MILLENNIUM

Millennium

By Sherman Hawk

Book I

The Method and the Nation

Philosophy and Morality

A person's philosophy is the set of his beliefs, the way in which he thinks, the manner in which he perceives the world and draws conclusions about it. Since our actions are a product of our beliefs, since our behavior is the culmination of the way we think, philosophy literally controls our lives. So called "practical" men, who discard philosophy as unimportant and hold fast to "facts" are themselves operating under a philosophy that philosophy is of no value, which is nonsensical. Action shapes the world, but behind the scenes, philosophy is pulling the strings. Philosophy is more important than anything else in life.

Philosophy is everything. Philosophy is all.

Liberals who teach Darwin's theories to schoolchildren may defend their behavior by stating that evolution has been scientifically proven. Is this so? Christians who oppose abortion may state that human beings are made in the image of God, and that life begins at conception, in order to defend their views. Is this so? Racists who argue for the deportation or enslavement of other races may justify this by explaining that other races are inferior. Is this so?

Consider the above examples for a moment. It seems reasonable to say that each of these people would have little difficulty denouncing the others as reprehensible, morally bankrupt, or twisted and perverse. These people each have their own views on morality which differ radically from one to the other depending on their perception of the facts - apparently the difference between good and evil is no different than the belief in what good and evil are. What, then, is moral? If morality is nothing more than a person's beliefs, and everyone's beliefs are different, who, then, is right? The answer to this question is as simple as it is beautiful, for the answer to the question "Who, then, is right," is contained in the question itself.

He who believes the truth is right.

He who knows what is right, is right. He who is right, is right.

The final arbiter of good and evil is not man, for his ideas are inconsistent, nor God, for God's existence is open to debate. The final arbiter of good and evil is the truth. The quest for morality is therefore not the struggle for will over temptation, nor the struggle of one group against another, but rather the quest for truth. He who takes up this quest, learns the error of his beliefs, and corrects himself, is good; and whosoever abandons this quest and contents himself to believe falsity is evil.

This point cannot be overstated - there is no morality without the truth. Worse, not everyone can be right at the same time; where they disagree, one at least must be wrong. The world is saturated with disagreement. Evil is literally everywhere.

So unless we wish to persist in thinking and doing evil, the only question which remains is "How shall we know truth from falsehood?" If one man believes one thing, his neighbors another, his ancestors another, and his descendants still another, there must be a method to discriminate between the views of one and the views of another, something to stop a person from falling headlong into falsity. Knowing that resolving our errors and finding the truth is of paramount importance morally, there must be a method to sort truth from falsehood; there must be a method for us to discern where our beliefs have gone wrong that we may achieve the best possible chance to erase our falsity and embrace truth.

The Method

1. Self Doubt

Doubt is frightening. When we feel doubt we catch a glimpse of the infinite possibilities of the universe and our security in the single set of possibilities which validates us and makes us feel safe is shaken. We want security, we want stability, we want order and safety and simplicity. We want this so badly that we push doubt deep inside of ourselves and lock it in a dark corner where it will not escape. Men of all colors and religions do this, the atheist who is certain that God is not, just as much as the Muslim who is certain that God is.

From birth we are told to trust others; our parents, our teachers, the authors of the books we read. As we grow older we are made to trust scientists or spiritual leaders, for surely they know much better than we do. This trust is like a parasite which worms its way through our brains, shutting off the desire to question our "superiors," shutting off the desire to question established "knowledge," shutting off the idea that nothing - not one solitary fact beyond the fact of our own existence as proven by "I think therefore I am" - can ever be for certain. We shut off doubt and embrace the lie which states that we as imperfect beings can place trust in the perfection of our beliefs.

Revealed religion such as Christianity even teaches us that to do this is virtue, claiming that faith is the way to salvation. We are told to repress the truth that we are not perfect, we are told to forget that things we think and believe have been wrong before and may be wrong now, we are told to abandon all self censorship and glory in the blasphemous concept that we can be right, completely, unarguably right, even if only about one thing - Jesus. The Messiah. God. And this thing, which may not exist but which we by faith claim must exist, in turn "gives" us the faith which we used to assure ourselves of its existence.

Faith is not of God.

Faith is sin.

I mean this in a very real sense, for faith is no more than false pride, sheer hubris, which calls you to believe that absolute knowledge lies within your grasp. This is not possible. You have been wrong before. You are not perfect. You will be wrong again. Faith is the lie which urges you to forget your fear and imperfection, to close your eyes to the infinite possibilities which in your heart of hearts you know surround you, to shake your head and gnash your teeth before the suggestion that you might be wrong about everything - even about the one thing which is your security, the rock of your existence which you call God.

Open your eyes! You are not perfect! You cannot know anything with certainty - to claim otherwise is arrogance! Abandon your false pride! Throw away the crutch of faith you carry with you and stand before the infinite possibilities of reality with open eyes!

This is Self Doubt. The heritage of all men. The first pillar of the Method.

2. Objectivity

The obvious importance of Self Doubt leads us to another equally obvious realization: If I am wrong sometimes, then perhaps others are right where I am wrong.

