the male four winged fruit fly in the mating process.

The only way that a four winged fruit fly can continue to exist is if the ingenuity of a human being provides both the nutrition to keep it alive until it reaches the mating age and also, to make the necessary compensations that are required to allow the 4 winged fruit fly to mate successfully.

Once again in his book called, Icons Of Evolution, Jonathan Wells reports that: “The four winged fruit flies do not occur spontaneously. They must be carefully bred in the laboratory from 3 artificially maintained mutant strains. Furthermore, the extra wings lack flight muscles, so the mutant fly is seriously handicapped. Four winged fruit flies testify to the skill of geneticist, not to the veracity of the theory of evolution.”

In summary, what we are left with is the knowledge that a fruit fly with two wings and two Halteres is the present epitome of natural selection at work for this species of fruit fly. The four winged fruit fly is a failed mutation that would have become extinct in the natural world. It remains in existence only because of the ingenuity of the human species.

AN ICON OF MAN’S INGENUITY

As such, this example is truly an impeccable Icon Of Evolution. For Jonathan Wells, it becomes a question of whose Icon has been gored? Since it is not Evolution that is being gored, it behooves us to conclude that this story of the fruit fly represents a failed Icon for Jonathan Wells in his attempt to discredit Darwinian style evolution. If he is simply trying to tell us that Charles Darwin entered the jungle of the unknown in evolutionary study, blindfolded and backwards, and in the process, that he made some critical errors, then, I will agree with that completely.

But at least Charles Darwin had the courage to reach into the unknown and because of him, we are writing about this subject right now and the world has a deeper level of understanding about the origins of life than it did before he published his book called, The Origin Of Species. No, we don’t know the definitive origin of life, but our understanding of this age old question is certainly more complete than it was before Charles Darwin’s time. Blazing a new path is always far more difficult than following in that trail blazers footsteps.

It is my unequivocal belief that the above conclusions on my part are precise; but if you do not agree, then at the very least, I am sure that you will agree with me when I say that this story represents an impeccable Icon of mankind’s incredible ingenuity. I say that Charles Darwin did the best that he could in his time and subsequently, new knowledge has upgraded the theories that he put forward. This would be an example of the evolution of the ideas that he put forward about evolution itself.

This situation provides a perfect example of the difference between the age old religions of this world that dictate that their ideas are absolute and must never be challenged or changed. In the Christian Bible, the admonition that not “one word” or “one jot” shall be changed, is perhaps the most definitive example of such an authoritative and absolutist attitude that one could possibly find.

The above example should be in stark contrast to the scientific method of new discovery. Whereas absolutist religions refuse to change, or at the very least, they accept change only after an indeterminate interval of kicking and screaming about the fact that their beloved religion is being ripped apart.

The scientific approach should be, and I sincerely hope that it is, modeled on the simple but eloquent words of Abraham Lincoln himself: “I will accept new ideas as fast as I can determine that they are true ideas.” Of course the dilemma that one must face is simply this: trying to determine when an idea satisfactorily qualifies as a “true” idea. The last thing we should do is throw our hands up in despair and say that truth is too complex and illusive and therefore the pursuit of the truth, --- absolute or otherwise, is futile.

Even if the human race tried to implement such a stagnant policy towards the pursuit of the truth, reality itself would eventually dictate that new knowledge could not be denied. The question becomes rather simple, are we going to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the future, immaturely clinging to the familiar, even though it is proven that such familiar icons of the past are false?

Or are we going to embrace change and accelerate its capacity to help to solve our ever-increasing problems which are the natural by-products of our ever-increasing population base here on this bountiful, yet limited, planet we call earth? The main point of course will be that no new “Galileos” will be created by the Religion Of Truth. In fact the potential Galileos of this world will be celebrated for their determination to seek out deeper levels of truth to pass on to future generations.

WHAT DOES JONATHAN WELLS BELIEVE?

After reading Jonathan Wells words on page 109 of his aforementioned book, Icons of Evolution, the following questions come into my mind. What exactly does Jonathon Wells believe in? Does he believe in the Bible as practiced by the various branches of the Christian religions? If so, then he is allowing himself to be an accessory to the equivalent of the “murder of the truth”, in favor of a mythological portrayal of the truth.

The following quote is from a German writer named Lessing: “The man who presents truth in all sorts of masks and disguises may be her panderer but never her lover.” So in all honesty, since Jonathan Wells has already stated on numerous occasions that Charles Darwin’s model of evolution is flawed; shouldn’t it also become self-evident to him that the biblical model of reality is --- monumentally flawed.

What Mr. Jonathan Wells and myself have in common is the belief in a Creator, and speaking for myself, those reasons that I put forward in the answer to Question # 4 appearing later in this document, apply in this case also. I sincerely hope that, if and when, Mr. Jonathan Wells becomes aware of the ROT, he will be motivated to endorse it as completely as I hope you are willing to do also, or even better, --- have already done so, before this particular moment.

THE PILTDOWN MAN

Adding to the dilemma of searching for new knowledge and deeper levels of truth, is the all too common human weakness of succumbing to the temptations to commit fraud. The Piltdown man is perhaps the most evocative of the frauds committed in an attempt to buttress the belief that humans evolved from orangutans. Someone had combined an ancient human skull with the lower jaw of a modern orangutan, and then modified it to look like part of the same individual.

Perhaps even more pervasive, is the human desire to protect ones own territory in an attempt to retain power and positively influence ones capacity to earn more money and thereby look after ones own family and reputation as an authority in your chosen field.

While the story about Piltdown man was accomplished by flat out fraud, in many other instances there is a self-aggrandizing desire to have the evidence fit into the pre-existing belief system of the said researcher. Even when these two human weaknesses are overcome within an individuals personality, there still remains the conviction that what one has spent most of ones lifetime believing is the truth, --- should not be vicariously thrown aside without mounting an all out defense of the said truth in question.

THE DISUNITY IN TRYING TO UNIFY

The following article by Cherubino, from beliefnet.com is in reference to the future potential of Christian unity, but as he so eloquently states, these ideas apply to all corporate mergers also.

“As an unrepentant socialist, I tend to look at Christian unity in terms of social stratification within top-down organizations and what happens to CEO’s and VP’s in any sort of a corporate merger. Rarely do those who have a viable sphere of religious influence and power in a thriving organization abdicate their leadership office out of deference to some altruistic principle.”

“Far more typically, they espouse as revealed, universal and eternally true doctrine, a cosmology or a theology which coincidently just happens to legitimatize whatever pecking order they’re at the top of at that moment. These core doctrines and the organizational structure combined are inseparable in each denomination’s articles of incorporation.”

“Now, human nature being what it is under the best of circumstances, my hunch is that if that blessed day of Christian unity ever arrives, there will probably be some sort of gala planned to celebrate the event.” “This will undoubtedly precipitate a seething cauldron of debate over who should be in charge of the festivities, who will be on the invitation committee, as well as security policies, what sort of food will be served, seating arrangements, speakers, decorations, music, etc. etc.”

“Who would be the emcee? Would the Pope, Rick Warren, Bishop Williamson and Ted Haggard be at the head table together, or would they be in the kitchen peeling potatoes and washing dishes? And further, would this all take place in Rome, Moscow, Washington or Colorado Springs?”

“I say the chances would be slim that any of them would tolerate the executive downsizing and loss of CEO or VP positions that necessarily happen in the wake of any corporate merger. Will the first really be last and the last first?”

“The devil, as usual, is in the details and perhaps the most significant detail in any Christian organization is that its leaders are installed for life and generally enjoy perks befitting aristocrats. People don’t generally give up that sort of power and privilege without a fight.”

BLINDFOLDED AND BACKWARDS

Both Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud have something in common here. They were the first, or at least one of the first, to walk into the jungle of the unknown in their prospective fields, in a sense, as if they were both blindfolded and walking backwards.

To be sure their contributions have since been adjusted considerably by more advanced knowledge, but no one, and I mean NO ONE, --- can take away from the awesome courage that both of these men displayed during their life’s journey. The following example from one of Freud’s case histories points out the veracity of the above conclusions. It is copyrighted from my own unpublished book called, The Human Mind, and as such, I hereby give myself permission to reprint it here:

LITTLE HANS

“Sigmund Freud is considered to be the father of the psychiatric profession. His ideas about psychotherapy were certainly innovative. While he was able to help many people, the actual manner in which he helped them was not fully understood by Sigmund Freud and unfortunately he made many wrong conclusions about how that help was achieved.”

The case history of one of his young patient’s named Hans, is an excellent example to prove the difference between what Sigmund thought was occurring and what actually occurred. Part of this story is derived from Dr. A.G. Forgione’s excellent book called, “Fear (learning to cope).

This brilliant author came within an eyelash of putting forward the ideas that I am writing about in this book and consequently, I consider his book to be one of the most important books that I have ever read. The text follows: (Page 31)

“Little Hans had suffered a traumatic experience one day when he had seen a large horse stumble on a stone and fall. The horse had been going at a very fast pace carrying a heavy loaded cart. The noise and confusion that followed were understandingly frightening to the small boy and he later indicated that he was afraid that the horse might have been killed. Later on when Hans began to be afraid of horses and carts and even rocks in the street, his family consulted Dr. Freud.”

“Applying his psychoanalytic techniques, Freud searched back into Hans’ unconscious mind to find the neuroses that caused these “irrational fears.” The neuroses that Freud looked for generally had to do with such things as ones feelings about sex, relationships with ones parents and early toilet training.” “Freud believed that these neuroses, which were tucked away inside the unconscious mind, somehow managed to attach themselves to symbolic objects in the real world. If little Hans could be made to see the chain of association by which he had attached his neuroses to horses, he would see the irrationality of it all and would thus be cured.”

