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A group of wonderful humanitarians, all touched with the spirit of divine love? Hardly! More like a parcel of rogues.

For an atheist like me it is distressing to see so many people in this educated age clinging to a small number of religions that are at least a thousand years out of date, and that lack imagination in the first place.

I am embarrassed for those gullible enough to fall for some of the most transparent lies ever told. The least convincing of which is The Koran, no, make that the Secret Revelation of Scientology. OK, it is not overly difficult to reconstruct the truth between the lines from the Old Testament, as various atheist historians have done, but at least the lies there are given credence by the weight of time and tradition. What a tragic fall though, to be conned into believing The Book of Mormon, or any of the other lunatic cults created by would-be Messiahs hanging on to the coattails of Christianity. As for the Jews still believing in the ludicrous pronouncements of Moses more than 3,000 years down the track... well for such an intelligent race they really should know better.

Apart from dragging down the respectability of a civilisation that in other ways is rational and humane, (as one would expect from creatures that had produced the digital watch), these foolish, outdated religions are inimical to our civilisation as a whole. We have brainwashed zealots fighting to the death and ruining whole countries and cultures just because the inventors of their respective religions wanted an army of their own, so they could conquer lands and be powerful. No better or more humane than murderous thugs like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Adolf Hitler.

The human race can be better than it is. If its mind is given a firm ideal to focus on, it is amazing what it can do. If people must have a religion then it should at least be something based on fact, so that the energy that people love to expend on it should not be wasted; like the effort wasted in building a sandcastle below the high-tide zone. It should also be tailored to the biology of humans, something that suits us, sustains us and values our humanity.

So I have invented a religion: An hypothesis to explain that which we cannot apprehend and cannot prove. It has no active god though it does allow for other creatures to influence the course of our lives in ways we cannot see. It allows for communication beyond the grave. It grants eternal life to all, with eternal growth, eternal variation and regular death.

But most of all, it puts the burden of salvation squarely on the shoulders of the individual. There is no magic washing clean of the soul by a mystical deity, no perfect heaven if you do a few things ordained by a bunch of robed clerics and no eternal torment if you don't. If you want happiness, peace, love, comfort etc, you have to make them for yourself in your own life in the here and now.

Underscoring everything that follows, please remember that this religion, like all others, is an INVENTION; there is no guarantee that this hypothesis does indeed model reality. However, unlike Moses, Muhammad, Joseph Smith et al, I, at least, have the decency to admit it.

This is not a scientific document, although I am a scientist. Please read it as you would the Bible, the Koran or the Tibetan Book of the Dead. I will not attempt to prove the unprovable nor justify the unjustifiable.