This is not an easy thing to for us accept. As I write this I have no difficulty imagining that you who read this have felt, more than once, the embarrassment of being forced to acknowledge your incorrectness before others. How did you feel? Inferior, unworthy, humiliated, scorned, defeated? You have stood before another person, or a group of people, saying to them: "This is the product of my mind," no matter how lofty or humble the subject may have been, and were forced to swallow the embarrassment and pain of being shown to be wrong.

This is to your credit.

Most people, most of the time, would sooner close their minds to the thought that they may be wrong, that someone else knows better than they. They do not have it in them to face up to their shortcomings and grant credit where credit is due - to accept the truth as it really is. And this is the heart of the matter: They have deluded themselves for the sake of their own happiness, and in so doing created a false world in which to live. For you to "lose" an argument is more than mere courage and honesty; it is to win, because in "losing" you give up a foolish idea which was weighing you down - more importantly, you give up a false faith in your own rightness - and emerge from the experience better than before.

When we assume by subjective thinking that all other people are wrong to gainsay us, we are forgetting our intrinsic human fallibility and the Self Doubt which it necessitates. To listen with an open mind to the words of others is a credit to us, for in so doing we may come to see our own errors and learn much of importance which was before hidden from our minds.

The ultimate form of objectivity is demonstrated the question, asked in complete solitude: "What would someone else do or think? How might a wiser person disagree with me?" Absolute objectivity allows us to check our thinking for ourselves, to spot errors which other humans, who understand our ideas imperfectly, or are themselves clouded by subjectivity and dogmatism, cannot see. Only by distancing ourselves from our ideas can we see them clearly for what they are.

In the end, this need not be a difficult nor emotionally draining exercise, for we are not the mere sum of our ideas. Ideas are like tools, possessions, and other impersonal objects. They can elevate us as surely as they can weigh us down. To trade or change the bad into good is painless if we do not let ourselves become blindly attached to things which are not truly parts of our own selves.

This is Objectivity. The second pillar of The Method.

3. Reason

Emotion, insight, experience, sentiment, all are subjective. To attempt to justify your feelings and instinctive values through objective discussion is a futile exercise. Your emotions are your own; they are not the same as anyone else's. When you imagine that your personal, subjective feelings are universal, you have abandoned your objectivity. The only measure for the merit of an idea is the logic which supports it.

Do you decide whether Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny exist based on your fondness for them, or based on the logic which argues against their existence? Do you decide whether people are starving in third world countries based on your feelings about starvation, or on the available evidence of their starvation? Why make any intellectual decision by using your emotion? Our hearts were not made to think for us; this is why we have minds. To think with your feelings is the same as walking on your hands or typing with your toes. We should not decide the truth based on what we want that truth to be. This is wishful, childish thinking.

All this is no less obvious than Self Doubt and Objectivity, yet most people allow their emotions to think for them. They lack the ability to distinguish a logical argument from a declaration of personal feeling. These emotionalists frequently support their arguments with sentiments which are unique to themselves. Consider the Atheist who bitterly declares that there is no afterlife because "Christians are a bunch of sappy, superstitious fools." The existence of an afterlife is quite obviously independent of the personality of a small group of people who believe in an afterlife. The statement is actually a conclusion which is based on the point it intends to support (until we know there is no afterlife, we cannot say that Christians are superstitious to believe in one), but it borrows an aura of rationality by claiming to reject "sappy" emotional thinking.

Self Doubt reminds us perpetually that nothing we know - or think we know - is necessarily the truth. When two opposing views are presented, either by ourselves or by third parties, we cannot rely on our emotion to judge truth from falsehood. Our emotion was not made to do that, only to tell us how we feel about what the truth is. The only objective measure of credibility, the only objective measure for determining the probability of truth, is logical reasoning, because the alternatives - emotion, insight, personal experience, sentiment - are subjective. Only by weighing ideas through examination of the evidence, and by following their logic and internal consistency, can we come to a conclusion about what the truth may be.

This is Reason. The final pillar of The Method.

The Nation

1. Human Inability in the Face of the Method

As perfect and unassailable though the Method may be, as basic and self evident though its concepts are, a human mind must have the necessary tools to use it. Most humans are incapable of following the tenets of the Method, else they would do so already.

Turtles cannot employ Objectivity. Flies are ignorant of Self Doubt. A dog cannot Reason. Nether can a man if his mind is not strong enough. Self Doubt requires bravery, patience, and the willingness to forever question that which seems known. Objectivity requires imagination, understanding, and the ability to divorce oneself from ones own ideas. Reason requires intelligence, perceptiveness, a critical mindset, and the ability to think in a logical fashion.

None of this is encouraged in our children or in our citizens. From one side of its mouth our society exonerates rationality, creativity, honesty and individuality, but from the other side - the side which is backed by its hands, one carrying money and the other carrying a club - it calls for faith, obedience, politeness, and conventionality. Our children are instructed to think like their decrepit elders whose senility leaves their minds slow and inflexible, incapable of learning or change; is it therefore any wonder that they think as they do?

But there is another reason why the Method is not only disused, but virtually unknown.

Although most humans can perhaps be taught to follow the Method, they will usually fail to grasp its all-importance, or else will fail to practice it properly. This is not necessarily through any fault of their own. They simply lack the tools required to question themselves, to listen to and understand the ideas of others, and, particularly, to think logically.

