One of the best things about religion (whether it be Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Native American Medicine Way, Judaism, Janism, or any number of others) is that it enlarges one's sense of responsibility to others and to the World and to life itself...it extends the conscious boundaries of life.

Among the most basic teachings of religion stands this one...It's not ALL about me! There are others here whose rights matter just as much as mine do.

Religion challenges the narcissism of the isolated ego, and suggests that there are greater purposes to life than the little things the ego desires...and that leads directly to a much enlarged intelligence and sense of social responsibility, providing a person accepts the challenge and takes it on.

That sense of the sacred in life is the very thing, in fact, which civilizes us. Without anything sacred in life we are brutes engaging in mere survival tactics.

The fact that religion is also frequently divisive and destructive is largely because that little ego in the brute readily finds ways to abuse religion too. The ego is a clever little monster with entirely selfish concerns...survival, self-gratification, and enlargement of its holdings and power. To the ego only itself is sacred. All else is an opportunity to be made use of...or a danger to avoid.

Jesus' teachings were a spectacular challenge to that kind of narrow thinking, and deserve to be studied with great care regardless of whether or not one is a "Christian" (and there are many definitions of that word out there).

To be human is to recognize the humanity in others and treat them as you would wish to be treated under the same circumstances.

Great religions, great philosophies, and great scientific breakthroughs are not initiated or accomplished by non-existent people. They are accomplished by real flesh and blood humans, and those humans are remembered for a long time.

Somewhere down the line various little raging egos will seek to ensure their own transitory fame and sense of self-importance by writing books "proving" that Jesus or Buddha or Krishna or King Arthur or Robin Hood or Lao-Tse or someone else like that never existed. The value of their puny literary contribution to human development will be easily measured by how long their books are remembered. I give the guys who wrote your book a few years, at best.

- LH