With the Manifesto, I am declaring that I am intelligent, rational and logical enough that I don't need the idea of an Orwellian "heavenly father" grabbing me by the scruff of the neck and telling me what's righteous, moral and good. For the human race to invent such fanciful concepts as ethereal deities demonstrates just how superstitious, backward and unsure of itself our species really is.

According to the strictest interpretation of atheism, I would have to admit (for the first, but certainly not the last time) that I am not a card-carrying atheist.*** My beliefs include an abiding faith in the individual Conscience of mankind as the basis of ones spirituality. I do, however, agree with much of the atheistic philosophy that we, as human beings with a somewhat higher intelligence level than animals, should have as a matter of biological and intellectual development a higher sense of right and wrong than animals. The concept of organized religion takes that ideal and taints it with the notion that of all the species in the universe, we humans aren't competent enough to rule our emotions nor our intellect and must be directed by the propaganda and brainwashing of the misdirected clergy (of whatever faith) to worship a "god" (or Jesus, or Vishnu, or allah, ad nauseum) in order to find spiritual fulfillment. Yet, the very justifications for these diverse and often disparate deities throughout history seems to be one major cause underlying most of mankind's present misery. I believe that we can be better as a species without the dogma of culturally sanctioned religions directing our diverse individual consciences and spirituality toward their own agendas and aspirations, usually at the expense of other lives (either collectively or individually).

It's my firm belief that in less than 1000 years, assuming our earth to be still habitable, christianity will be nothing more than a "third world" cult, much like the cult of voodoo in the Caribbean. A far more spiritually enlightened mankind will have converted, in large part, to the Far Eastern religions (Buddhism, taoism, Confucianism, etc.) Furthermore, I predict that a vast segment of the population will be completely irreligious or non-theistic, tolerating the much more earthly and humane spirituality and beliefs of those Eastern religions, but unwilling to submit to yet another dogmatic and dictatorial "ism" attempting to direct individual thinking. Any sort of research into theological history will reveal that every single deistically inspired religion ever conceived by humanity over the millenia has either radically altered its basic theology or, in far more cases, has had to face up to the inevitability of intellectual progress and discovery which our species represents and has thereby been forced to give up the ghost (holy or otherwise). Human reason can't help but ultimately reject nonsense, even if the processes of that rejection are thousands of years in the making. Modern science, I would venture to say, will speed up these processes to a considerable degree.

***This view has since changed and I now recognize in myself a healthy atheism as an antidote to the nihilism implied by agnosticism. I still don't have a card to carry, however.

Page written by: Eric D. Tallberg

October, 1998