I've often fantasized about starting my own "religion" based entirely on logic and analysis of human interaction but have always thrown it away when, using my own knowledge of human behavior, I realized what a pipe dream it is to believe you'd attract any real congregation without the gimmickry of a supreme being running it all.

Unfortunately, human beings are driven to religion by one major factor - survival. We are so programmed in this need to feel that our lives won't end that it becomes all-consuming. Any philosophy without answers that convince its followers that their spirits remain after their physical life ends is destined to attract very few. The logic applied to the basic human mind and our animal design clearly shows that need for eternal life to be nothing more than wishful thinking, that there's simply no reason for nature to have granted us this unending lease.

It's my strong personal opinion that it's what drives us to seek some creative and spiritual force for life and the universe because, if that magic exists, then we can rationalize our own existence being more than simply electrical impulses in a finite body.

So, in order to further a life philosophy based on science, it would seem to me that we'd have to fall into the same trap that religious clerics do and exploit the psychological need for humans to have that iota of magic. A classic Catch-22.

Art