Once again, if they did possess the tools to utilize the Method, they would already be using them. We would not be surrounded by hordes of Muslims or Atheists or Scientologists who refuse to acknowledge the possibility for their falsity; we would not be surrounded by Egalitarians or Vegetarians who cannot acknowledge human nature because of their emotional sensibilities; we would not be surrounded by Empiricists and Idealists who never realized that there might be another way of considering the world; our society would not teach its children faith over reason, obedience over creativity, politeness over honesty, or conventionality over individuality.

As it is, our society is composed of feelers, not thinkers - of those who can act, not who can understand. This society has no use for concepts of truth or honesty when lies are so well accepted and so much more practical in the short run. This society has no use for doubt when faith, pride, and false assurance feel better. This society has no use for objectivity since everybody (on all sides of any issue) knows that people on the other side are simply wrong and therefore not worth listening to. This society has no use for reason when the only thing its members are good at is rationalization.

The solution to this problem is strikingly simple. If human nature is to blame for human problems, then human beings have it in themselves to change human nature. Is the spirit willing but the flesh weak? The flesh is transmitted from parent to child in an endless cycle of reproduction. Alter the nature of the flesh, strengthen it and fortify it, making it equal to the demands of the spirit, and the problem will be finally and forever solved.

Clearly not everyone is incapable of following the Method, merely the majority. And of this majority, a significant minority could still practice it and even understand it if they were not surrounded by others who forsake it. What humanity needs is not only an improvement in the way it thinks, a better Method, but in how well it thinks, in its very Nation.

2. The Cycle of Suffering

The desire to uplift mankind is not the only concern.

If it be the truth that human beings, as biological organisms, are subject to the natural laws which govern other creatures, then surely it is also true that human beings, as a species, hate themselves. The one thing which has made us great, we undermine and compromise at every opportunity; the one thing which prevents us from sliding backwards into chaos and distress, we make our best efforts to attack and push away; the one thing to which we owe our humblest thanks, our deepest respect, we despise.

That thing is natural selection.

Countless millions have died to ensure our future - countless souls snuffed out to make us what we are today. Did those who were less intelligent, less cunning, less healthy, less able to survive and reproduce not think or feel? Did they not struggle and suffer? Was their desire for life and happiness so different from our own? Was their anguish at being denied these things less real than our own would be?

These men and women who died without copying their genes are not to be forgotten, not to be ignored, not to be disgraced, for these men and women who died for us are our heroes! It is to their sacrifice that we owe everything we have today, our health, our prosperity, our intelligence, our sentiment - our very lives. If they had not perished, and instead had passed onto us the legacy of their genetic poverty, then the forces of natural selection, which cannot be placated or avoided forever, no matter how long we may try, would have surely destroyed us all when we were just emerging, weak, helpless, naked, from our Eden, from the place our species was born.

Each and every great civilization we have made, from Egypt to America, has spit upon their sacrifice by encouraging its unfit to procreate. Those who would have died under the harsh system of natural selection are fed, sheltered, and encouraged to reproduce by their society. Those who would have thrived and passed on their genes were distracted by the fruits of civilization, seduced by wealth and power, addicted to the practice of thought itself, and failed to pass on their genetic wealth.

Each and every civilization before our own, believing itself above the laws of natural selection, was eventually destroyed by those laws. As harmful mutations built up, as the less able and intelligent outbred the more fortunate, as genetic poverty washed over them in ever growing waves, the fire which kindled the light of civilization dimmed, sputtered, and died, leaving anarchy and destruction and hundreds of years of ignorance in its wake.

If we are to break this dysgenic cycle of suffering, then we must respect those who died for us, respect the forces of natural selection which weeded out their undesirable genes, and, if we are to remove natural selection, we must replace it with artificial selection. There must be selection, in one form or another, and if we find death too cruel a sentence for those whose genes do not merit survival, then we must either reproduce responsibly and in a way which will leave our children with a heritage of genetic wealth, or else accept the whirlwind of destruction which overtakes us when natural selection, too long suppressed, cleanses our species in one nightmarish gesture.

3. Intelligence

Given that, to fully understand, appreciate, and practice the teaching of the Method, a person must possess a strong and flexible mind - and given that, without strong and flexible minds, our civilization will be extinguished as surely as every other civilization on this planet - it is of paramount importance that mankind be intellectually improved.

As a species, we are endowed with incredible verbal and imaginative abilities. Our young children, innocent of ability though they are, can imagine things which our animal cousins do not demonstrate the slightest ability to conceive of. Our very infants, who lack the most humble powers of locomotion and coordination, display astounding linguistic skills. In all this we have much to be proud.

Yet even as adults we can scarcely understand mathematics. The most simple premises of abstract reasoning elude the masses, who find themselves manipulated and aroused to a feverish zealotry through constant bombardment of irrational arguments, catch phrases, and poignant images. A picture is only worth a thousand words because most people cannot understand or internalize the logic to a thousand words. Nature has failed to endow the majority of us with reason or flexibility of opinion, and this shortcoming is the cause of much grief and the very explanation for why the Method, though so obvious and simple a device, is not commonly used in human thinking, even by those who find themselves agreeing with its every premise.

