Dear Sir/Madam,

I have been following recent developments in the Anglican Church with some amusement (Williams calls crisis meeting to avoid split over gay bishop, 9 August 2003). I don't like to laugh at others' misfortune (especially at Rowan Williams, who I find an eminently likeable person), but I am far from convinced that that is what it is.

Things could be a lot worse, after all. Three or four hundred years ago (which isn't that long when you take a God's-eye view of things) both sides of the dispute would have been condemning each other to eternal damnation and speeding some of the others passage there by burning them at the stake.

It is time we put all belief in divine biblical authority behind us and consigned it to history where it belongs. It has played an incredibly important role in the development of Western Civilisation and surely many of the values it has given us are of permanent value, but we no longer need (if we ever did) all the nonsense associated with it. On the contrary, we need to be rid of it, in order to replace it with something more enlightened, more truthful and more applicable to the modern world and its problems, particularly that of creating a sustainable economy and lifestyles for 7-9 billion people on our imperilled planet with its limited resources and finite carrying capacity.

Having often been encouraged by Christians to read the Bible, some years back I actually did so, reading the New Testament from beginning to end, the selected extracts from the Old Testament. I read it with some trepidation, but with as open a mind as possible. If it contained the "light of Truth" I didn't want to miss it.

However, far from finding the "Light of Truth", I found myself incredulous that anyone could take so much nonsense seriously, let alone millions upon millions of people over hundreds of years of history. Although that, of course, is a very powerful argument and inducement for believing it: surely millions of people, some of them extremely intelligent, very well educated and among the most respected, influential and powerful members of society, cannot all be wrong . . . . ?! You cannot help feeling that it HAS to be true: that Jesus was the "Son of God", born of a virgin, walked on water, turned it into wine, and was risen from the dead, having died for the redemption our our sins, etc.

Perhaps all these biblical Truths are true. I have no way of proving absolutely that they are not. But my rational mind tells me to assume otherwise. 

But if they are not true, what are they? 

Is it possible that the world's largest and most influential religion is based, not on "Gospel Truth", but on "Gospel Lies" ?

Perhaps "lies" is too harsh a word. Let us call them myths. Many ancient Greeks believed in the veracity of their mythical Gods (Zeus and his crowd) and threatened violence to rational philosophers who suggested that they were the creation of imaginative human minds.

Is it any wonder that the Christian churches have so few members, or that those it has are so lacking "enthusiasm"? What rational person is going to believe the nonsense they find in the Bible and in the Christian theology derived from it, unless they have exceptional talent in intellectual gymnastics and self-deception or are tricked into believing that doing so is a test of the strength of their faith? Which it certainly is! It takes a lot of blind faith to believe such manifest nonsense.

This doesn't mean to say that the Bible and Christianity are not of immense historical and cultural importance, which they undeniably are.

But all this nonsense about SALVATION and just having to believe in Jesus to be saved and assured a place in paradise . . . .  What a load of codswallop!

Never mind saving our vain, egoistical souls for the afterlife, what about saving our planet for our children and coming generations?!

What annoys me about Christianity and other monotheistic religions is the way they attempt (and largely succeed) in "hijacking" God, claiming theirs as the only true (concept of) God and declaring everyone else more-or-less godless.

Personally, if I had to choose between the Judo-Christian or Muslim God and no God at all, I'd rather get by without.

Fortunately, I'm big enough and ugly enough, and live in country now civilised enough to let me choose my own God.

But rather than choose a God of someone else's making, I prefer to create my own (concept of) God. It has the advantage that I can adapt it to suit myself and my perception of the world, rather than having to submit to an external authority - the Bible, for example, or some particular interpretation of it. It is what one might refer to as "Democratic Theology". 

Many will maintain that we don't need any kind of theology, but I disagree. Since, without some kind of "higher authority" (call it God, Providence, or what you will) we are lost. 

Right now our situation can be likened to that of a giant passenger ship (our nation state) steering its course together with numerous others (some, like us, way out in front, many lagging being, others in tow) mutually assuring each other that we are all basically on the right course, crossing a dark and misty ocean. No one knows where we are heading, but it is built and programmed into the system and taken for granted that we must maintain as high a rate of knots as possible (technological progress and economic growth).

In fact, we are heading towards rocks (our planet's limited resources and finite carrying capacity), but no one, it seems, has both the insight and the authority to tell us how the rudder must be turned to steer us away from certain calamity and possible extinction. Instead, thousands of experts and opinion makers are shouting and arguing their cases for this and that minor course correction, but never questioning the general course we are on, because they fail to see how fundamentally non-sustainable it is, since that would entail questioning their own place and role in society, their lifestyles and ways of making money.

The word "religion" is derived from Latin, re ligare, meaning to bind together. No ONE can change the world. We can only do that when many of us act together. Thus, what we need are religions based on philosophies and ethics of sustainability, and offering concepts of God which will fill us with "enthusiasm" for what we are doing, while guiding us away from our materialistic, more animal than human nature and behaviour (on which our current, non-sustainable economy and lifestyles are largely based), towards more enlightened, more human than animal, far less materialistic, forms of behaviour as a basis for a sustainable economy and lifestyles.