“According to Freud, Hans was not really afraid of horses and carts, they were only representations of what was really bothering him. Freud believed that the real problem was Hans’ concern about his mother being pregnant. The heavily loaded cart was symbolic of pregnancy and the spilling of the cart’s contents on the street was symbolic of the delivery of the newborn child. The obvious similarities, Freud claimed, made it quite natural for Hans to transfer his fear from one to the other.”

“Similarly, Hans was not concerned about the horse being killed; it was his father’s death that he was afraid of. In addition, Freud noted that heavily loaded horse-driven carts were quite naturally abhorrent to Hans, because he made the “obvious” association with a body heavily loaded with feces and noted the striking resemblance between the manner in which carts pass through gates and feces leave the body.”

Except for the fact that Freud was talking about fears and how important they are in determining ones behavior, we have come to understand that most of what Dr. Sigmund Freud talked about was nonsense. Does this mean that I am unjustly ridiculing Dr. Freud’s work? Not at all, up until Dr. Sigmund Freud’s time, the mentally ill were almost a complete mystery to the human race. Human behavior could be minimally understood but always there was the specter of a vast unknown.

In comparison to Dr. Freud and others before me, it is much easier for me to tackle the still vast unknown of the human mind, for I have the benefit of all their knowledge and even more importantly, their errors to learn from. In my attempt to put forward new knowledge in the field of human behavior, I too will make many mistakes in this book.

But the difference between the errors that I am making and the errors that some of today’s psychiatrists are making, will eventually allow a much higher majority of the members of the human race to live in an envelope of peace and harmony heretofore unknown on such a global scale”

From other biographical sources, I have become aware of some of the social and psychological backgound dynamics that were occurring in little Hans’ life. His parents had been constantly arguing with each other and he overheard his father talking about divorce. We know that safety is paramount inside the human mind and we know that parental instability can cause fear and tension inside a child’s mind.

Seeing the danger that can occur in the outside world in the form of the capsized cart and the possible injury or death of the horse, added to Hans’ fear of the outside world. We all use our imagination to visualize the future. What if the stone had been in front of me? What if the horse had fallen on top of me? What if the cart or the huge barrels had fallen on top of me? These concerns are all valid but they represent a level of uncertainty that all human beings must face in their desires to remain alive.

How you react to these fears and how you increase your knowledge to successfully navigate through these fears and remain alive, determines the level of nervousness and/or the level of confidence that you display as part of your always developing personality”

It would be rather easy to understand if Hans, at such a tender age, concluded that the world outside is a very dangerous place and if my parents divorce; I may have to live by myself in the horribly uncertain world outside, rather than the relatively safe world inside my parents home.

Hans’ father did not have a good job. Their economic status was below average. He did not like the circle of friends that his wife had mostly nurtured and he wanted to be involved with more important people; get a better job and find more fulfillment in his life.

He had almost decided that only through divorce, could he achieve such a goal. When they took their son to see Dr. Freud everything changed. Dr. Freud had been groomed from early childhood to be somebody special. When Sigmund was a youngster, his sister’s piano playing interrupted his scholastic concentrations, his father ordered his daughter to stop playing the piano. Sigmund was determined to do something special in his lifetime. Thank God that he did, --- he motivated others to study psychology.

When Hans began to show some improvement, Sigmund decided to use Hans to show that his new ideas about how the human mind functions were correct. He began to invite Hans and his parents to social events at his home and elsewhere, where Hans would be used to show other eminent psychiatrists the value of Sigmund’s new found psychological understanding. Freud hoped that other contemporary psychiatrists would begin to use his methods also.

For Hans’ father, here was the higher class, important friends that he wanted to meet. If he announced that he was intending to divorce his wife, that would be a negative signal to the potential new friends that he was now in contact with. They might even be able to find him a better job. Hans’s father’s mental attitude changed dramatically and he became cheerful and excited about his future. This translated into domestic happiness at home and a reduction in tension and fear inside Hans’ nerves and mind.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION --- PLACEBO

It is also quite possible that the power of suggestion could have helped Hans. This large mature adult Doctor Freud says that he knows what made me nervous and that he has cured me. This perception inside a person’s mind, such as Hans, has the potential to instill positive feelings, instead of negative ones that lead to uncertainty and therefore nervous tension.

Hans was the center of attention at these social gatherings during the times that Sigmund was extolling his ideas to the other Psychiatrists. The friendliness of these important people helped reduce Hans’ previous impression of the outside world as being a cold and threatening place.

Furthermore, the probabilities of chance had not inflicted upon Hans any further catastrophes. No horses, large or small, had stumbled and fallen. No other tragedies that could increase his original fears for his safety in the outside world had occurred. In short, the outside world wasn’t quite as fearsome as he had previously imagined it to be.

Most of the fears that we experience in childhood, or later in life also, are alleviated and minimized, or brought back to rational proportions by our continued experience of life and the millions of small achievements that we are constantly involved in. They all usually combine to propel us towards more mature approaches to life.

Sometimes however, they conglomerate and we are on the road to nervous tension and perhaps even mental illness. It has become my conviction that one of the predisposing conditions that must occur if one is to be labeled as having a mental illness, is the possession by the individual in question of --- a distorted fear of the feelings of fear itself.

All of the above psychological dynamics, and others that we can now, 100 years later, never be fully aware of, combined together to return Hans to the world of accepted mental behavior. From all future accounts, he went on to live a normal life. His psychological journey through life was at all times negotiable. Freud helped him, --- but not in ways that Freud fully understood.

TWO PAST GIANTS IN THIS WORLD

So go ahead and find fault with the first person who boldly walked into the jungle of the unknown, but never forget the debt that the human race owes to these incredible giants of their time and, for that matter, --- for all time to come.

If you think that I have just spent an inordinate amount of time talking about psychological issues, when in fact I am putting forward a new religion, which I am calling --- The Religion Of Truth.; to put it bluntly, --- I sincerely believe that it was absolutely necessary. To be sure, the amount of time that I have spent on this subject is certainly not --- inordinate. It is not only imperative, but it is absolutely necessary that we must achieve a higher level of harmony among all people so that more people can solve more of our problems.

To do this, we need a deeper level of knowledge about how the human mind functions. That deeper level of knowledge is available to us if we acquire a deeper level of understanding about how the fear of failure and the desire to be successful can have opposing effects on our ability to succeed. Tell me what achievements are important to you and if you are experiencing stress in your attempts to be successful in those achievements. If you are, --- then you are not succeeding with these achievements at a level that you are comfortable with.

Stress is caused by uncertainty. Some people who want perfection, actually “will” themselves undue levels of stress because the human condition is such that perfection in all cases is next to impossible.

Although it is a delicate exercise, it is important to determine which uncertainties are beyond your control and therefore you must learn to live with them, and which uncertainties can be reduced with increased knowledge. Of course in interpersonal relationships, it is the ability to communicate with each other on the highest level of honesty that is possible that ultimately decides what level of harmony is achieved.

INCREASED MENTAL ACUITY

A related question in regards to this topic concerns the reasons why evolution chose to place the testis outside of a man’s body rather than inside it. One could say that it added to the pleasure that a man would experience during sexual touching and help to further motivate him to engage in such activity.

However, such increased motivation for a man can be achieved with many other methods and since the testis are at a greater potential to be injured outside the body, and since we are talking about the very process that reproduces life itself; I think we can safely postulate that such a mutational change had extremely important ramifications for our species.

As Richard Dawkins stated, as well as many others, this change has to do with the temperature at which the sperm is created and the ability of the testis to adjust such temperature by moving them closer or further from the body. But he also intimated that other reasons might be involved in this evolutionary change. Reproduction of other species whose testis is still inside the body means that nature has perfected this position for the testis also. Still further, in keeping with the idea that this change must have important ramifications.

I am speculating that a more precise control of the temperature at which a man’s sperm is produced was necessary to allow certain mutations to occur that would give us the ability to increase the size of the human brain and thereby allow us to ascend to the intellectual level that we now possess. In closing, I think that this “vas deferens” example is undeniably one of thousands of examples that definitively proves that evolution is not just some wild unreliable theory, but rather it is an unassailable fact of life.

To a reasonable person, it should leave no doubt that the Biblical concept of our Creator does not mirror reality and a new and deeper understanding or concept of our Creator is long overdue. Let’s not postpone the inevitable any longer. Perhaps it is time for me to anticipate some of the questions that would probably be directed my way about the Religion Of Truth and try to answer them to the best of my ability. Obviously there will be numerous questions that must be addressed by the ROT eventually, in the meantime, here are some of those questions:

Question # 1. --- (No Heaven or Hell again)

If there is no heaven or hell, no life after death, then why not enjoy life as much as possible and “the hell” with morality or decency or fairness or any of the other disciplines that Christianity holds to be valuable human behavior?

ANSWER:

First off, if the Christian religion did not embrace so many superstitious beliefs, in all probability they would have far more people living the decent life that the religion tries to embrace. These superstitious beliefs have many people walking away from the religion and formulating their own rules of conduct, some of which are not necessarily of a positive nature.

As was the case with me, as one is entering ones adolescent years, one has had a chance to increase ones knowledge sufficiently enough to take a deeper look at reality. It is at this critical time in life that many people reject superstitious beliefs such as the Christian mythical belief system. Critical, --- in the sense that adolescence is the very time when a person needs good rules to live by so as not to make negative life-altering mistakes.