So it is clearly of paramount importance that humanity improve its capacity for Objectivity, for Self Doubt, and especially for Reason. The nature of the human brain is such that an increase in one ability usually signals an increase in all ability, so all intellectual gains are to be viewed with satisfaction, but most important is the uplifting of logical ability and fluidity of thought.

Therefore I admonish you: Do not reproduce if it means creating humans of poor intelligence. If you are yourself of meager intelligence, do not be ashamed, but be responsible, and avoid passing your genes on to others. If you are of average intelligence and reasonably free from genetic diseases, or else if your intelligence is lacking but you feel that you must pass on your genes, then reproduce below replacement level to prevent overpopulation which threatens our planet more seriously with each passing year. You who are of high intelligence bear the greatest burden, yet it is a burden of joy, if you let it be - you must keep these genes alive, and copy them as frequently as is feasible, for they are more valuable than gold, and without them all the treasures of the Earth are as pearls thrown before swine.

What Millennium is Not

1. The Method as a suppression of feeling

The Method is a way of thinking. In thought, there is always only one right answer (although sometimes this answer can be expressed in different ways), and anywhere from one wrong answer to an infinite number of wrong answers. The Method seeks to push those who follow it towards those few unique truths and away from the infinite sea of falsity.

In emotion, however, there is no right or wrong. If we as human beings allow our minds to stifle or dictate emotion to our hearts, we will become repressed, frustrated, self loathing, and ultimately mad.

In a way what the Method tells us is that thought and emotion should be pure. The Method seeks to remove the taint of subjective emotion from thought, and using the Method to impose thought on emotion is just as bad as failing to use the Method in one's thinking. You will feel what you will feel irrespective of your efforts, and it is just as wrong to make yourself believe that you feel things which you do not feel as it is to make yourself believe any other falsehood.

So do not under any circumstances attempt to stifle, repress, or deny your subjective feeling. Do not allow anyone else to dictate what your subjective feelings should be. A feeling is a sensation like any other; telling another person what to feel is like telling another person what to hear or what to see.

Although there is nothing wrong with the regulation of emotional responses (that is, self control), or with the act of secluding these personal emotions and keeping them private, or even with attempts to change your emotions by changing the outside circumstances which make you feel as you do, to force yourself to feel things you do not feel is extremely unhealthy. A person who believes that his natural emotions are wrong should not blame the Method for his subsequent problems.

2. Self Doubt as an omnipresent handicap

Another thing the Method is not is a bar to action or decision. While Self Doubt is indeed a cardinal virtue, without which a person has little more than a skull full of lies, to apply Self Doubt to the degree that it impedes action is foolish.

It is true that no knowledge is absolute, that nothing in this world beyond your own existence is certain, but this need not - and should not - prevent you from letting your mind make educated guesses. I say "should not" because you and I can use the Method to determine with a fair degree of certainty that a person must generally act to survive. Failure to eat, sleep, exercise, and eliminate on a regular basis will result in poor health and eventual death, which I take it as given is undesirable. (If continued life is of no value to you, then of course feel free to avoid acting as long as you wish.)

Therefore Self Doubt should not come into play once a decision is made. Second thoughts most certainly have their place, either before the fact, or after the fact. But do not be afraid to take a stand on one issue or another, for you may always change your mind after further thought. And when immediate action is necessary, do not undermine your chances for success by considering ramifications for too long. Instead take the time afterwards, when you are at peace, to reflect on what you have done and the results of your actions, and use the Method to determine ways in which you should attempt to alter your behavior in the future.

3. The Nation as a mere obligation

Children require love, care, and support. Failure to provide these things for them will cause lasting hurt. It is good to improve the human race, but you will create more woe than weal if you marry for purely genetic reasons and shut off emotional ones, and if you procreate out of empty obligation without a natural desire to reproduce.

In the end, the entire purpose of Millennium is the betterment of life on Earth. If you care nothing about the world in which you live, about the children you bring to life, or about the people you see around you, you have no real place in this religion - while you may benefit from its raw philosophy, there is no reason for you to promote the Method or the Nation. The desire to see mankind survive and prosper must be a subjective one if it is to exist at all, and either you will feel this desire, to a greater or lesser extent, or you will not. (Do not blame yourself if you do not; remember, you should not force yourself to feel that which you do not feel.)

So I take it as given that it is indeed good to practice eugenics, and unless there are enough who believe in its merits and make sacrifices to see its principles in practice, our civilization is surely doomed to a dysgenic expiration; but to procreate before you are emotionally or financially ready will do more harm than good.

4. The Nation as a basis for persecution

Superiority is used to excuse all sorts of exploitation, torture, and oppression. As much though our society is one obsessed with rights, speaking forever of equality and human justice, we turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of animals and to the low status of children.

In America, we refuse our children the right to drink, to vote, to drive, to procreate, on the basis of their inferiority and inherent folly, yet little is done to restrict the drunkenness of fools, the voting behavior of psychopaths, the driving of those incapable of driving safely, and the procreation of the mentally retarded, even after these people abuse the freedoms our society offers them as adults.

