Unlike political or secular moral views, religion is an attempt to establish an ultimate truth. Either God is there or he isn't; either there is a life after death or there is not. All human beings must make their choices, not just about these issues, but about an almost infinite variety of lesser questions and details. If we take Christianity alone, we must make choices on which denomination we wish to belong to or to which pieces of biblical teaching we wish to give prominence and which we choose to ignore. If we believe in the Bible, do we take it literally? Is some of it mistranslated? Do we believe, in creation or evolution? To answer these questions is a struggle; to ignore their significance, a mistake.

I am not a Christian, nor do I believe in any other form of religion. I would like to explain something of how I have reached the conclusion that rationality, rather than religion, is the right way for me, and many others, to live their lives. The ideas that I would like to contribute to contemporary Christianity are not an attempt to undermine it, nor convince anyone to abandon their faith, merely I would like to propose an open discussion about how we arrive at our beliefs. I believe that thought, analysis and questioning can only be a good thing and are necessary for any movement or way of thinking to survive.

Christianity, like all religions, is about faith — of which there is no shortage in the world. The majority of the world's population have religious convictions, including millions across the world who devote their lives to prayer and the service of God. The trouble is, they don't all agree. Faith alone cannot be a guide to the truth, because faith and absolute conviction can make people believe in such different, sometimes completely opposite things. As mere human beings, how can we be expected to make sense of it all? How can we be expected to wade through the falsehoods to seek the `true light' when the vast majority of the world see it to be somewhere else? How can we be expected to make an unbiased choice when religion is so heavily influenced by the country into which we were born, by the cultural and religious views of our parents?

Having rejected faith alone as a means of finding the truth, I am left with nothing else by which to go. Does one religion make more sense than another? Not to me. Do some religions appeal to me more than others? Yes, but what guide is this in finding the `truth'? Religion strikes me as similar to a `pick and mix' counter, a selection made to suit the taste of the chooser. By this mentality, biblical teachings that support modern thinking can be given prominence, and ancient dogma that now seems meaningless can be discarded. Just like politics, each individual's version of religion is different from the next, yet unlike politics, ultimate truths are claimed to exist. Very few people can have found them.

If there is a true light, I cannot see it amongst all the others that burn just as brightly. Amongst the myriad of possibilities, I know that whatever choice I make, statistically, I will almost certainly be wrong. Having accepted the likelihood of my own misjudgement, I would rather get on with my life and contribute in my own small, positive way to the world around me, than waste it struggling to find meaning in ancient texts or praying and waiting for a salvation that might never come. I do not pretend to have found the `true' path, but merely to have accepted that the truth is unknowable.

So what should we believe? Though I have no religion, I have always felt a certain kinship with Christians who often uphold so much of what I believe. Not in God, but in morality, for I know that irrespective of the truth about religion, my own belief is in liberalism, tolerance and love. The phrase "Love your neighbour as you love yourself" to me sums up the best of Christianity. Despite their different beliefs, socially conscious people across the world have much in common, and no one can deny that spreading these ideals across all possible divides can only result in a better world. I would like to think that in upholding these views, I would be closer to any god than those with faith but no love for other people could ever be. Perhaps if Christianity were to teach the importance of morality as equal to, or greater than that of faith, we might see that our shared convictions are more important than our differences. "Love your neighbour as you love yourself" need not involve God at all.

Doug Stuart