The Religion Of Truth mirrors reality as much as possible and so I predict that it will attract many young people to its belief system. I will need plenty of help in formulating the best possible rules for living a life of empathy, and a strong desire to continually increase ones knowledge in all areas of life. Obviously this will have an accumulative effect on the new platform of knowledge that each succeeding generation attempts to construct for those who will inherit the future.

Secondly, I have heard it said that if a person lost his Bible, he would still be able to live a decent life if he followed an example set forth in the Bible, which was copied from an earlier time: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The above behavior would automatically cover this next quote from Albert Einstein but nevertheless, it is well worth repeating again: “Subjection and exploitation are the two most hated phenomena in the whole realm of human relations.” The Religion Of Truth places the pursuit of the truth at the very top of human endeavors.

None of the other living entities on this earth could continue to exist if some kind of catastrophe occurred on this earth that made life as we know it impossible. We are the only ones with the mental capacity to increase our knowledge to perhaps solve such a problem and continue to exist.

Even today, we have already taken the first small steps in this direction. If some catastrophe happened here on earth that would end human existence on this planet, and if that catastrophe was such that after 6 months the planet could once again support human life; then we have the knowledge to place maybe one hundred people into space and have them return in 6 months and have them try to repopulate the world all over again.

In reality, I tried to write such a fiction novel when I was in my early twenties but I became so confused and disorientated that I gave up. I should have had more confidence in myself but the main thing is that right here and right now, I do have the confidence to carry on in my efforts to create this new Religion called, The Religion Of Truth. I make this solemn pledge to you on this day, January 1st. 2010. As long as I remain alive, I will never give up trying to succeed in this important achievement.

LONG LIVE THE RELIGION OF TRUTH

(Seward’s Ice Box)

It is said that the best attributes of a human being are his or her ability to achieve something whose value will become apparent after his or her time on this earth is over. It is this journey, or this type of achievement, that I want followers of the Religion Of Truth to embrace.

I want them to love the human race. This does not mean that they are to become arrogant and assign themselves a distorted level of value, but rather, I want them to come to the inescapable conclusion that the more value they place in themselves, the more they emphatically honor their very own Creator.

Unfortunately, since the population of the world at large races ahead of the knowledge that is required to allow everyone to live peacefully, violence and even wars will be part of the human condition, perhaps far into our future. But it is the concepts that I wish to put forward in this new Religion, which I sincerely believe will provide us with the chance to increase dramatically the harmony among all individuals and among all nations for the betterment of the human condition in all parts of this world of ours.

Sometime after the Civil War ended, William Henry Seward, a statesman in the American government, purchased Alaska from Russia for $7,200,000. dollars. At the time he was severely criticized for wasting the taxpayer’s money and Alaska was sarcastically called, “Seward’s Icebox.” It is that kind of thinking on Mr. Seward’s part, that I want members of the ROT to embrace.

IMMORTALITY

Who are we to ask that God grant us some kind of physical or other kind of immortality, other than perhaps the work that we do on this earth that has a beneficial effect on those who are our contemporaries and those who will follow after us. Is our fear of death so strong that we must invent a belief system to overcome it in some mystical manner? (ie. heaven)

Members of the ROT will obey the law because we want to see the human race achieve the highest level of harmony among each other so that this harmony will allow more of its geniuses to concentrate on making the world a better place for all of us.

It is my belief that many of the potential geniuses that are alive today are prevented from reaching such status because of the political, religious and economic unrest that permeates the societies in which they are born and live; and these factors prevent them from acquiring the education and experience that would make their genius status self-evident.

I am 78 years old and I am far from being rich, in fact, I am much closer to the other end of the economic spectrum. It certainly would be nice to have enough money to provide my wife and myself with a better life style. But the writing of this document, and the belief that I might actually be doing something that would thank my Creator for the incredible gift of life that he has bestowed upon me; leaves me with the belief that there is no other achievement that I would rather embrace at this very moment. This is the kind of joy that I wish to impart to those who would follow The Religion of Truth.

Question # 2

You appear to be willing to throw out the baby with the bathwater. I agree that ISIS must be stopped but saying that Islam and even Christianity must also be set aside is down right ludicrous. Such a proposition will never succeed.

Answer:

While I agree that such changes will not be easy to cause to happen; unless we do so, we will always be left with some people who will take the ideas of these superstitious religious belief systems at their face value and decide to kill others who do not agree with them.

I understand that the Christian religion will provide the greatest number of people to fight against the rise of Islamic extremism but I am not willing to avoid the truth in the short term to embrace Christianity now and then after extremist Islamic beliefs have been conquered, --- start asking that Christianity be set aside also. Both must go and the best way to achieve that end is to say it right now, not later.

Question # 3

You say that you have pride in the fact that the ideas that you express in the R of T are more realistic than those put forward in Christianity or any of the other religions in existence today. Yet at the same time, you seem to be unaware that your ideas have not achieved the level of acceptance that you foresaw for them.

You are also failing to think about the effect on couples who must deal with the death of a young child because of some form of disease that we are not able to overcome at this time. At least they, or their friends, can say that a loving God knows best, --- but what solace can you offer them?

Answer:

You are quite right. While I still believe my ideas, as put forward in the R of T, are more realistic; I failed to realize how long it would take to accept them. If I had known that 15 years later I would still be the only member of the R of T, I probably would not have had the motivation or courage to put those ideas forward.

The Christian religion says that you will meet all of your relatives, who qualify, in heaven, thereby holding out the promise that even though death seems to have separated you from your loved ones, that eventually everyone will be united once again in heaven.

Just because an idea seems to be wonderful, does not mean that it must be true. Just because it has been accepted as the truth for a long period of time does not necessarily mean that it must be true either.

While it does not seem to be adequate enough, the R of T would explain the death of a young child as a motivating force to increase our knowledge so that some time in the future, whatever caused the death of the infant can be prevented. That is how we have advanced our knowledge thus far. Something that used to end our lives in the past, is now corrected and life goes on.

Don’t forget that by demanding that our Creator give us a chance to continue to exist in some form after death has occurred for us here on earth, means that you are denigrating the incredible gift of life that our Creator has bestowed upon us.

In effect you are saying that unless our Creator gives us a chance at eternal existence that such an entity must be some kind of a degenerate. How could such an entity just give us life but nothing else?

While the young people of today have many bad habits when it comes to the use of this new computer technology, there is one thing that will be in their favor. The endless level of change that occurs in computer technology will make such people far less afraid of change, which will overcome whatever negatives that this new computer age will bring to the human race.

It is therefore the young people, some of whom have yet to be born, who will finally begin to embrace the R of T. It is my responsibility to accept the fact that my life on this planet will end before such a level of acceptance for the R of T will occur.

Slavery was a scourge on the face of the earth for a long period of time and much loss of life would have to occur before it was mostly overcome. Unfortunately, the same will apply for the superstitiously based religions.

The world will have to endure a long period of time where violence, --- including death, will be a part of the human condition until such time as all of the existing superstitiously based religions are set aside once and for all.

Question # 4. --- (Atheism)

You said earlier that you would talk about Atheism later in this opening statement. You seem to respect and infer that Richard Dawkins is a genius, but in fact, he is an Atheist. I’d like to hear what you have to say on this subject now, before reading any more of this document.

ANSWER:

In our attempts to learn more about the truth, we visualize into the unknown with our imaginary powers and then try to match those visualizations up with reality. Nobody can definitively prove that there is or is not a Creator. If we refer to such a Creator as the author of Intelligent Design, an Atheist will show that our bodies appear to be the result of anything but Intelligent Design.

Ricard Dawkins book called, The Greatest Show On Earth, was written to validate the principles of evolution and to show that the Biblical account of creation in a period of 6 days is mythical in nature.

While the book validates both of the above propositions, he goes on to say that Intelligent Design is false and he gives numerous examples to show that the design of our bodies in particular could be said to be more in keeping with unintelligent design; I beg to differ.

He uses the anatomy of the male sexual reproductive system as one salient point to prove such unintelligent design. If the biblical story of creation was correct and each species was created separately, then the vas deferens leading from each testicle to the prostate gland, which is necessary to allow the man to impregnate a woman, should be approx. 4 inches long.

Instead the vas deferens goes up about 8 inches from each testicle, loops over the tube carrying urine from the kidney down to the bladder and then goes back down another approx. 8 inches where it attaches to the prostate gland. Richard Dawkins represents this as one of millions of examples of unintelligent design in the human as well as other living bodies also.

I submit that further analysis is necessary. At one time long ago, a man's testicles were inside the body and the vas deferens ran about 16 inches down from the testicles to the prostate gland. At that time, the vas deferens ran down the outside of the tube carrying urine to the bladder.

In the current configuration, the testicle descended down on the inside of the urinary tube so that there was about 8 inches from the testicle to the urinary tube and then another 8 inches back down to the prostate gland.

If the testicles went down on the outside of the urinary tube the necessary tubing to attach it to the prostate gland would be about 4 inches and the remaining 12 inches of the tube would be folded over each other and crimped up at the lowest part of the abdomen. In all probability, this option would prevent the sperm from reaching the prostate gland and the male would be rendered infertile.

What is the point of being aesthetically efficient in design if the outcome leads to extermination of the species? Intelligent Design in this case means to keep in place the potential for the successful act of procreation. This example proves that the belief in Intelligent Design is alive and well; --- no pun intended.

I am currently reading a short book called simply, --- The Brain.   It is almost incredible to believe how complicated it is. According to Richard Dawkins, if it was not for the dog eat dog world, evolutionary principles would never have brought intelligent entities such as the human species into existence.

I always felt confused when I saw a lion killing another animal but now I know that our brains would never have come into existence unless nature itself forced such changes to occur.