What then shall we do? Should we then restrict the rights of the degenerate among us? Perhaps. But is it so preposterous for us to extend kindness and generosity to all? Do we not remember when we were children, with thoughts, feelings, and desires every bit as valid as they are for us now? Do dogs or cats not feel pain, just as we do? Do they not feel sad when they are reprimanded or left alone, just as we do?

I will supply no simple answer to this topic, but whatever we do, we should not abuse the power of our position. If we possess any objectivity at all, we will use it to consider the outlook of other individuals and treat them with simple respect. This does not mean that we must not eat animals for our health and survival, nor that we must treat our children, or any others of lesser status and ability, as our equals. But we should not use superiority, be it genetic, philosophical, or otherwise, as an excuse to brush aside the feelings of others. Remember the sacrifice of those who came before us, of our heroes who died or refrained from reproducing that we might be free of their genetic poverty.

Those who possess great power have great capacity to help as well as to hurt. How responsibly you use the power you have is up to you.

5. Millennium as a Final Truth

In writing these things, I have made many claims. My ideas rest on a series of concepts: the concept that when two ideas contradict, one at least must be incorrect, the concept that experience is not truly transmittable, the concept that many (if not most) humans are incapable of practicing the Method, the concept that intelligence is at least partially heritable, the concept that there were many nations before ours which collapsed under dysgenic pressure. You who agree with everything I have written, ask yourselves - is this so?

I feel confident in asserting that all of it is so, for most agree on it without difficulty, and I can defend it not only by reason (which is of no necessary value if the teachings of the Method are untrue) but by insight, by emotion, by empiricism, or by intuition from those who would attack it. I almost laugh to consider that a sane worldview exists which disagrees with these points. But to apply the Method's teachings outwardly only, and to question all things except for Millennium itself, is wrong.

Therefore I say to you: Spread the message of this religion. Tell anyone and everyone who is interested about this beautiful philosophy. But do not reject out of hand the possibility that it is wrong, in some ways or in many ways, for in rejecting this you become guilty of faith and therefore of hypocrisy.

Again, doubt and objectivity need not be omnipresent handicaps; do not obsess over the possibility for your own falsity or consider the views of others to the point that you fail to tell them about merits of this religion. But never allow yourself to utter the words, "Millennium is the one true way, the religion to end all religions, and all who disagree with it are wrong." Be satisfied to avoid such simplistic thinking.

Final Words of Hope

Millennium is a religion of hope, not just for the individual, but for all mankind. Millennium gives us the hope of erasing falsehood and therefore freeing ourselves from evil. Millennium gives us the hope of escaping the shackles which have suppressed us, faith, delusion, ignorance. But most of all Millennium gives us hope of a better life - for us, for our descendants, and our entire species.

I submit to you, in all honestly, that there is absolutely no problem on this earth which, be it not insurmountable, cannot be solved through the spread of the Method, or else through eugenic improvements in human nature. Self Doubt forces me to accept that this may not be true, yes - but if it is not, then I cannot imagine why not.

The only thing I can reasonably imagine if the Method and the Nation spread and thrive, is a change in human life and thought which is so total, so complete, so profoundly wonderful, so unlike the dysfunctional, painful, and drab reality we currently take for granted as unalterable, that it is beyond expression.

I do not promise utopia to you who read this, nor do I assert that the dreams I dare to dream for mankind will necessarily come true. I must reluctantly accept my place in this world as that of but a man - a wise man, I hope, but still merely a man, with no more right or ability to force his dreams upon the world than the next. But the Method and the Nation are together cause for hope, because even if the world may never be any more perfect than the souls who dwell upon it, we can at least escape the cycle which holds its people in misery and move forward, at last - at long, long last! - to a better millennium.

Book II

Doctrine

Free Will is Fallacy

Perhaps the hardest truth for a human being to embrace is the truth that he did not create himself. His brain has been built from proteins and fats into a chemical computer according to the blueprints of his genetic code, and programmed by instinct and experience as surely as any artificial machine. While entirely organic and apparently of perfectly natural origin, there is nothing it does which it was not made to do.

A human being, when given a choice, always does things for a reason, this is causation. Some set of circumstances triggers a response from the human as an organism, just as surely as a set of circumstances triggers a rock to roll down a hillside, or triggers a computer to perform an arithmetic operation. In this case, the man's will is clearly not free, but instead is directed by programming. No room is left for freedom if there is choice - the things we choose, we choose because we were made to choose them.

If, for the sake of argument, a man could take an action without any reason whatever, this action would be totally unmotivated and random. In this case, such an action would indeed be free, but there is no control, direction, or "will" behind it. Being random or uncontrolled, it would not originate from ourselves; we could not take credit for it as a decision we chose for a reason since we chose it for no reason, no purpose, and, again, without any sort of "will."

All the universe is governed by physical processes; the human mind is no different. Even assuming that the mind possesses some kind of spirit or soul which directs its actions, what means does the soul use to arrive at its decisions? Does it follow a pattern or set of rules, or is it unpredictably random? Either way, it cannot be said to have absolute control over its own nature, and for this reason free will is not merely a thing we do not possess.it is a semantic impossibility.

While such a realization can perhaps be disheartening and fill a person with a depressing humility and sense of helplessness, you need not be dehumanized by it. A rock which tumbles down a hill has no capacity to grow or change; it does what it is bound by physical law to do, and cannot change itself one way or another.

