But putting these three religions together as the framework for guidelines for your charter bothers me no end. By making the case that through them such a charter is possible throws it out of the window in my view. While you rightly claim at their hearts these religions preach the Golden Rule, by their actions they exclude it. Only in the early stages of their development many hundreds of years ago—along with the Ancient Greeks who understood it well before—did these religions achieve any sense of the compassion of the Golden Rule, as you made clear. They most certainly do not now. The TV clip of you discussing the position of the Pope emphasizes this point. If there is ever an example of a Church off course it is Roman Catholicism. That is equally true of many of the divisions within Islam, Judaism and Christianity, based on the activities of their hatreds. You made the point it is not religion that is the cause of today’s conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, but politics. That is true if there is a defining difference. I often find it difficult to see one.

That is not the only problem associated with these doctrinaire religions. Each is male dominated. Each preaches exclusivity: we are right, everyone else is wrong. Each believes in its own view of divinity, creating conflicting faiths. And in common each abhors intellectualism; the scientific method is anathema to all three irrespective of its intellectual value. Typical example: Darwin’s evolution is reluctantly received, if indeed it is, by all three religions. Yet it is blindingly obvious to others. Therefore in this 21st century it is not surprising agnosticism is on the rise. It offers a view from the bridge in accordance with the intellectual quality of knowledge. Richard Dawkins’ atheism to the contrary, he points to a truth the faiths of all three religions wish would disappear. For these reasons may there not be a better way to foster your Charter for Compassion?

Implicit in your Charter is the belief that we humans perceive ourselves as different from all other forms of life. That is hardly surprising because I suppose horses, elephants, spiders do as well. But we feel we are a cut above the rest. Our faiths place us at the apex of god’s creation. We are the bee’s knees, the kings of his castle. Homo sapiens sapiens, the symbol user, René Descartes’ “I think therefore I am,” puts us on an evolutionary pedestal above the rest. But does this not demonstrate our weakness, our Illusion of Central Position, believing we are god’s gift to the world?

Take belief for example. It can be argued that belief is a failing, an inherited human weakness that disallows the opportunity for differing viewpoints to hatch in the mind and therefore take their young place alongside that which is believed. Thus denied other viewpoints, the mind becomes blinkered to one fixed view. Its reasoning abilities become impaired. Faith—believing in a belief system that you have been told to believe in—does not tolerate inquiry. And when the belief system is passed on to others over generations, it has the uncanny ability to grow into a religion. Then, not only does the individual mind suffer the loss of free thought, via the paralysis of believing, so too does the religious community lose its ability to question even the most obvious anomalies. In this sense the religion itself is failing. Each and every religion knows only one and the same thing absolutely: their god rules. His beliefs (always a “his”) are sacrosanct and beyond doubt! This is the primary complication of our Illusion of Central Position.

And this: 99.9% of all life forms that have inhabited this planet over its duration (what, 4.5 billion years, give or take a few million) are extinct. What science moves us towards is the insignificance of being human that is both fascinating and humbling at the same time, not the significance religious folk get their knickers in a twist over, believing we humans are made as god and by god. Was there a god before us? Will there be one after us? It is the human concept of believing in a god, any god, or in anything else for that matter, that becomes untenable to the likes of Richard Dawkins and many others.

The value of knowing—as different from believing—that we are but physical entities, with given but unknown durations, is fulfilling enough for an ever-increasing number of non-believers. So is the knowledge that when I die I will not be, although what makes up me will continue to be. And that the realization of a scientific fact today can be absolute nonsense tomorrow. And the recognition that a blade of grass is just as much alive as me, and that we share the same DNA to be so, takes away the burden of having to believe—because we have been told to—that I am any more important than anything else.

Religion seeks significance of self: it’s all about me. Science tends toward illustrating just the opposite: how insignificant each of us is in the whole scheme of things. Insignificance is rewarding as it intuitively gives us the solid comfort of knowing our place in the world. You may not be much but at least you don’t have to worry about being good enough for god. All you have to concern yourself with is being good enough for yourself, your family, and your neighbors. Now “do not do unto others as you would not be done by,” or however you wish to phrase the Golden Rule, makes wondrous sense. It comes to life because it encompasses all life. It is not centered on belief, faith, or us, but the joy of all things, birds, bees, butterflies and, most importantly, their and our continuance.

To me the greatest piece of knowledge is that the greater the variety of species, the greater each has for survival. Now there in the wider world waits your Center of Compassion, don’t you think?
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Jim Knapton, Lake Oswego, Oregon, USA