In the case of the human eye, evolutionary processes could only bring into existence an eye with various levels of flaws. The most obvious one being that the retina of the human eye is facing backward.

Then, as Richard Dawkins quaintly points out, a structure inside the brain which he refers to as a "photo shop", cleans up all of the flaws and gives us a perfectly working eye. At least for those of us whose genetic material was good enough to do so.

How about all of the flaws that the "clutch pedal" limitations would bring into existence for the brain itself. After all, it seems unrealistic to believe that a superseding structure to provide a "photo shop" for the correction of any flaws within the evolutionary building of the human brain itself actually exists.

The following ideas are only conjecture on my part, but it seems to me that the so-called flaws that are brought about by the "clutch pedal" limitations of evolutionary principles turn out to be of paramount importance in bringing into existence billions of cells that make up the human brain. Under those terms of reference it would be sheer folly to continue to believe in accidental design rather than Intelligent Design by a Creator.

Question # 5. --- (Kill or be killed)

How can you believe in a Creator when you watch the kill or be killed behavior in nature. What kind of (God) Creator would bring such cruelty and horror into existence?

ANSWER:

I must emphatically suggest that you read Richard Dawkin’s book called, “The Greatest Show On Earth.” This topic and much, much more is discussed in vivid detail, and his reasoning either borders on genius, or it is genius itself. I am going to quote from page 416 in his book: “We know a great deal about how evolution has worked ever since it got started but we have no evidence bearing upon the momentous event that was the start of evolution here on this planet.”

And then from Page 426, which is the last page in the book: “Without the ever-escalating arms race between predator and prey, parasite and host, without Darwin’s “War of Nature”, without his “famine and death”, there would be no nervous systems capable of seeing anything at all, let alone appreciating and understanding it.”

“We are surrounded by endless forms, most beautiful and most wonderful, and it is NO ACCIDENT. (my capitals) It is the direct consequence of evolution by non- random natural selection. The only game in town. The Greatest Show On Earth.”

Richard Dawkins described the tangled up mess that the insides of a body of the more complex life forms appears to be. But he also acknowledges that with the understanding of how evolution is carried out, these tangled up messes become intelligent design.

That is, even though the processes of evolution forces these tangles to occur, the end result is intelligent design. In the case of the elongated vas deferens tube, that means a fertile male. In reference to the ultimate designing of a nervous system that allows us to achieve the intellectual level that the human race has acquired, the tangled up mess (kill or be killed in the animal world etc. etc.) that brought it into existence must be endured.

The choice of no tangles but no nervous system allowing increased intelligence would be a choice for failure in the most important achievement of all; --- giving the human race the potential to accumulate deeper and deeper levels of truth in an ultimate effort to avoid extinction of the human race itself. I don’t see anything in these statements that negates the possibility of the existence of a Creator, in fact I think it indicates that such a Creator would be even more miraculous then we previously perceived such an entity to be.

With the knowledge of evolution that we have accumulated already, it appears to me to be self-evident that a new, more improved concept of our Creator is far overdue. For a person to cling to the Christian concept of God, in my opinion, would be similar to an astronaut looking back at the earth from space and saying: “I still believe that the earth is flat.”

Let us say that our Creator (Life Force) created our world differently, where there was no violence between the different species of life. If that situation failed to bring into existence the intelligent beings that we have become, then, when the world can no longer support life, all life on this planet would become extinct.

Is it better to provide the potential for the human race to become as intelligent as we are and have the potential to avoid extinction (not necessarily for just us only but for many other forms of life also) or would it be better to avoid the violence that you are asking about and have life as we know it for all species come to an abrupt end?

Hopefully we have many centuries in which to acquire the necessary knowledge, but there is nothing that focuses ones attention more completely than a specific deadline, which in this case would be the threat of extinction for mankind itself. We are already headed in this direction, (increased knowledge) whether we are consciously aware of it or not. This religion will bring that achievement more completely into our focus. In effect, one could say that it will be moving it up from a back burner closer to the front.

If you watch a lion killing a deer it certainly looks gruesome and leaves you wondering what kind of world are we living in? Remember that we are doing the same as that lion, only on a different scale and with different methods. We transport animals to an abattoir where they are shot in the back of the head and promptly sliced into pieces to provide the food that we apparently need to remain alive.

The Christian religion views this situation as part of the mysterious ways of our Creator. The Religion of Truth, as a result of the intellectual skills of people such as Richard Dawkins, virtually agrees with Christianity, with the proviso that the "mysterious ways" are not quite so mysterious.

Evolution has shown us that the reality of the natural world was necessary to bring the human race and its superior brain into existence which is more than we realized before. But it still leaves more complicated reasons unanswered and we must simply accept that situation until we increase our knowledge to a higher level than it is today.

These next ideas are somewhat unrelated to the above topic but in the case of cancers, (lungs, jaws, esophagus etc.) caused by smoking, the following ideas may prove to have some value. We know that evolution allows the living entity to react to the prevailing conditions under which it must live, by favoring mutations that prove to be worthwhile, that is, they favor survival of the species in question.

This is only conjecture on my part, but if the body reaches a point where the unending abuse that smoking causes to the lungs of the smoker will ultimately result in the death of the living entity; it might as well try to change the genetic structure of the lungs by choosing mutations that might allow the lungs to put up with smoke and keep the living entity alive.

Of course these kinds of evolutionary changes usually take a long period of time to occur, and fortunately the intelligence of the human race as a whole, realized that the habit itself must be changed. This happened within about 300 years which is probably much too fast for any mutational genetic change to have a chance to become successful. It just might be that the cancerous cells are a result of this mutational process and that the mutations did not help, but rather caused the death of the smoker from cancer itself.

I consider any habit that is detrimental to the continued health of the living entity, as well as all of the various diseases and genetic damages that also occur, to be a clarion call for us to increase our knowledge to overcome them. Wouldn’t it be special if the increased knowledge that is required to overcome cancer happened sooner --- rather than later!

Question # 6. --- (Violence In Nature)

Going back again to the violence in nature, why couldn’t your definition of our Creator have brought us into existence at our present level of intelligence and let us try to increase our knowledge from this advantage point, rather than go through millions of years of evolutionary change?

ANSWER:

Perhaps the concept of a Creator who can do anything it wants is not exactly true. Perhaps our Creator isn’t quite as omnipotent as we seem to imply. This is not to denigrate such a Creator but rather it is a concept that is worth thinking about. It probably will turn out to be true that if we knew far more than we do right now, that we would understand why reality is the way it is.

Perhaps it was necessary that Dinosaurs existed on this earth to bring about some kind of change that we are not specifically aware of. If we had been brought into existence at that time, we probably would have become food for those monsters and we would now be extinct.

In this regard, if we finally were able to travel to other planets in some other galaxy and found a planet that could support our kind of life, but it was overrun by some kind of life similar to the Dinosaurs, because of our increased intelligence, rather than us being devoured by the “Dinosaurs” on such a planet, we would vanquish them. Who knows maybe we would set up a Jurassic Park on an Australian type continent of such a planet.

The previously described elongated vas deferens story is an excellent example of how our increased knowledge brings us closer to the reality of our existence. One hundred years ago a forensic doctor would look at this strange aberration and shake his head in bewilderment. Now, with our newfound understanding about evolution he would say, --- “Ah! Now I understand.

The point I want to make presently is only conjecture again but it is said that there are a billion, billion stars, each with their own satellites. It is possible that there are a billion other planets where life in some form is possible. Even on this one planet of ours there are around a million forms of life in existence right now. Perhaps the best way to meet this challenge for our Creator was to institute the laws of evolution to tailor-make life into the various conditions throughout the universe.

We already have countless examples of this phenomena right here on our planet. There are living entities at the very bottom of the Pacific Ocean that live in an environment saturated with sulfur. Evolution has equipped them with the ability to survive in such conditions, which includes a massive level of water pressure also.

It should provide us with some comfort if indeed we are not alone in this Universe. Perhaps other sentient beings will advance their knowledge base sufficiently enough to save us. Obviously however, it is our responsibility to accomplish this task on our own and not depend on another form of life to do it for us.

Then again, if we are the only form of life in the Universe, or if other forms are so far away that they cannot even make radio contact with us, then, for all intents and purposes, we are indeed on our own. Under those terms of reference, we would become the only living entity in this part of the vast Universe that just might be able to overcome the threat of extinction in whatever form such extinction might turn out to be.

Question # 7. --- (Sexual Abuse by the Priesthood)

The Catholic church is enduring an unending series of sexual abuse scandals concerning its Priests, Bishops and other hierarchy, that appears to be threatening the very economic well-being of this Church, and ultimately, its future existence. How would you avoid such a problem in the Religion Of Truth?

ANSWER:

I suppose the answer to that question could fill up its own book. Perhaps the shortest answer is that the Religion Of Truth would make one of its tenets the necessity to FACE the truth, rather than coming to the conclusion that avoiding the truth is the best policy.

These problems have existed in the Catholic clergy for a very long, long time. For most of that time, the Church successfully placed a tight lid on this problem. I believe that the hierarchy of the Church, during untold decades or probably even centuries, decided that the scandal of sexual abuse by their clergy would damage the church so badly that the best approach was to keep it a secret and --- deny, --- deny.

(Cherubino)

The above is the username of one of the moderators of the Catholic Debate board on beliefnet.com. It is my considered opinion that he has an incredible grasp of the human condition and because I know what he has gone through in his lifetime; I consider him to be not only a survivor, but one whose concepts of life border on genius.