Our programming, however, possesses the marvelous ability to self-reference. As human beings, our personalities can rewrite themselves, within the limits imposed upon us by nature. It is written into us to be introspective and seek to control and understand ourselves, so what does it matter that we lack this thing called "free will?" We are far from helpless automatons which must forever do as they are made to do. We are much more than hollow machines which carry out instructions without ever considering what we are doing and whether we should behave as we do. Instead, we have the capacity to change ourselves, to grow and mature, to reshape ourselves according to our will, and perhaps nothing in the rest of creation is as marvelous as this!

Hypocrisy is Evil

It has been shown that false belief of any sort is the essence of evil. In most cases, however, it is impossible to know what truth or falsity is, and therefore it is impossible to demonstrate with certainty the evil in one's own, or in another's, mind. This is not the case for internal contradictions. Someone who contradicts his own ideas has proven himself false.

Hypocrisy is unquestionably evil. This is true by definition - accepting that false belief is evil, and that two contradictory statements cannot both be true, there is no other possibility but that anyone who believes two conflicting ideas has fallen into evil.

Beware hypocrisy in all its forms! If you set rules, follow through on them. If you pass judgment on others, pass judgment on yourself. If you speak highly of an ideal, uphold it. And if you find a problem in your thinking, fix it. Those who do not are the very embodiment of evil, and woe betide anyone who listens to them uncritically and is corrupted.

God Exists

Before I go on I must be certain that you understand me when I say that God exists, for I do not write of an old, bearded man who lives in the clouds and hurls lightning onto the Earth. Nor do I write of a caring, omnipotent being whose love for us knows no bounds. Indeed, I do not even write of an entity which has gender or any consciousness or any form or spirit whatever. What I do mean, when I write the words "God Exists," is that the laws and nature of the universe strongly suggest a First Cause. A Creator.

According to the best and most widely accepted scientific theories, all of the matter which the universe once possessed clung to itself in a densely packed ball, before expanding outwards to create, among other things, our own Milky Way. (Physicists generally accept this model because of various things we know about the expansion of the universe through red shifts and other sources.)

The great problem with this model is that we already know what happens when you pack matter together as densely as it would be packed before the so called "Big Bang:" The result is a black hole. Only not just any black hole - this black hole would be trillions of times bigger than the black holes we know of now, with proportionally greater gravitational forces. To claim that this magnificent black hole, this black hole to end all black holes, suddenly exploded, is at variance with everything we know about physics.

Recall that gravitational forces within black holes are so powerful that not even light can escape them. Since nothing can move faster than the speed of light, it follows that no amount of energy can overcome the pull of a black hole, because even a particle which burst away from the center of the black hole at the fastest possible speed - the speed of light - would be immediately and mercilessly reabsorbed.

The Big Bang is therefore impossible without some external (and extremely powerful) force precipitating it. It is, in a word, miraculous, and miracles are the parlance of a supernatural deity, not natural science. Even if we are to discard the Big Bang as an explanation for the existence of the universe, we are left with an enormous amount of data which suggests a Big Bang, and now instead of one mystery, "how did the universe come to be," we are left with two mysteries: "How did the universe come to be, and why is all this matter rushing away from the so-called center?" It is most parsimonious to accept the Big Bang with the proviso that it was affected by God.

Now before I overstep myself, I do not see that this God is necessarily beyond laws of one sort or another. Nor do I see that this God must even be supernatural - it merely must be able to defy the laws of our physics, to intervene with nature in ways which seem miraculous to us. It need not be immortal, or omnipotent, or omniscient, or omni-anything; it may not even exist anymore.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that Occam's razor demands that we accord the simplest explanation the highest honor. If the Big Bang was not caused by God, then why else did it happen? How else did it happen? Any other explanation which could be provided (and I have heard many, each more astounding, speculative, and fanciful than the last) is invariably more complicated and more difficult to swallow.

When we assume that miracles are impossible, we are displaying unimaginative, non-objective, two dimensional thinking. We are, as it were, "stuck inside the box." Atheists who first rule out miraculous explanations to the universe. beginning and then look for "scientific" ones are being intellectually dishonest. They are placing just as much faith in their empirical science as Christians do in their Bible, and, either way, faith is still sin. I assert that tentative theism is the most honest position, and a theistic model becomes more attractive as we consider matters further.

The Human Soul Exists

If I needed to redefine the term "God," then I most certainly must specify what I mean when I use the term "Soul." I do not mean a glowing ball of energy which escapes our bodies when we die and wings its way to its eternal reward. I do not mean spiritual shadow-stuff which flows like water through the universe. What I mean by the Soul is a quality of human beings which defies scientific explanation.

Just as physicists have a model for the creation of the universe, so do biologists have a model for the creation of life on Earth, which laymen know as the Theory of Evolution. This theory is a useful one, for it explains a great deal about all forms of life from viruses to human beings, and it answers many heretofore unanswered questions - and some questions which were heretofore not even asked. But, like the Big Bang, it stumbles over one point.

