One can take the attitude that each one of us is held captive by our psychological and temperamental make up; that we cannot escape from the mould in which we were cast; that we really have no choice at all, but must follow the direction of our training and temperament. While it is true that we are moulded in the past, and inclined to follow its directions, history, I suggest, proves that we do have choices, that individually we can bring about change. We are not compelled to follow established patterns. Education and social change can liberate us from convention. The American Pilgrim Fathers chose to leave Europe in 1620 to establish a community where they could live according to their own moral principles. Action followed their convictions and a new nation was established. The Wright brothers and others chose to spend their money and energies on building flying machines because they believed it was possible. Thereby they changed the travelling habits of millions of people and greatly improved world communications. Men and women of science everywhere have always chosen to trust their own reasoned conclusions and experiments to discover and elucidate the true nature of matter.

The fact that you chose to buy and read a book like this is a statement that you recognise that there may be another point of view about the existence of a god. Every day we give room to some ideas and let others pass by. We are continually choosing by saying yes or no to the passing parade of possibilities. There are very few things that we cannot change. Often we choose to put up with uncomfortable situations, but we do not have to do so. If we want to enough, we can change the situation. History is full of stories of men and women of action who set out and changed their world and society. The thrilling truth is that we can change our attitudes, thoughts and actions, but we must choose to do so ourselves; no one can do it for us. Personal development and emotional growth are within the grasp of each one of us if we want them enough.

We have suggested how the notion of a god, overlording the destiny of human beings, grew out of ignorance and fear. How religions developed from the idea that the gods required continual sacrifices to appease them and fend off their divine wrath. We have seen how religions built upon those ideas to create huge power structures of dogma, fears and fantasy which burdened the peoples of the world for thousands of years.

We have examined the authenticity and ethics of the Bible and found no evidence of divine origin. The Bible is unable to provide a better moral code than was already existing in the community at the time of its inception. It conveys the ethics and understanding of its own period of history. Modern philosophical, sociological and psychological research has opened out far deeper understanding of the causes and directions of human interaction than was possible two thousand years ago.

I cannot see any important difference between the power of belief in a god and self hypnosis. Each occurs within the believer's own mind and may appear to have superhuman power to motivate and stimulate reactions within the body.

There is a persistent idea in the minds of people that the teaching of Christianity is a doctrine of love and truth. As we have seen by looking carefully at the Bible and history, we can find nothing unique about its teaching. Love and truth have always been part of human experience, just as surely as have anger and greed. The roots of the Christian philosophy spring from the notion of retribution, the wicked punished and the righteous rewarded. When we equate love and righteousness with religion, we confuse and deceive ourselves. History shows that religion has always been associated with bigotry, intolerance and physical and mental cruelty. When we break away from this narrow thinking of rewards and punishment we can begin to understand the causes of anti-social behaviour.

Human beings are not innately virtuous; but they are innately social beings and act socially toward their fellows without god or religion coming into the picture at all. We do not have to be persuaded to be human and social; these things come naturally to us when the malfunctioning parts of our personality are healed. Kari Marx said, "the abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is required for their real happiness." We can find true happiness through association in and with the society of which we are a part.

The things that mostly worried me about the Christian religion, were moral issues. I was never able to reconcile the idea of an almighty, just and caring god with the mindless and unjust suffering innocent victims experience. There is something seriously wrong with the notion of a righteous and loving god when whole communities can starve and die because of drought, earthquake or some other "act of god". I can see no reason at all for human beings to love or believe in a god who obviously does not love and care for all the creatures he is supposed to have created.

There is also something very false when we place religious dogma ahead of our own human social feelings and experiences. We become insensitive to the real essence of our humanity when we regard religious or any other absolute dogma as more important than person to person relationships.

Our species has devoted vast resources to building up gigantic structures of belief which have absolutely no scientific basis. There is no indisputable scientific proof of a spirit god or life after death. Yet millions of people pursue the notion in a manner similar to that of the primitives practising belief in magic. Most people believe in a god because they have been taught to think that he exists and have not had the opportunity or time to question that belief.