Cherubino is approximately 70 years old as I write these words. Back in his youth, his family, although part of the Catholic laity, was nevertheless very well placed socially in the Catholic hierarchy of the New York city area. Partly, or perhaps mostly, because of this background, Cherubino decided to try to become a Trappist Monk after completing his schooling.

A couple of other rookies and Cherubino reported the sexual activities of some of the enclave that deviated from their vows of celibacy. Although they were congratulated on their integrity at the time, within 6 months, (time for things to cool down somewhat), they were all informed that they did not meet the requirements to become a Trappist monk.

Of course the real reason was that Cherubino and the others, were unwilling to pretend that the Catholic Church was as pure as it portrayed itself to be, but rather, the Church was covering up for, and hiding, a nest of sexual deviates and child abusers. I have forgotten where Cherubino’s autobiographical story is in the beliefnet.com site, but if you are interested, you could visit the Catholic Debate board and ask him to hyperlink his story. I am sure that he would be more than willing to do this for you.

I think the level of audacity and unreality to which the Catholic Church had sunk, became perfectly clear at a family dinner in Cherubino’s parents home approximately 50 years ago, after he had been drummed out of the Trappist order.

One of the dinner guests asked why he, Cherubino, was no longer in the Trappist enclave. A high ranking official of the Catholic Church loudly interrupted Cherubino’s explanation to order him never to discuss the details of the situation ever again as long as he lived. Luckily for him, this particular official never lived long enough to see his Church’s authoritative powers in this area, come to an end at the hands of the secular justice system.

This poisoned policy worked for the longest time because the Church was given carte-blanche on honor and respect and anyone who criticized the church was severely dealt with. In effect, what the Catholic Church did was to postpone the inevitable and the present leaders of the Church are left with the horror that their predecessors decision to hide the truth, has inflicted upon them.

In this regard I think any organization should realize that if a sacred trust has been broken, it is better to face the consequences immediately, rather than further down the road. The path down that road in this instance, is one of deceit and obfuscation, and an “apparent” lack of empathy for the people who were sexually abused. The above policy was followed for the misinformed “protection and continued existence”, of the Catholic Church. Today’s reality is showing that their decisions and the behavior that results from those decisions is having the opposite effect of what they believed it would be.

For the Catholic Church to set itself up as a bastion of truth and then be unwilling to face the truth, is an indictment against the Church itself, which is next to impossible to dismiss. On a deeper level, the Catholic Church’s (and other Christian churches also) attitude that sex is somehow sinful also brought the problem into existence. Certainly the very act that brings forth new life, is of the utmost importance and as such it is very powerful. It can certainly lead to many problems.

But for the Church not to realize that our Creator would make the desire to engage in the activity that initiates procreation, of the utmost importance inside our minds and in our nerves and other organs throughout the body, was the first mistake in the spiraling escalation of the problems that they now face.

Far better for its clergy to be married with a family than to be asked to remain celibate. All one has to do is think back on the quotations from the book called, Holy Horrors, that appears earlier in this document to realize that in the face of such sexual depravity, perhaps celibacy seemed like the best cure. Certainly celibacy avoided many problems when it was first instituted, but from our vantage point today, it has obviously caused far worse problems to occur. It is not good enough to adopt a system which looks good in the short run but turns out to be a disaster in the long run.

Another aspect of the disaster brought on by adopting celibacy is that the Church effectively disqualified far too many heterosexual men, (that is, they never followed through on their desires to be a Priest because they knew that they did not want to live up to the vows of celibacy) and as a result, the Church left their Priesthood vulnerable to either latent homosexuals, or frustrated heterosexuals who saw no other way to express their sexuality other than by deviating from their vows.

Cherubino’s story described above, is a perfect example of a potential genius being told to get lost while the hierarchy chose a conglomeration of psychological and sexual misfits instead. Who knows how many potential geniuses the Church got rid of because they didn’t have the courage to --- face the truth.

It is easy to visualize the homosexual or child abusing Priests counseling potential new Priests with the assurance that even if you are accused of molesting children, the Church will protect you. If you did the same thing in the private or general public, you would probably wind up in jail.

Another attitude that helped cause this problem, is the idea that the clergy is “married” to the church and because they can overcome the so called “carnal” instincts of the normal man, they should be seen to be special envoys of their Creator. This of course is simply a study in deception and a failure to understand the basic necessities of life which obviously includes a strong desire to become involved in the activity that has the potential to bring new life into this world.

The R of T, would allow its clergy to be married. In the short term, this religion would be virtual in nature. That is, it would be on the internet without any physical structures and therefore no direct physical contact between its clergy and the laity in general.

Question # 8. --- (Homosexuality)

What would be the Religion Of Truth’s (ROT’s) attitude towards homosexuality and lesbianism?

ANSWER:

There will be many questions such as this that will require skill and experience in the field of each question. While the answers that I give will be the best that I have to offer at this time, they certainly will be open to change and improvement by others more qualified than myself, to put forward.

While I agree with the belief that homosexuality and lesbianism sometimes have their origin in genetic factors or other physical factors, I also believe that in more cases than we might be willing to admit, it is either a conscious or semi- conscious decision by the person to engage in this sexual life style.

(Ann Heche)

Here is a newspaper clipping from a few years ago which quotes Anne Heche as follows: “I was never attracted to a woman before Ellen (DeGeneres). I have a right to love who I want to love. I understand that many homosexuals believe that it is not a choice, but I made a choice out of joy.”

The article also stated that Anne had been involved with more than one aggressive and abusive man and she wanted to avoid the same problems all over again. I believe that she has now given birth to her own biological child. It is also my belief that distorted reactions to fear are at work in some of, or perhaps most of these decisions. That does not just apply to the achievement of sexual orientation or satisfaction, but to put it quite specifically, distorted reactions to fear can affect EVERY achievement and EVERY decision that we make. The direct answer to your question is that we would not discriminate against homosexual activity.

However, there is one side effect of this situation that I would like to comment on. To be sure, most if not all human beings going through adolescence wonder whether they are heterosexual or homosexual. With the well deserved acceptance that the homosexual community is now receiving, I believe that a much larger number of adolescents are experiencing sexual stress about their sexual orientation as they progress through this trying period in their lives.

Especially when the homosexual community believes that this lifestyle is not a choice but is governed exclusively by genetic factors. Just how does a young adolescent boy or girl determine how a genetic factor works or how does it manifest itself? I am concerned for these people and want them to know that in many cases this is a personal choice rather than a foregone conclusion.

On the other side of this coin, if it is accepted within the homosexual community that this life style is not always determined by genetic factors but also by personal decisions, then that will add extra stress and pressure for those who are leaning towards homosexuality, but do not have the assurance that it is always genetically determined.

Perhaps the strident desire to believe that homosexuality or lesbianism is definitively caused by genetic factors is a semi-conscious attempt on their part to eliminate any uncertainty or stress about this life-style. Certainly throughout history the propensity of stress has been unfairly directed towards the homosexual and lesbian community.

The other factor that would be taken into account is the normal distribution of homosexuals to heterosexuals in society at large, that is, as best as can be determined. These percentages should closely reflect the membership in the ROT also, so that neither the heterosexuals nor the homosexuals are out of proportion to the above described percentages. Obviously, the seeds of discontent could easily make themselves evident in this rather delicate situation and it is one that would require constant care and empathy on all sides.

Question # 9. --- (Suicide)

What would be the ROT’s attitude towards suicide?

ANSWER:

Obviously we would be against it. Whatever reason our Creator put us here for, this entity didn’t give us life to throw it away. I am reminded how Hitler became violent whenever one of his followers committed suicide, probably out of guilt. He called them outright cowards. Then of course when everything was lost, he committed suicide himself.

As I stated earlier in our discussion about homosexuality, distorted fears enter into this discussion also. Although there are many different factors that can cause a person to choose suicide, one of them, for the person who has been diagnosed with mental illness and sometimes, even those who have not, --- is to be experiencing a distorted fear about the --- feelings of fear itself.

This kind of fear is a recurring aspect of the mental anguish of anyone who is contemplating suicide. In this regard, the fear of life can become greater then the fear of death. For suicides near the end of life, or when one is extremely ill, or experiencing a level of pain that can not be managed successfully, one is left believing that a system should be in place that allows such a person to avoid endless suffering when no successful conclusion is available. It is well to remember that our Creator has given us the genetic ability to live approximately 80 to 90 years or even more in some cases.

Even though it all looks hopeless and the Doctors have said you only have a short time to live, it is the capacity to live a long life that fights against death and keeps one alive longer then otherwise might be expected. Fortunately we have drugs such as morphine that will help to deaden the pain while these last vestiges of life fight for continued existence. At least this exit from life does not leave ones loved ones the embarrassment of having to cover up the suicide or lie about the actual cause of death.

I recently read about a soldier in Iraq who lost part of one of his legs on the battlefield. Even before the medics arrived, he tried to end his life. About 4 months later he did commit suicide. Only after his death did his mother find out about the prior suicide attempt on the battlefield. Our distorted fear of the truth causes many of the problems that we must endure in life. Of course that which we understand the least causes the most fear. At one time no one ever admitted that they had cancer, it was all hushed up because the fear of this disease was so great.

One of the problems with this kind of approach is simply this; how can money be raised to fight cancer if no one talks about it to begin with? Our distorted reactions to fear are robbing us of our ability to solve our problems. This also applies to the problem of suicide.

Perhaps if this young man was able to talk about his thoughts and feelings with his mother, she could have expressed the love and devotion that would have kept the young man alive. Yes, a well qualified Psychiatrist could also succeed in saving the young man’s life, but the love of a family member, and in this case the young man’s mother, can surpass what an insulated Psychiatrist’s skill and experience might have to offer.