That point is art. Not merely painting, as the word "art" implies, but poetry, sculpture, dance, music, architecture, that added aesthetic flourish which is so characteristic of our achievements as a society, of our actions as individuals, of our needs and desires as human beings. We desire to create art, and, even more interestingly, when we are cut off from art and denied the absorption of abstract beauty, denied the stimulation of our aesthetic sensibilities, we become despondent, apathetic, and (if you will pardon the term) dispirited.

All of this, from an evolutionary perspective, is weakness. The countless hours which the Abbot Suger spent in his cathedral dreams, the endless days Bach toiled over his music, the isolation and frustration Lovecraft experienced from his writings, sacrifice on top of sacrifice, shows quite simply that the generation of art, and the desire to generate art, does not improve reproductive fitness. Hunger, thirst, lust, boredom, curiosity, loneliness, anger, and fear all quite obviously aid our survival or the survival of our genes.

Not so with artistic sensibility.

Indeed, art perverts our human industriousness - a quality of obvious evolutionary virtue when directed towards the accumulation of material means - and draws those who allow it to away from the more pragmatic pursuits which answer to the bottom line of evolution theory: That which promotes survival lives; all else is weeded out.

I have studied, from an artist's viewpoint, virtually every human culture known to man, noting in each case, without exception, the prevalence of artistic expression. From an evolutionist's perspective, this prevalence is without logic.

Some claim that art aids in reproductive fitness as a sort of advertisement like a peacock's feathers. But the creation of art, and the displayed performance before the opposite sex, are two quite separate things, each totally independent of the other. It is usually obvious where such peacock's feathers originated; they began as a delineation of sex and health for a polygamous breeding population, and expanded from there. But a human who can create art of any kind is not necessarily of one sex or the other, and one who produces "good" art is of no greater value as a mate than one who cannot.

Others claim that art is simply another sign of degeneracy, a random behavior mutation which was allowed to thrive because the pressures of natural selection were relaxed. But this, too, is unlikely. Natural selection has never been totally absent from human life; only brief periods of civilization manage to avoid it. This is an extremely weak explanation for something as widespread and detrimental to survival as human aesthetics.

Still others believe that aesthetics is an artifact of intelligence, which seems a reasonable supposition, but we know that not all geniuses must desire to create art. The more intelligent a person, the more complicated his aesthetic tastes become, but even people who are not intelligent enough to pick through subtle overtones or skilled enough to create art for themselves can feel moved by art and struggle to create art.

Another explanation for aesthetics is that we associate colors and sounds with things which existed in our evolutionary past. But this is not truly what art is. We may like the sound of an electric guitar because it reminds us of the sound of a dying mammoth, but the music from an electric guitar has melody, harmony, and rhythm, which is what music truly is. We may appreciate the curves on a fertile female or the healthy hue of a man's skin, but this does not explain why we can use these curves or colors to create a piece which possesses balance, flow, and contrast, which is the way visual art truly affects us.

If none of these explanations are satisfactory, then what is left? Only the riddle which is the human Soul. Is it spirit? Is it immortal? Is it simply a chain of genes, placed there by some source foreign to the agents of selection which we know of as natural and native to this Earth? My guess (while tentative) is that it is the latter, but this does not make it any less soul-like, nor any more explicable, nor any less wondrous. Only he who has lived a truly drab and pitiable existence, only one who has never himself been moved by art, can claim otherwise.

In short, the human soul is that unexplainable quantity which compels us to create works of art and to absorb the art of others; the human soul is that facet of human emotion which is moved to sublime heights which cannot be reached except by listening to music, reading poems, or looking at paintings; the human soul is that abstract language of feeling which allows us to convey anger, love, or joy with colors, shapes, and sounds in ways which are meaningless to the rest of the universe, but pregnant with significance for those who can perceive it.

Arguments Against This Theism

I assert that just as God fills the mysterious void which is the creation of the universe, so does the Soul fill the void created by art. Now I have been called intellectually dishonest for making these claims, since many atheists and skeptics assume that science will one day solve these problems, but this is by nature an application of faith.

There is no reason to assume that science will resolve these mysteries, or that if it does, it will resolve them by confirming that there is in fact no God or no Soul. Judging by the evidence at hand, I have no difficulty suggesting that if science ever answers these questions, it will answer them with an affirmative, not a negative. To claim what the fruits of research will be before that research is completed is grossly unscientific and simultaneously in violation of Reason (this is illogical), Objectivity (this is subjective), and Self Doubt (this assumes that an existing belief must be correct).

Every argument I hear attacking these two theistic precepts becomes more convoluted, more complicated, more wild and strained than the last, and while I cannot address them all, I do not need to. Discussion on these topics often becomes extremely heated because of the Hell doctrine which many revealed religions teach their followers, but more casual thought will reveal that neither subject is of paramount importance. It is by far the simplest answer to say "There is a God" and "There is a Soul" and not worry beyond this.

To Those who Still Disagree

That point, which I have just made, is key.I can think of not the slightest reason you should be punished eternally for your beliefs on these subjects, whatever they may be, nor any justification for me to claim that you are not following the Method if you do not agree with me on these last two conclusions. If any of you be contentious about any of these things, I cannot and do not demand you accept them. I say again: If you reject my ideas on God or the Soul, feel free to do so as a fellow Seeker with my respect.