With our knowledge, and in our age, it is time we ceased chasing shadows and expectations of divine deliverance. It is time we really looked at all human races as people of equal importance and equal birthright. The power and resources are in our own hands to live individually a full and rewarding life in harmony with society and to contribute to the betterment of all peoples throughout the wide world.

We have noted how religion has denigrated mankind as unworthy and sinful beings but has failed to recognise their social worth or personal potential. Fortunately the ancient god of the Bible is becoming less audible. Science is filling up most of the spaces in our understanding previously occupied by the notion of a god. We no longer wonder who initiated the unexpected calamities which happen to us from time to time; instead we look to a lack of hygiene or some other physical cause. Occurrences which in the past, appeared to be the will of some capricious spirit force have now been explained by the laws of nature.

Powerful and far-reaching superstitious ideas about a supposed hereafter have come from Christian dogma and other religions. They have detracted from the independent responsibility of human beings to acknowledge their own worth in society and solve human discord by good law and ethical teaching.

Religion has suggested that the destiny of people is dependent on the will of a god or force other than themselves. Such religions bring into human relationships a distorting element that turns social humanistic values upside down by demeaning human worth. People have channelled a great deal of attention into the false premise of a god whom they hope may be prevailed upon to solve human problems. They do this instead of being primarily concerned with human to human values, personal growth, social interaction and working for their own salvation in this life.

Religion has promoted a negative concept of human beings, emphasising all the failures it is subject to, such as jealousy and greed. It has been most concerned with an absolute dogma of a supposed controlling deity. Such a notion is totally without scientific proof and outside real human experience except in the imagination of religious devotees.

The Jewish religion grew out of the hazardous relationship the nation had with hostile neighbours and the myths of surrounding nations. Fear of being over-run centred their minds on tactics of survival. The adoption of an exclusive, national and supernatural god to protect them from their enemies was the equivalent of the magical forces used by the native Pacific Islanders and others which we talked about in the chapter on magic.

Christianity adopted the same notion of a saviour as did the ancient Hebrew religion. Instead of a Messiah for the nation, belief in Jesus is said to ensure peace in the next world. Throughout history, nations in distress have always produced Messiahs, either religious or political, in an effort to save the nation. In the mid 1930s, Hitler became the Messiah to the German nation. Churchill also became a Messiah to the British people. We could name nation after nation where a charismatic leader became the saviour of the people, or at least appeared to do so for a short time.

With the Christian concept of a divine saviour has come a whole string of dependent notions, which could fairly be defined in many people as dependency neuroses. They include the idea of the inadequacy of the human self, as a person of independent worth, able to control his or her own destiny. A modern Catholic priest, Felix Donnelly, who gained his doctorate in psychology and has specialised in counseling young people, had this to say in his book "Flames and Ether",

"Through human history, and certainly at the present time, the concept of the Deity has been used to deny individual humanity and to foster an unhealthy sense of personal un-worthiness and dependency."

The religious attack has been on the individual person's sense of self worth. Whereas modern research shows the value and need for self esteem, the Christian dogma denigrates the person as a sinner destined for damnation, unless he become the recipient of divine assistance. In trying to teach the need for salvation, religion has of necessity had to preach the sinfulness and unworthiness of mankind. But you cannot teach a precept without automatically creating an awareness of the opposite, as the following will illustrate.

My wife was educated in a school run by a restrictive order of nuns. She often remarked that in their concern for the purity and salvation of the girls, the nuns became obsessed with the opposite and in fact talked incessantly about sex, death and damnation. Sex was said to be the pathway to damnation. By attacking sexuality and calling it evil, they distorted the very basis of personal and family relationships and brought guilt and emotional suffering to their pupils.

The notion of a holy god and a sinful people found in religion has percolated throughout European communities right down to the individual. Our humanism has had to express itself in spite of dogmatic training which runs contrary to instincts. Religion has made us suspicious of our own worth, and we end up being suspicious of each other; each group being suspicious of the motives of every other group and each nation being suspicious of all other nations.

This attitude results in our regarding the world as a predatory environment. This is very evident in labour-management relationships. The adversarial system puts one side against the other; union versus management, capital versus labour, so that each endeavours to exploit the other. How much better it would be if they could adopt a win-win attitude and co-operate to achieve common goals for the good of all members of the establishment.

