I have long felt alienated from
Christianity by its obvious defects. After some soul searching, I made
a formal decision to advocate Agnosticism in 1994. I even started to
write an Agnostic Bible.98
I discarded Christianity, and
all of the other great religions of the world, on the ground that each
required me to believe in a myth system which had no obvious factual
basis. I consider it the rough equivalent of asking me, as a
40-something adult, to believe in Santa Claus. Thanks anyway, but I
grew up a long time ago.
The really amazing thing to me
is that there are so many serious believers out there who do still
maintain those irrational beliefs in "Santa Claus" type myth systems. I
then came to believe that churches do play an important role in our
lives, and you really cannot expect to replace something (a church)
with nothing (atheism), at least not for the masses.
When I looked at atheism, I
decided that it was merely yet another type of myth system: the myth
that there is no God. The real problem with atheism is that it denies
the essential spiritual nature of mankind and the mystery of a
universal creative energy (or force). Mankind yearns for a spiritual
home, and even when people are deprived of that spiritual home for
generations, they will still return as soon as they are able. Mankind
is not whole unless that spiritual nature is nurtured in some way, and
this generally requires some sort of church.
So, mankind needs a church,
and the church needs a Philosophy. After I came to the conclusion that
Agnosticism was the "correct" religious choice, I was then confronted
with the fact that, with one exception, there is no church for
agnostics.99
For various reasons, I do not find the one exception to be acceptable,
and therefore I have no church to call my spiritual home. Like many a
homeless person, I started to build myself some sort of shelter. That
resulted in the first draft of the Agnostic Bible, referred to above.
But a church also needs a Philosophy, which has led me to write this
book first.
98 As you can now see, some years of work have produced at least a "first draft." In fact, most of the ideas expressed in this book are developed even further in that book. However, it would be "putting the cart before the horse" if I were to try to publish that book before this one. In essence, I must first make a case for the creation of a new religion before I try to set forth the beliefs of that religion. I make that case in this book.
99 The exception is the Unitarian Universalist Church, which accepts all belief systems, with few exceptions, so long as the basic rules of the church are adhered to.