Photo above: Most of our Readers choose to be active learners, builders, teachers, farmers, engineers… Creators in ethical walks of life.
Is This Book for You?
(Essay #5, at 6-16-25)
This book is a collection of related Essays called Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation: Finding Life’s Meaning & Purpose — In Nature, Science, & History. We also refer to this book as Nature’s Continuing Creation: The Growing, Organizing, Direction of the Cosmos.
Clearly, everyone has the right to read or not to read this book, as they see fit. But this book about Nature’s Continuing Creation will be less meaningful to some potential readers, and more meaningful to others. Below are our recommendations:
People Who Should Probably Not Read This Book
If you are fulfilled and happy in your life; happy with your chosen spiritual path; and if you are not at all curious about religion; not curious about other faiths or philosophies; and not curious about the union of those subjects with Nature, Reason, and Science… then no, you should probably not read this book.
Why not? Because life is hard, and if you have a faith, path, or philosophy that fully works for you, then we practitioners of Continuing Natural Creation (including author J.X. Mason) are not intent on “converting” you. We want everyone to get through life as best they can. (However, even people who are totally at ease in their present spiritual lives should consider marking an “M” in the margins of all the nonsensical myths and miracle stories in their sacred texts.)
People Who Should Read This Book
If your present spiritual path is not fully working for you, or if you are simply interested in religion, philosophy, science, yoga, meditation, spirituality, or secular-spirituality, then you should consider reading this book.
If you agree with 3 or more of the following simple statements, then “This book is for you…”
— If you think not enough attention is being paid to the biosphere of Earth, and there is insufficient regard for the precious value of the Earth… then this Book is for you.
— If you feel the Judeo-Christian-Islamic God is overloaded with testosterone (He led and still leads battles for the Promised Land; required and sometimes still “requires” animal sacrifices, honor killings, strict obedience, and subservient roles for women)… then this Book Is For You (“TBFY”)
— If you believe in God, but maybe not all the magical myths and crazy miracle stories…
— If you would like to know how a strong, complete, and fulfilling spiritual system can be based on science (including the sciences of human behavior)…
— If you would like to know how Life’s Meaning & Purpose relates to Mathematics, Patterns, or Complexity Science…
— If you are more concerned with supporting your family than helping the poor and downtrodden in remote parts of the world…
— If you would like to see a religion that celebrates human creativity as much as it does human compassion…
— If you think it’s just as important (or more important) for your son or daughter to be on a soccer team than in a Sunday School…
— If you don’t believe that wine and wafers are actually turned into Christ’s blood and body during a communion celebration…
— If you regard the Bible’s miracle stories and other religions’ texts as mere metaphors…
— If you think it’s just as important to save the world’s honeybees from extinction as it is to save the world’s children from disease…
— If you are appalled to see religions fighting each other – Jews vs. Muslims in the Middle East, Christians vs. Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, Protestants vs. Catholics in Northern Ireland, Hindus vs. Muslims in parts of India…
— If it would surprise you to learn that Buddhists don’t worship the Buddha because the Buddha was a holy man and teacher, not a god…
Muslim Women Sweltering in Burkas
— If you think it is wrong for Muslims to encase their women in black bags, or to stone them to death for infidelity…
— If you are pretty sure that the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, not 6,000 years ago as some fundamentalist Christians claim…
— If you are pretty sure that humans were not around at the time of the dinosaurs…
— If you understand that the science of evolution is massively supported by scientific evidence of several types…
— If you think it is impractical and unrealistic to love people on the other side of the Earth as much as you love your family and friends…
— If your parents were Hindus or Buddhists, but you yourself are pretty sure people aren’t reincarnated after they die…
— If you think it’s unnecessary for Sikh men to never cut their hair, and for Orthodox Jews to keep their dairy and meat in separate refrigerators…
Thomas A. Edison, American Inventor
— If you think there may be more spirituality in Thoreau’s book, Walden, than there is in the New Testament…
— If you think turning on a light bulb in your house is a truer and more important miracle than Jesus’ supposedly raising Lazarus from the dead…
— If you are pretty sure that Thomas Edison and Dr. Jonas Salk contributed more to humanity than Mother Teresa…
— If it angers you to see powerful world religions oppose birth control when the Earth is so clearly overpopulated…
— If you prefer reason, evidence, and logic over superstition and blind belief…
— If you shake your head when you hear a hurricane survivor say, “It’s a miracle that God saved my house,” when the houses all around him were completely destroyed…
If the owner of this still-standing, post-hurricane House is “Blessed by God,” are all his neighbors “Punished by God?” Maybe “Overlooked by God?”
— If you think prayer is acceptable for others, but you yourself get more out of practicing yoga or Transcendental Meditation…
— If you doubt the “spiritual power” of crystals, tarot cards, and a “vortex” located near Sedona, Arizona…
— If you’ve always questioned why the Catholic Church saw fit to torture and kill thousands of people during the Inquisition…
— If you think sitting all day, day after day, in the lotus position and meditating on your breath is a waste of your life…
— If you fall asleep during Sunday Services because giving away all your possessions and abandoning your family to follow Jesus doesn’t strike you as Life’s Highest Calling…
— If you think education involves critical thinking, and not just memorizing the Koran…
— If you doubt that Jesus turned wine into water, but you believe that Thomas Edison invented the phonograph…
— If you think Muhammad was wrong to force millions into Islam under threat of the sword…
— If you think it is wrong to encourage couples to produce more than three children, particularly if one man is producing numerous children by multiple wives…
— If you refuse to kneel down before anything or anyone because you are an active agent in Nature’s Continuing Creation…
— If you believe that creating prosperity is just as important, or more important, than sharing prosperity…
The Catholic “Sacred Heart”- flaming, pierced, encircled by the crown thorns.
— If you believe that life on Earth was not created in seven days, but evolved over millions of years…
— If you find Catholic paintings of saints, showing open chests and purple hearts pierced by thorns, to be ghastly and grotesque…
— If you get more out of going to your Masonic Lodge or your Rotary Club than you do out of going to church…
— If you doubt that God has a plan for your life, or if you wonder why His plan so far has turned out very poorly…
— If you don’t think that Jesus or any other human being was ever God…
— If you understand the principle of Emergence (perhaps because you are versed in modern science), and you want to learn how that relates to Continuing Creation…
— If you wrongly think that Nature’s Continuing Creation has to do with ghosts, magic, and the occult…
— If the concept of the Holy Trinity makes no sense to you…
— If you agree with Jews & Muslims that God (or Continuing Creation, Ultimate, Great Spirit, Ground-of-All-Being, or Absolute) cannot be fully depicted or described…
… If you agreed with 3 or more of the above statements, then… This Book of Essays is for You!
Notes: Nature’s Path of Continuing Creation fully supports freedom of religion and opposes illegal and immoral violence (overt or subtle) done to other humans, to the biosphere, and/or to other species in the name of religion.
Life is difficult, and if you have a spiritual or secular-spiritual path that works for you, we have no desire to turn you away from it. But if you seek a different path, or if you have questions, please consider The Practice of Nature’s Continuing Creation.
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— J.X. Mason. ContinuingCreation.org