At the very least, with the right kind of mother in this instance, or siblings or even relatives in other instances, that kind of interpersonal empathy could potentially add to the Psychiatrist’s attempts to help reduce this person’s resolve to end his life.

Those people in this story who kept the battlefield suicide attempt from the mother, probably believed that with the passage of time the young man would overcome the depression that he was feeling about his future life, and go on to live a normal lifespan. By talking about the attempted suicide, they probably thought such talk would make it more difficult for him to overcome his problems.

One psychiatrist who specializes in using anti-depressants and other pills to deal with mental issues was criticized for not talking enough to his patients. He stated that talking is useless and it can even make things worse. Perhaps he didn’t realize what he was saying, because by saying that talking could make things worse, he was admitting that talking could make a difference. The question to be answered then is rather simple. Does the person doing the talking know the right things to say or does he or she --- not.

Bio-Psychiatrists have shown that people who are considered to be mentally ill or are suffering from acute stress disorders, do not have enough of the chemical serotonin in their brain metabolism. Prozac and other Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitors have the capacity to increase the level of serotonin in the brain.

Although this would appear to validate the biological definition of mental illness, further examination is required. Dr. Michael J. Norden, M.D., has authored an important book called, “Beyond Prozac.” On page 176, the following quotation from Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz appears: --- “Psychological treatments clearly produce biological effects on the brain. My colleagues and I have recently shown that, similar to Prozac, a form of cognitive behavioral therapy is capable of CORRECTING ABNORMALITIES (the author’s capitals) in the brain metabolic rates of patients with obsessive compulsive behavior.”

Giving someone a Selective Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor such as Prozac is similar to giving someone a fish for supper. Giving someone beneficial psychological therapy, which would have to include knowledge about conglomerated fear, is similar to teaching someone how to fish.

If I have left you with the impression that I would like to see the use of neuroleptic drugs for the treatment of mental illness --- and/or for alleviating stress, eliminated from further use, then I have grotesquely misled you. Just as we now use anesthetics to temporarily block out pain during medical operations, so also will we use these neuroleptic drugs to temporarily block the emotional pain for those whose conglomerated fears, (which manifest themselves as excessive stress), become too severe to handle in any other way.

On page 167 of the above mentioned book called, “Beyond Prozac“, we find the following quote by Milton Rokeach: --- “To say that a particular psychiatric condition is incurable or irreversible, is to say more about the state of our psychological ignorance, than about the state of the patients mental health.”

The question then becomes, is the Psychiatrist or Behavioral Consultant that you are seeing, sufficiently knowledgeable about the effects of stress or not? (Fear about the achievements that you are involved in, or as in the suicide story above, achievements that you want to embrace in the future.) But in the case of the pill prescribing Psychiatrist above, since he thinks that talking to you is useless, there is almost no chance that he could help you.

If the drug that he gave you, helped you, then it calmed your nerves and that allowed you to do something rather than the nothing that depression and the distorted fear of failure can cause. If then, this action resulted in success in achievements that are important to you; the drug and the Psychiatrist get credit for the cure.

But if you failed in your action and remained depressed, then that proves that you have genetic or chemical damage inside your brain and must take the drugs for the rest of your life. If you committed suicide, well, they did the best that they could and although they wish that it didn’t happen, they must, out of necessity, move on to the next person who is seeking help.

I think we have to develop deeper levels of truth about all of the achievements, both positive and negative, that we are involved in during this journey through life. The R of T would do everything it can to promote this type of behavior, without denigrating anyone who had the courage to ask for psychological help.

Question # 10. --- (Euthanasia)

How about euthanasia?

ANSWER:

Even though this is a very serious question let me start off with this silly little story. This happened on the old Benny Hill television show many years ago. This particular skit had Benny sitting down to interview someone for a public affairs show where he believed that the topic in question was euthanasia. Benny Hill asked a pertinent question about this subject but the guest’s answer had nothing to do with euthanasia. They then showed Benny looking at his cue card which stated that the guest was here to talk about --- Youth in Asia.

Some of the same considerations apply to this situation as they do for suicide. A competent psychologist should listen to all the reasons why someone wants to choose euthanasia and make certain that any and all avenues are explored that might result in the person changing his or her mind.

I think the following decision actually happens more often than we are prepared to admit, where the Doctor makes sure that the patient isn’t suffering any pain, even if that requires a level of pain killer, morphine or whatever, that presumably might result in death for tH re then is the repeated paragraph once again.

Question # 11.--- (Abortion)

What rules would the ROT follow on the subject of abortion?

ANSWER:

We would favor the use of the morning after pill even with all of its ramifications for possible immorality. Abortion within the first 3 months would be accepted but after that, things should be looked upon differently. Abortions at a late date are generally caused by procrastination about making the decision.

Of course hoping that the biological father will offer to marry the woman is one of the reasons for a woman to wait and wait. Once again these rules would have to be refined by others who have far more knowledge and experience in this area of life than I do. I would like to write about abortion on a larger scale as regards to our responsibility to avoid extinction of the human race itself. With over 6 billion people on the face of the earth, one could say that quality rather than quantity should be our first priority.

However, it is also true that the more people that exist, the more achievements there are that have to be met successfully and more intelligent people are required to meet these challenges. Since that is exactly what evolution is aiming for, one could say that the more people on the earth the better.

Once again we have the seemingly impersonal nature of the evolutionary process. More people without more knowledge will mean more people either starving to death or choosing violence. But if increased population finally forces increased knowledge then the odds become greater that we will avoid extinction in the face of some catastrophic peril for the entire human race.

So the choice is a curb on population growth which means a lower potential for avoiding extinction, or higher population growth with its ancillary starvation or violence for a relatively speaking “few“, but higher motivation for increased knowledge to avoid extinction for the “whole” of mankind. You already know which option evolution would choose.

Who knows exactly how many human beings could live on this planet that we call earth at the same time and live successful and happy lives. Maybe 40 billion, probably less, but there definitely is a limit. As we approach that limit, the motivation to learn to live elsewhere rather than only on this planet increases dramatically if not exponentially. What we have here is just another side of the incredibly complex debate about abortion.

Question # 12 --- (Focus on today)

Working towards the goal of avoiding extinction for the human race is something that might not really be needed for another million years or more. Why not focus on the here and now? That makes much more sense to me.

ANSWER:

And to me also. Obviously I am not saying that 90% of the human population should spend their time working on this problem. I consider Richard Dawkins to be an absolute genius. What I am saying is that only a small proportion of the potential geniuses of his equal are given the chance to actually put that intellectual power to its best use. I discussed that situation earlier in the book. Each time a child is born, its first cry is symbolically a cry for more achievement. With over 6 billion people on the face of the earth, we need all of the intelligence that we can bring to bear to successfully meet the needs and desires of those over 6 billion people.

There is plenty of work and fulfillment for those who are willing to embrace these necessary achievements on whatever scale they are capable of doing. The point being that the more economic, political and educational success that the entire human population is able to achieve, the more harmony we can experience between all human beings, the more brilliant people there will be to devote themselves to this long range goal. Of course if this long range goal suddenly appears imminent, it would be too late to wish we had started earlier.

Question # 13. --- (Bible or Koran)

Will this religion have a Bible or Koran or some such book?

ANSWER:

Well, I haven’t really thought that through to be honest. It is more important for me to get the main ideas about this new religion started than to get it all down perfectly to begin with. Hopefully the constructive and even the unconstructive criticism that I am sure to receive will help refine the eventual wording of the message. In that regard, one could consider this document to be the first edition of a number of editions to follow.

One idea that I think would be valuable, is to have 3 different books. The ideas or accepted truths that appear in the first book would be subject to review and further evaluation once every 5 years. The second book would be every 10 years and the third book every 25 years. Of course there would be special provisions for a speed up of this process if fundamental change appeared to be necessary in any of the 3 books. Obviously the greater the level of proof is for the statements in the first two books, the more potential there is for that statement to find itself in the “25 year book.”

I think I would also like to see many of the ideas that appear in Richard Dawkins book, “The Greatest Show On Earth, or even the entire book itself as part of the special texts of this religion. As I look back upon the experience of reading that book, it seems as if I was viewing, through his book, the miracle that one man, Richard Dawkins, could acquire so much knowledge that seemed to be beyond the human limitations of knowledge.

That impression on my part, is probably an indication of my lack of confidence in the human condition. I like the following expression that I would like to see in front of a library. This quotation is attributed to yours truly: “Join me in the mental exercise of the human mind, whose physical structure is restricted, but whose creative dimensions remain unknown.”

Of course Richard Dawkins is certainly not alone in the majesty of his knowledge. We are lucky to have a significant number of geniuses in various disciplines spread out across the whole spectrum of challenges that we are mounting against the unknown.

Question # 14. --- (World Trade Center)

What comments would you like to make about the 911 attack against the United States Of America?

ANSWER:

I think that it provided part of the motivation for putting forth this new Religion Of Truth. The 911 attacks are a perfect example of how the human mind can be convinced to do something horrendous, such as this, and then have others of similar beliefs conclude that the individuals that did it are some kind of martyrs to their cause. How would you like to be the Creator and (symbolically) hear these men praising you as they killed themselves and thousands of others also? Incidentally, the above idea or example is only for emphasis.

My concept of a Creator does not include that identity listening in to every word that we say. My concept of a Creator would be one that involves itself in deeper and deeper generalizations concerning the manner in which reality is brought into existence. I don’t like the idea of forcing children to memorize a religion’s book (the Koran) in school, rather than using that precious time to provide the necessary education that would help the followers of such a religion compete more successfully in the economic world.

