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... to restore theology to the mainstream of science 

Compassion

The God of the Old Testament is presented as a hard man. Miles He demands unconditional love from his creatures, but is not above violence toward them. This violence is is quite unnecessary if his power is what it is claimed to be. The God of the New testament and the natural god can be compassionate, stepping in to help individuals experiencing hardship.

Science shows us quite clearly that the living world came to be how it is by a process of evolution. Evolution happens, as we shall see, whenever there are more possibilities than can be realized with the available resources. The resulting competition for resources selects from among the possibilities those best adapted to realizing themselves.

From the evolutionary point of view, a good religion is one that confers fitness on its adherents. There can be no doubt that by this criterion, the Christian religions have been an outstanding success. They have taken over the territory of thousands of smaller religions.; and their adherents, on the whole, have a higher standard of living than not-Christians.

The power of Christianity lies both in the institutions it has built up over two millennia, and in the claim it makes to its obedient adherents: to deliver nothing less than an eternal life of heavenly bliss. I no longer believe this claim, although it took me many years to reconcile myself to losing my promised reward.

Scientific and business ethics do not allow us to promote things using false claims. Scientific method demands that all claims be based on properly controlled observation. If we cannot see and control god and heaven, we cannot contract to deliver them.

All we can offer is modelled insight into the prerequisites for peace on earth. We agree with the traditional religions that peace comes from communication with god. We expect theology to produce strategies for the realization of peace.

The most important principle, arising from Shannon's work on communication, is that cooperation creates headroom, and headroom enables us to eliminate the errors that appear in human space as hatred, pain, hunger, disease, war, loneliness and so on. Shannon

The elimination of these errors is the work of compassion, stepping in to help those in difficulty.

Our theology remains just an hypothesis until it is proved in action. If heaven on earth is a realistic possibility, how do we achieve it?

A good religion, we propose, will bring our behaviour into harmony with our environment. On the assumption that we and our environments are divine, this is tantamount to becoming aware of and respecting the will of god. There is no doubt that the resources of the planet can support us all in comfort if they are properly used and not destroyed.

The good news from natural religion is that one can do anything with sufficient energy and information. The solar energy falling on the developed parts of our planet exceeds our current consumption by a huge factor. There is no limit to the ingenuity that can be brought to bear on internalizing all our impacts so that we minimize our impact on the earth and each other.

It all depends on cooperation. To cooperate effectively, we need a shared plan, a global religion broad enough to accept everyone, excluding only behaviour which is demonstrably dangerous to public health. A compassionate religion, with firm boundaries scientifically rooted in reality.

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