A natural outcome of suspicion is mistrust and ruthless competition, but the natural outcome of humanism is co-operation. Competition divides people into winners and losers, a few winners and many losers. Competition can leave shattered hopes and lives. On the other hand, co-operation implies a win-win situation where everyone benefits. The best business transactions result in both buyer and seller being pleased with the deal. We do not need to be ruthless predators. Co-operation can operate in the home, extend to the work place and the society in which we live. It provides for the needs of all participants.

I am not saying that religious dogma is the only damaging influence. What I am saying is that the premise of the Christian philosophy is damaging to human development. Christianity is an anti-life philosophy in that it teaches the superiority of life in the supposed next world. It assumes a person to a god or dogma relationship, at the expense of people to people relationships.

Instead of a person being able to say "I am a trustworthy person, therefore you are a trustworthy person", religion has taught many of us to say, "I am an unworthy and a sinful person". The corollary is that you also are an unworthy and sinful person. Fortunately, in recent times, we are slowly beginning to learn the real secret of inner harmony and success in personal and inter-personal relationships.

Our need, as the late Professor Carl Rogers taught, is for Personal Self Regard. This is the key to humanism and is the opposite to the idea of the un-worthiness taught by religion. Real self regard is a state of inner satisfaction where there is no emptiness or doubt. No one will tell you when you have reached that state, you will know within yourself.

The idea that one can gain the realisation of self worth through dependency on the love of a god or Jesus is a contradiction of terms. Dependency on a vicarious or deputed self worth is not self worth at all. Self worth is independent of the approval or opinion of someone else.

There is no doubt that the direction of the adult life is largely determined by the early life and experiences of the child. It is at our mother's breasts that our education begins. In spite of the many hurts and disappointments we suffer in life, there are persistent human qualities of tenderness, compassion, justice and a desire for social accord in varying degrees within each one of us.

It is as though the unfeeling religious dogma of rewards and punishment, demands of superstition and distrust, with all their attendant negative notions, have diminished but not destroyed the social imperatives of co-operation and love found (or at least potentially found) within us all.

It would be fine if all children could acquire self esteem early in life. We would begin to find that children would trust other children and the world would begin to change. But it is not as simple as that. It is usually only those parents who have self esteem themselves who will be likely to infuse self esteem into their children. We come down to the wise statement ,"I can change the world by changing myself, I cannot change others." It is a matter of personally wanting change and doing something about it.

Putting Thoughts into Actions

Religion can be a thing of the emotions touching deep senses of our being. True believers, whatever the doctrine followed, expect to gain peace of mind, a sense of rightness, comfort and assurance from their religion. They may look on god as a supreme father figure who will care for them in times of need. They feel submissive and sober in "the house of god". This makes it very hard for a person who has fully accepted the dogma to look dispassionately and honestly at religion.

Many may fear to investigate too deeply in case they place themselves outside the security they now feel and enjoy. My brother was invited to come with me to listen to a different point of view. He stated clearly that he did not want to have anything to do with another point of view if it could result in the loss of his Christian faith. He was not prepared to even consider testing the validity of his belief. In less than five years he was dead. I was very fond of my brother and have often thought that a change in his attitude and thinking could have added a new dimension to his life and perhaps affected his health.

I had intimate contact with many keen Bible students over forty years. I am convinced that honest enquiring Christians with few exceptions, are unable to fully resolve their doubts. I have heard them talk about 'wrestling with their faith.' They are compelled, as I was, to push the doubt away and resort to reaffirming what appears to be acceptable. It is not easy to break away from established associations and stand alone. The alternative as I see it is to live with divided emotions and restricted potential.

