Is This Book for You?

This Book is a collection of related essays called Continuing Creation: Find Life’s Meaning & Purpose — In Nature, Reason, & Science. (And in History).  Our Book is also called, 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 the Book of 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 on your chosen spiritual or secular-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 the practitioners of Continuing 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 own 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’s 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’s for you…

— If you seek a Secular-Spiritual Path for inventors, achievers, optimists, discoverers, composers, entrepreneurs, workers, and all other types of creators…then this Book’s for you (then TBFY)

— If you are curious about the differences between God and what we call Continuing Creation: The Growing, Organizing, Direction of the Cosmos… then TBFY

— If you feel more spiritual when you look at a waterfall than when your Sunday preacher drones on about Original Sin…

     — If you believe in God, but maybe not all the magical myths and crazy miracle stories…

— If you think that God, The Whole of All Wholes, Mother Nature, Prime Mover, and Great Spirit are all pretty much the same thing…

— 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 relate 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 like doing meditation, but think it’s a waste of life for Buddhist and Christian monks to spend so much time meditating…

— 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 miracle stories in the Bible and in the texts of other religions 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 versus Muslims in the Middle East, Christians versus Muslims in the former Yugoslavia, Protestants versus Catholics in Northern Ireland, Hindus versus Muslims in parts of India, and so on…

— 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 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 that 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 to more to humanity than Mother Theresa…

— If it angers you to see a powerful world religion oppose birth control when the Earth is so clearly over-populated…

— 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 fine 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 the “vortex” in the 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 that education involves critical thinking, and not just memorizing the Koran…

— If you doubt 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 any anything or anyone because you are part of The Growing, Organizing, Direction and an active agent in 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. Often shown as glowing within Christ’s bosom.

— 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 God has a plan” for your life; or if you wonder why His plan so far has turned out really crappy…

— 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 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 are not a Muslim, but you still agree with them that God (or Continuing Creation, or the Ultimate, the Great Spirit, the Ground of All Being, or the Absolute) cannot be fully depicted or fully described…

… If you agreed with 3 or more of the above statements, then… This Book’s for You! 

In Closing, let us remind all readers that The 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 to other species in the name of religion.

Life is difficult, and if you have a 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, consider The Practice of Continuing Creation.