This in turn would reduce the belief that other societies, namely the Americans, are the root cause of most, if not all of the problems in the Muslim or Islamic world. Apropos to this problem is the following brilliant quotation from Tariq Ali in his book called, “The Clash of Fundamentalisms.” Unfortunately, I cannot tell you exactly on what page this quotation appears, but he is talking about the prevailing conditions in the nation of Pakistan: --- “A lethal combination of illiteracy, poverty, corruption and religious extremism, further exacerbated by American interference.”

Believing in Heaven and Hell is distorted enough, but believing that 23 virgins will be waiting for you in heaven, if you give your life up as a martyr to the cause, is bordering on psychiatric delusion. Sorry, I used the wrong words there, it isn’t anywhere near the border, it is without the slightest doubt, full fledged ---psychiatric delusion.

The most important idea to remember in this situation is that it is all negotiable. The German people have put together a decent society in spite of it being captured in the past by a delusional monster like Hitler. The Japanese people were forcibly rescued from the clutches of a militaristic society and they are now a peaceful and prosperous nation.

The continent of Australia was treated as a penal colony by Great Britain in the past. If indeed human character was not negotiable, but was definitively, or even proportionally determined by genetic causes, then a large majority of people living in Australia right now should be criminals. In reality, their approach to life is just as rational as any other country and in many cases --- even better.

Our responsibility is to gradually increase our ability to look after an ever increasing population. If a society fails to do this, rather than starve to death, that society or nation will choose to fight for life. If two people are stranded on an island with only enough food for one, they probably will start their own private war.

I remember walking through the park one day and a number of pigeons were gathered around a piece of food that someone must have thrown away. One pigeon was eating and preventing any of the other pigeons from joining in. I decided to intervene and introduce some democracy into the situation.

As I walked towards the “bully pigeon” he flew away. Of course I was acting like the new bully pigeon wasn’t I? I guess it’s easy to tell that I am the proverbial city slicker who didn’t understand nature, because as soon as I left, the next bully pigeon in the group took over and prevented everyone else from joining in. The human race has been given enough intelligence so that if we successfully achieve what we are capable of, we can show empathy to our fellow travelers through life and share the bounty fairly with each other.

This does not mean that we should embrace some kind of Communist society where those who shoulder most of the responsibility are not compensated more than those who shoulder less. It means that those of us who are at, or near the bottom, do not hate those who earn more than us, if by doing so, they are succeeding at achievements that are important to the overall success of society on a community basis, and in general, the overall success of the human race itself.

I have already mentioned this point earlier, but as difficult as it might seem to be to accept it, even destructive events such as the 911 attack have the potential to motivate others to help bring to an end the psychological reasons behind the distorted and superstitious religious beliefs that helped to cause the 911 catastrophe to happen in the first place.

Question # 15. --- (Capitalism)

What is your attitude about capitalism?

ANSWER:

Perhaps there is a correlation between what Winston Churchill said about democracy that applies to capitalism also: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for everything else.” As the USSR eventually found out, in order to successfully meet the necessary achievements to keep a society fed and relatively happy, one must be willing to pay those who shoulder the most responsibility the most money. Of course this can only be achieved successfully in a partial manner.

How are we to understand a baseball player making $30 million dollars a year while a brain surgeon makes much, much less? One answer could be that a large majority of people want to be entertained, not just be successful in obtaining the basic necessities of life. But the intrinsic limitations of capitalism are, in my opinion, the belief that capitalism itself will correct its own short comings. While this type of philosophy will be successful much of the time, at other times it will absolutely not be successful.

I believe that the government must become involved in the form of taxes and other measures also, to bring about a more level playing field for the general population at large, in whatever country the capitalist system is being employed. Flat out true capitalism would see those who fail in the market place, either find success, or starve to death.

Expecting a person to voluntarily starve to death peacefully, with no inconvenience to the successful capitalists, would be a study in delusion. Such a person would resort to theft or even murder if the situation deteriorated into choosing such violence or the violence of starvation.

Indeed, even though the ultra capitalist distains socialism, he nevertheless accepts many socialist measures as a defense against the --- succeed or die syndrome --- listed in the previous paragraph. Without question, practicing capitalist societies must include significant governmental checks and balances and then determine exactly what those checks and balances should be.

I suspect that the future will see the capitalist system mutated by evolutionary processes into something better than what the practice of capitalism is providing for the necessary continued improvement of the human condition in today’s world. Unfortunately, I have no clue as to what those mutations might look like, or how, or when, they might come into existence.

Question # 16. --- (Psychology and Psychiatry)

What is your attitude towards psychology and psychiatry?

ANSWER:

Perhaps I should start with the following story. A middle aged man goes to see a Psychiatrist and after several sessions the Psychiatrist throws his hands up in despair. I’ve tried everything I know to help you but nothing seems to be working. I’ve got a ticket to see the circus on Saturday night but my wife wants me to go to the opera with her instead.

I’m going to give the circus ticket to you. I want you to pay particular attention to the clown in the center ring. He is absolutely hilarious. Whenever I am feeling down or depressed, he never fails to get me laughing and it changes my whole outlook on life. Here is the ticket; hopefully he can do the same for you. That sounds like a great idea, said the patient, except for one thing, --- I ‘m the clown.

There is a lot of truth and knowledge contained in this story. One is left with the quandary, “who is helping who?” Of course humor is a very important element in combating the effects of stress. Humor says that you are enjoying life and that leaves you with a feeling of success rather than failure. Of course like most things, humor can be negative also.

If you are laughing with someone it’s considered positive but if you are laughing at someone it is considered to be negative. Just to complicate things further, of course if it is a Hitler or some other kind of dictator that you are laughing at, then that might be the most damaging tactic of all against such a dictator. It is said that Hitler went ballistic when he was portrayed negatively and humorously by Charlie Chaplin.

Stress is just a more acceptable way of saying that we are feeling the effects of fear regarding the achievements that we are involved in. If you react correctly to the emotion of fear, it will motivate you to increase your knowledge about the achievement in question.

Actually what is life all about other than a conglomeration of achievements all tied in together. If you are failing at achievements that are important to you, or even the achievements that you wish to become involved in, you will be feeling the effects of stress. It is of the utmost importance that we must realize that fear is not some horrible weakness that has been inflicted upon all of us, which of course includes you and I.

On the contrary, fear is our most prized possession when we must face the unknown and try to transfer that unknown into the plus side of our accumulating storehouse of knowledge. If you react to the emotion of fear correctly, it will motivate you to increase your knowledge. Whoops, I just said that a few paragraphs ago. Well perhaps it is such an important idea or message that it is worth repeating at least twice. It is said that our nervous systems were constructed at a time when we were threatened by wild beasts that could easily kill us and now in our modern world, this outdated nervous system is causing all of our psychic problems.--- THIS IS NONSENSE.

Let us say that one of our ancestors from long ago was walking down a jungle trail and a huge lion came into view. The fear reactions would invoke either fight or flight and because of the fear of potential death, these feelings would be acutely felt.

If the lion had recently eaten a large meal and was not hungry, but instead he was hunting down the scent of a female lion, he might not bother with our hunter at all but instead hurry on by. The hunter’s nervous system would be over sensitive or even shaking, just like our nerves do in the modern world.

We have different achievements to embrace than our ancestors did but if those achievements could cause you to fail at the work that allows you to make a living and provide food for your family, the fear that you feel could be just as acute as what the ancestor in the above story felt. This reaction of course is personal, where one individual would be mildly stressed, another might be at the edge of emotional disaster.

These feelings of failure can become persistent whereas with the lion, they end rather suddenly either with death or escape, or in our imaginary story above, with the lions indifference to us. Of course the apprehension of fear for such encounters in the future, can either add to the stress that you are experiencing, or it can help to motivate the individual to increase his knowledge so as to avoid this threat to his continued existence as much as humanly possible.

The feelings of fear and its effects on the human body are supposed to provide you with the extra physical strength to meet a physical threat. But the adrenaline rush inside your body from a fear reaction is also accompanied by the manufacture of nor- adrenaline whose job it is to bring your brain to full focus and awareness to help you meet the threat with the appropriate actions or words if such a response seems appropriate.

One very important difference is that our ancestors were involved in far more physical activity than we are today. That extra physical activity burned up some of the excess adrenaline that the fear reaction poured into our ancestor’s bloodstream. We have to make sure that we get enough physical activity because of the rather sedentary lifestyle we now live, at least compared to our ancestors.

In summary, I strongly believe that the fear response in our nervous system and its capacity to motivate a person to increase his or her knowledge, was perfectly tailored to the lifestyle of our ancestors, is similarly tailored for those of us who are alive today, and will continue to be essential to those who have yet to be born.

Question # 17. --- (Why Change to The ROT?)

You have stated that the Christian lifestyle is a good one and many of its guidelines for living will be included in the ROT. Under those terms of reference, why would I want to change? Why should I give up Christianity for the Religion Of Truth?

ANSWER:

The best possible reason is that the ROT will mirror the realities of life more closely than Christianity. That is, the questions --- how did we get here and why are we here are more realistically addressed in the ROT than in Christianity. You could tell a child to continue to believe in Santa Claus because it won’t do you any harm, but forl an adult later in life, that would be rejecting completely the Creator given capacity for intelligent thought that the human race has the potential to possess.

On page 5, which is part of the Preface for the book called, A Walk Through Time, the following words appear: “Regardless of one’s beliefs regarding the origins (of life), the future of life on earth will be substantially determined by the extent to which humanity unites within the next few years in commitment to the future.”