Many have been taught to carry a nebulous fear of loss should they not comply with their religious teaching about the supposed after-life. Some are looking for an insurance policy just in case the religion they have been taught turns out to be true. For two years I shared accommodation in Jerusalem with an Armenian lay-preacher who had been trained in the Baptist College in Beirut , Lebanon . He was born into a Christian family but due to certain circumstances had spent his early years with a devout Moslem family and was compelled to follow their practices. I knew him well as a committed Christian worker. During the sacred Moslem fast of Ramadan, I happened to go up to our room. Looking out on to the attached flat roof I was amazed to see my room mate facing toward Mecca and busily prostrating himself in a Moslem prayer. He was endeavouring to placate Allah just in case Islam turned out to be the true faith after all. I wonder how many Christians also follow church teaching as an insurance just in case religion and an after-life are real.

It is not always easy to accept the independence that rejection of god is bound to bring. Our emotions may be involved. It is like the cutting of the umbilical cord of a new born child, a severing of a formally supportive resource. In the case we are examining a severing of a supposed supportive resource of a god. It is vital for the child to have the cord cut so that it can become self sustaining and live an independent life of its own. Like the child we can only reach the full potential of our human experience by being free and independent.

The new child has the cord cut by others, a person struggling with doubt as to the existence of a god has to do the severing personally without outside help. Some of us, which certainly included myself, have put a great deal of time and money to support a religious belief. In the end we have to turn our backs on the past with all its memories. We must do this in order that we may step into a new and rewarding experience of an independent self sustaining life.

It is not easy to reject that which we formerly embraced, yet there is no logical or honest alternative. It certainly requires a personal decision to end inner conflict and to open a new and honest chapter in one's life experience. For me the decision was followed by a tremendous sense of the shedding of unreality. It was as if I had been washed and cleansed of contamination. It was like putting down a weight I had carried for so long that I had become unaware of its presence until I experienced the lightness of being free from its burden.

Each individual who has the courage to make this decision will experience relief in a personal and perhaps different way, but relief is bound to occur. There is no reason why we cannot grow in human understanding and personal development. It is then that the rejected past with all its associations can become an asset to us and our knowledge and strength become of value to others.

One of our friends was spending the weekend with the family at our seaside cottage. It was situated a considerable distance from the services of a doctor. In the small hours of the morning our friend had a heart attack. I put him into the back of my motorcar and finally located the doctor who examined him and gave him an injection by the light of a handheld torch. The doctor quietly advised me to get him to a hospital, some eighty kilometres away, as quickly as possible and that he might not last the journey. When I got back to the car my friend said, "Steve - it looks like the end - well - no regrets - it's been a good life". I have never forgotten that remark spoken in the dark hours of a morning so long ago.

To me that was a marvellous statement by a man who did not fear death.

My friend's remark raises the question of why people fear death. Of course there are many reasons a person would want to hold on to life but we are talking about the fear of death. Is it the fear of an uncertain other life; the judgment of a god as taught by the Christian religion or just a fear of the unknown? Fear of the unknown would indicate a belief in a further existence. If we believe that death is the absolute end of human existence there could be nothing for a dying person to fear any more than we fear going to sleep at night.

All animals, which includes human beings, have a will to live and will fight to repel danger or harm. It is said that the will to live is the strongest drive we have. And why not? Life is full of opportunities that we may enjoy. The time may come, however, when it is apparent that life is drawing to a close. It is then that the fears of many may arise. Some of us, like my friend, may be able to say "No regrets, it's been a good life."

Let me remind you of two of the sayings of Confucius: "True goodness springs from a man's own heart." and "Virtue cannot live in solitude, neighbours are sure to grow up around it." Those of us who give expression to our natural human qualities of compassion, justice, love and goodwill will not be without friends. Like a spreading tree, love has many branches and each branch has smaller branches which carry green leaves and provide shade and comfort for other creatures.

If we have the courage to reject the religious notion of a god, we will find that we can accept that the world and its population, just is. We will then be free to eliminate religious confusion and directly pursue truth, peace, caring and social co-operation which go to build a just and equitable existence for all on this our beautiful planet.

We do not need a god to implant noble and ethical standards of behaviour within us. We were born with a full complement of social assets. The opportunities are there for us to choose a self reliant and positive life-style characterised by full and happy relationships with our fellow social members. We can experience life in all its dimensions, but only if we choose to do so. Such a life will spring automatically from the strength of our inner security, peace and social awareness but most of all it will come from personal self regard. We only live once; let us live it well.