In this wonderful Age of Reality mankind will finally be able to put away his child-like fantasies.  And perhaps even more importantly, mankind should be in a position to finally put to rest those ancient mythologies that have so terribly enslaved him beyond the natural ability to truly embrace this wonderful life unencumbered by the shackles that have bound and burdened him with doubt and guilt to the point that it has prevented him from ever fully embracing and intimately experiencing that one gifted opportunity at life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  There is a reasonable explanation of why man has remained so totally, dutifully and innocently oblivious to reality.  As ancient literature clearly indicates, man has had a wonderful mind that is miraculously capable of all kinds of diverse thoughts, but it wasn't until around the time of Jesus that man had a sense of bring all these various thoughts into one accessible area like that of the truly liberal, unrestrained and infamous library housed in Alexandria, Egypt.

  In the year 325 when Christianity was strategically and masterfully born, the vast majority of Western mankind was totally uneducated; in fact, it was the ninety percent of the population of the Roman Empire that were slaves.  You might imagine Western mankind as being in his intellectual and spiritual infancy and this contrived religion that was equally political and mythological was summarily established to essentially bring into being a sound social-political method of maintaining a desired passivity and personal contentment amongst all of those naturally and expectantly ignorant slaves.  It was as though the slaves were still naïve children and they were easily convinced that there truly was a suprême and loving God that deeply cared about them so long as they remained obedient to the Roman state as well as the Catholic Church and its anointed vicars.  We perform very much the same informative dynamic with our own children even today when we tell them about Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.  The difference is, when our children finally approach and reach adulthood they are usually quite able to distinguish between the fantasy of a Santa Claus or tooth fairy and the reality that the fantasy served some good if not a strategically infantile purpose in teaching perhaps the moral value of giving and receiving and most certainly, obedience as it is aptly suggested that Santa Clause only rewards those good children who have fallowed the established rules; “Santa Clause knows whether you have been naughty or nice.”  

            We live in an entirely different world today from that most pivotal of year 325 where it could be easily understood that mankind was immersed in and still demonstrating the ills of his debilitating intellectual and spiritual infancy.  I need not list all of the various advances in man's understanding and knowledge of his universe to even begin to justify the reality that man is no longer in that lingering age of his infancy; many of us have simply come to know too much that simply contradicts those ancient stories of gods and monsters.

  It is now time to put away those cryptic mythologies that no longer serve any real purpose except for those who most benefit politically and fiscally from the continuation of these various religious institutions.  No one, particularly as a child, should be ashamed of believing that Santa Claus really does exist and likewise no one in this age of so many of those countless technological and intellectual advancements should be ashamed of having still to believe in a God that in reality never did exist.  The problem is simply that there are no role models for modern man to emulate as the whole of society has been led to believe that there are no acceptable alternatives to our ancient gods and their earthly institutions as the sole keepers and dictators of our moral values.

  It's finally time to get real!  The reality is that man himself is the only and true source of all divine inspiration; it was and still is man himself that created this vast multitude of gods.  Man has inherited this divine quality by approaching and being at the very pinnacle of his own evolution.  It is in the manner of sacrificing, by our founding Fathers and those countless others that followed, that we as Americans have come to enjoy certain political and civil freedoms.  Mankind is also the fortunate benefactor of generations of our spiritual forefathers who have equally struggled, sacrificed and paid the price for some of us to enjoy those wonders of our modern discoveries and acceptance of reality.  We owe it to all of them to claim our own divinity and retire the worn-out mythologies as well as their accompanying religions and relegate them to their rightful and bygone past; let’s just bury them!  It is not always easy for the child to accept reality because the fantasy of such a wonderfully jolly Ole Santa Claus is so beautiful and emotionally comforting.  And after all, what is wrong or the danger of believing in a Santa Claus, rather it be real or not?

            I hope that we all agree that mankind needs to deal with his reality, grow up and accept the responsibilities that would naturally accompany the inherent and inevitable spiritual adulthood of mankind.  It is not at all an easy task to dispel the religious fantasies that have been such a comfort to the generations of believers that for many held their religion as the singular source for any reasonable purpose or deeper meaning in their otherwise burdensome lives; “hope springs eternal.”  I would understand and even expect that many will never let go of the past and will continue to believe till their dying day that their God will be there to greet them and welcome them to that promised proverbial heaven that to them aptly justifies life’s many tribulations and sacrifices.

              It is important that you understand that much of which I have written and proposed here and elsewhere comes from some deeper spiritual conviction within my own individual psyche; perhaps a legacy of my own given genetic memory.  As I am about to start new project, it is not an unusual thing for me to dream and that was certainly the case for this particular book.  It was last night I had a dream about writing this particular book and in the dream was this woman whom I had a conversation about this very topic.  As I was explaining to this woman what it was that I was to be writing about, there were several thoughts that had occurred to me.  The first thought dealt with the contents; there is no way for this book to be a book about social engineering, most particularly it is most definitely not be just another book entitled, Shangri-La.  You may remember that Shangri-La was this idealistic place somewhere in the world that had an idealistic social order; even the environment including the weather was quite ideal.  I want you to understand when I'm writing about anything other than the individual, I proposals will likely be only some form of suggestions or even possibly alternatives to the way I see society behaving today.

          You may remember that Jesus’ proposal of a precise manner in which his enslaved people might still enjoy life considering that they were enslaved to the Roman Empire.  He felt that his proposal was so simple and to the point that he did not feel the need to be writing this down.  He sort of felt helpless when it came to making any changes in their society as the Roman Empire was quite powerful and it was obviously the empire's intention to remain in control for as long as they could.  It was this helplessness that kept Jesus on track with just a proposal for his people alone.  If the truth be known, I too feel a bit helplessness to propose any social changes anytime in the near future.

          The American people have a wonderful spirit when it comes to tragedies, as with the hurricane that so devastated New Orleans.  The fact that it appears that we are losing our middle-class do no doubt to our financial situation being so depressed, tells me that unless there is another of those severe depressions, and American people just aren't ready for any social changes that may cost them financially in the short run.  As I am so set on having people deal with reality, I don't feel it's my place to make proposals that don't make any realistic sense.  I do believe, however, that individuals are quite capable of making changes in their personal manner of dealing with life, and doing so in a realistic manner.  I will, in any case, discuss some of the proposals that would be helpful to the individual, if and only if you're not individuals set on the idea that they could have a good influence on society itself whether presently or even later, but do understand that these are only proposals that may be possible only when society itself is terribly compromised with its present mode of operation.