While the different religions cannot be charged with being the sole reason for all of the violence that is occurring on the earth today, I emphatically believe that the level of violence in the world would be definitively decreased if religious intolerance and religious fundamentalism was either reduced considerably, or even better, eliminated completely.

It is my unequivocal belief that the origination of the Religion Of Truth, as I am putting it forward in this document, is the first small step in the evolution of the current religious belief systems in acceptance throughout the world today, --- into a more universally accepted religion for the future Contained within the seeds of this rudimentary version of the ROT is the potential to achieve the unity among, --- not all, but a much larger majority of the people that the above quotation states is absolutely necessary for our continued existence.

I do not believe that there will ever be one belief system. But I do believe that the systems in competition with each other in the future will not be enveloped by superstitious and/or mythical beliefs, to the extent that is occurring for those in existence today.

It would be unrealistic to assume that the existing religions would simply disappear almost overnight. Remember my story about the “clutch pedal” being removed when they invented automatic transmissions? However, I do believe that the obtuse supernatural and superstitious belief systems will gradually fade away.

Of course it could easily be said that because the ROT believes in a Creator, that we cannot definitively prove to be in existence, that this religion is also based on supernatural and/or superstitious beliefs, albeit on a more sophisticated level. But I could use the same argument against the belief in Atheism. An atheist is asserting that there is no Creator at the very core of reality. They are doing so under the same type of thinking as those who believe in a Creator.

An Atheist doesn’t know all the facts about reality either. I say the future will prove one way or the other which of us is right, the Atheist or the believer in a Creator. As for me, I am putting my money and my life on the belief in a Creator. Evolution is not able to remove the “clutch pedal” referred to in the third paragraph above this one, but it either watches it wither away to nothing, or evolves it into something else that is useful in a different way.

In my not so humble opinion, the Religion Of Truth is that “useful and different way” for the evolutionary journey towards deeper levels of truth in the religions that the human race chooses to follow and embrace. Obviously I’m repeating myself here, but the endless discrepancies between Christian teaching about the realities of life and reality itself are overwhelming. They have now been made even more self-evident by our understanding about evolution.

While in the past, a Christian might say that in spite of the discrepancies referred to above, and because I wish to believe in and honor a Creator, and still further, because I have no viable option, I am going to stay with Christianity. Since evolution has been so closely linked with an Atheist viewpoint, it is only logical that the existing religions that put forward a belief in a Creator, would defend their beliefs so vigorously against evolutionary and/or Atheistic beliefs.

The Religion Of Truth shows evolution to be a more complicated, sophisticated and intelligent design mechanism to bring forth intelligent life such as ourselves, on this particular planet, and possibly on many other planets throughout the vast Universe also.

Consequently, I believe that the Religion Of Truth is the viable option that such a truth seeking person should be looking for, and that in itself should be sufficient reason to change ones belief system. In effect, one could say that the ROT is a consequence of the evolutionary forces behind our desire to increase our knowledge.

While the Christian belief system may have been perfectly tailored for the time when it came into existence, the ROT will fill that niche in the very near future. I am persuaded that the search for the truth will never end. Accordingly, the ROT itself will change and be refined in accordance with the higher levels of knowledge that those who have yet to be born will bring into existence.

Question # 18. --- (Ghost Town)

You started the Religion Of Truth on the beliefnet.com internet site about 10 years ago and eventually they gave you your own site, which quickly deteriorated into a veritable ghost town. Why are you trying to resurrect it now and what makes you think that your religion will not remain a “ghost town” inhabited by only you --- yourself?

ANSWER:

Even if you are correct, that it will remain a ghost town, I will still be glad I put forward all of this effort to make it happen. I believe that the ideas that I am putting forward in this religion, mirror reality, and whether they are accepted in the very near future or not, will not dissuade me from trying my very best to make it happen.

This new impetus on my part is a result of reading Richard Dawkin’s book called, “The Greatest Show On Earth.” The purpose of the book was to provide an all inclusive defense of evolution and he certainly achieved that goal with flying colors. However, whereas he believes that his ideas prove that no “God or Creator” is necessary to bring forth life, instead; I believe that he showed that such a Creator is far more intelligent than we previously imagined such an entity to be.

I refer specifically to the following quote from his book on page 416: “We know a great deal about how evolution (through natural selection) has worked ever since it got started, but we have no evidence bearing upon the momentous event that was the start of evolution on this planet.”

As an example, if you visited an automobile assembly line of robots, and if you were from some other planet, you might conclude that human beings were not involved in the creation of that car. Evolution could be represented as the robots on the assembly line and our Creator as the humans behind the building of the car.

In the case of the car, the so-called aliens from another planet would eventually conclude that the humans were much more intelligent than they were previously thought to be. I believe that the same type of thinking applies to ourselves and our Creator and his/her or its method of using evolution to bring new life entities into existence.

It should also be clearly understood that in all probability, there are multitudinous levels of deeper knowledge that we must still obtain. It is not as if understanding evolution has placed us one step away from the ultimate truth. Reality itself dictates that it should be considered self-evident that --- it has not.

Under no circumstances am I invoking the “old saw” that when we approach the unknown we fill in such blanks by believing in a Creator. What I am saying is that evolution simply shows us that our Creator is using this system to achieve his deeper goal of pushing us towards more knowledge and a better chance to avoid extinction of the human race and because of our superior intelligence, other forms of life on this planet may also avoid extinction.

I used the expression deeper goal rather than ultimate goal because we certainly are unable to even guess as to what our Creator’s ultimate goal is. What I wish to infer is that unless we avoid extinction, the pursuit of the necessary knowledge to allow us to come closer to understanding our Creator’s ultimate goal, will obviously never occur.

The ideas that I put forward almost ten years ago in the --- Other Beliefs --- StephenK.Adams site on beliefnet, which can now only be accessed from the Archives of beliefnet.com, --- are valid, but those who took the trouble to read them, for the most part, belittled their value. It was as if they were saying, these ideas are just his personal opinion, why should I believe him or give up my belief system for one that has failed to attract any members to speak of?

As a result of Richard Dawkins book, “The Greatest Show On Earth”, I became aware that the ideas that I was putting forward in the beliefnet.com website were and are, relatively identical to the very goals to which evolution is directed. I consider Richard Dawkin’s book and the ideas put forward in it, especially about evolutions goal to produce an ever more intelligent living entity (us), is the definitive proof that any reader of these words is looking for to convince themselves that the Religion Of Truth is the belief system that they should embrace.

Question # 19. --- (Written in the stars)

If you are right, that our Creator has programmed us, by using evolution, to constantly increase our knowledge, then it appears as if we are destined to be successful. Is that in keeping with what you believe?

ANSWER:

No, not really. If there are billions of other planets that have some form of life entity and evolution is pushing all of them towards greater levels of knowledge, then we may be in competition with all of those other living entities on these other planets. Out of a billion possible life entities throughout the Universe, perhaps only one or just a few, will be successful. The others may fail to increase their knowledge sufficiently and as a result become extinct.

I think it would be wrong to believe that we have some kind of guarantee. That our destiny is already “written in the stars.” It would be far more realistic to believe that it is up to us to avoid extinction. Act as if we are the highest form of intelligent life in the Universe, and fully realize that our destiny is up to us.

From a somewhat indifferent Creator, (that type of attitude on the part of our Creator seems to be self-evident in the kill or be killed animal world), it would be like having a billion life entities trying to avoid extinction and as long as one or more succeed, it really doesn’t matter if the other billion, less a few, become extinct.

With a billion experiments going on under evolutionary processes, perhaps the mathematical odds favor one or more successful life entities. Will we be one of those successful entities? And if by chance, we are alone in this Universe, then, under those terms of reference, it’s either us or --- NOBODY.

If it were possible to bring back one of our ancestors from 300 years ago, that person would look at the progress we have made over that time and wonder if he was actually on a different planet all together than the one that he inhabited 300 years ago.

I believe that the human race has been given a sufficient level of mental acuity to allow us to live harmoniously with each other on a much greater scale than we are doing today. I believe that such harmony will allow more of the geniuses that are born each year to reach their full potential; and in the process, elevate the sum total of human knowledge exponentially, so that those who are born in the future will have an even better world to live in also.

If we ourselves were brought back to life 300 years into the future, who is to say that we wouldn’t be even more astonished at what the human race has accomplished at that time, than the imaginary person from 300 years ago would be astonished at what we have achieved today. I believe a deeper level of understanding about how the emotion of fear affects human behavior will allow the human race to shoulder more responsibility and more achievements without unduly endangering our physical, emotional and mental well being.

I believe that when we ask ourselves: --- what can we do to thank our Creator for the incredible miracle of life that he/she/it has bestowed upon us, --- our answer will be much closer to being: --- “everything I possibly could with the experience and knowledge that I have accumulated during my lifetime.”

Are these goals that I have listed above an indication that I have adopted an unrealistic and Polyannic approach to the future? Absolutely not! “We should strive to be, --- not better than anyone else is, but rather, --- to be better than we ever thought we could be.” The above delightful quotation belongs to the professional golfer, Ken Ventura.

It is said that if you believe that you will be successful, your chances of success increase dramatically. Let us therefore believe that with increased knowledge and experience, we will overcome the possibility of extinction for the human race itself and in the process, we will move inexorably --- CLOSER AND CLOSER TO OUR CREATOR.

The End

THE RELIGION OF TRUTH

Saturday, 28 February 2015

THE CLUTCH PEDAL HYPOTHESIS FOR EVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES.

DEFENDING INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Sunday, 22 February 2015

INTRODUCTION TO THE RELIGION OF TRUTH

THE RELIGION OF TRUTH