It is beyond my ability to imagine that anyone can provide an argument against Self Doubt, Objectivity, or Reason, which is not either laughable or pitiable in its madness. But these things which I have here written, on what are considered supernatural matters, I have written in the spirit of discovery and consideration. It may well be that either of these contentions will be overturned by new information or by further examination on my own part.In fact I am still looking for arguments which will dispel these ideas. The issues are more broad in scope than I may have made them seem, and the discussion has nuances which require a great deal of study and education to discover.

Most importantly, I am not always right, and I do not demand or even expect that all Children of Millennium will unreservedly embrace my propositions in their entirety. I will not demand you agree with the products of my mind, only with those things which are obvious and unassailable, those things which comprise the Method. Your reason is important, and if you let mine supplant yours, you will have given your reason up and will no longer be following the Method.

What I do demand, however, is that you who disagree with my ideas do so after considering them with an open mind, as free of bias or emotionalism as is possible, and that you be prepared to provide rational arguments to justify your positions, not to me, but to yourself. I ask this equally of those of you who, having read my arguments, agree with them one and all. If you take a stance on this - or any - issue, but cannot find it in yourself to use the Method and think your position through, then you do not deserve to call yourself a Seeker. I myself have considered these concepts for many years, and am likely to consider them for years to come.

No Seeker is ever satisfied.

Book III

To the Unbelievers

It is my expectation that few of you who pick up this work will examine it as a Seeker. Most of you who read this probably began reading as members of some other religion, and since you do not already adhere to the principles of the Method, you are not likely to have been swayed by the simple, generalized arguments which I have made previously to provide fellow Seekers with a framework to build upon. Therefore I would like to go into greater detail not in defense of my own beliefs, but to explain where I think all the other world religions have gone wrong

Furthermore, I have seen the way other religions have been twisted and argued over by the centuries, and I hope to avoid this. Therefore I also go through the trouble of explaining my positions in contrast to those around me to reinforce and specify the nature of Millennium, in the hopes that men who read these words long after I am dead will understand this religion for what it is, and preserve it in a form true to the original intentions of myself and of my fellow Seekers.

Christianity

Throughout my life, most of my associates have been Christians, and it is to these people that I now write. I grew up the same way that most of you did. I was raised to respect the Bible, to love Christ, and to pray every night. I would very likely have continued in this pattern for many years longer if it had not been for friends of mine who, being zealous Christians, studied the Bible in earnest and attempted to put the teachings of Jesus into actual practice rather than going through the mere motions of religion. I cared about Jesus, I cared about morality, and I cared about the truth, so I listened to what they had to say, and verified their words for myself by picking up a Bible and studying it. I strongly encourage any among you who venerate the Bible to pick it up and study it for yourselves, paying attention to the following things which I have to tell you.

Your faith as a Christian hangs on three beliefs: Firstly that Jesus, who is called Christ, was born of a virgin and was of the lineage of David, secondly that this man gave himself as a sacrifice for the sin of the world and then rose from the dead, promising to someday return, and thirdly that in all this, Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the messiah given in the Old Testament, proving himself to be the Christ.

I am prepared to show you that there is no evidence that these things have occurred. My quotations will be taken from the New International Version of the Bible, although if any of you prefer an older version you may verify my quotations with the version you hold as best.

Was Jesus Truly a Descendent of David?

According to tradition, for Jesus to be the messiah, he must have come from the house of David. It is most obvious to say that since Mary was supposedly a virgin when she conceived Christ through the Holy Spirit, Jesus is of no relation to Joseph. However, not even Joseph can honestly be said to be of the lineage of David.

Consider first the genealogy of Jesus which is given in the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 1, verses 6 through 16:

Matthew is very specific about the precise number of generations from Jesus to David and Abraham, saying in verse 17 "Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile in Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to Christ." Now consider the genealogy given in Luke chapter 3, from verse 23 to verse 31:

The two lists diverge immediately upon leaving Joseph. Each traces a completely different set of ancestors who differ from each other not only in their names, but in their numbers. Therefore the question arises: Who are the ancestors of Jesus? Based on the Bible, it is impossible to say. Although it is quite possible that even if the genealogies agreed that they were still untrue, the fact that they disagree proves that one of them, at least, is false. Which is it? Shall we remove the book of Matthew, or the book of Luke from the holy Bible? Clearly only one of them can have been inspired by God. But if the one is not, then how do we know the other is?

These questions only become more pronounced the further we consider the tale of Jesus Christ.

Did Jesus Truly Rise from the Dead?

When trying to determine a man's guilt or innocence, American criminal courts review all sorts of evidence, such as eyewitness accounts or documents. If you were on trial for the theft of a briefcase full of money from a neighbor, and two eyewitnesses testified against you, one saying that you stole the briefcase from a shelf in the living room while you were wearing a black suit, and the other claiming that he saw you, wearing tweed, take it from the hall closet, you would have excellent grounds to argue that these witnesses were not telling the truth. If they were, then surely their stories would have been consistent.

If the prosecution attempted to wave the inconsistencies away as mere "details," their arguments would be laughed at. How can we consider these witnesses, or their testimonies, trustworthy, if they cannot agree on the circumstances surrounding the event in question?

Now consider the story of the Resurrection. We are not merely told an ordinary and likely story, here. We asked to believe an incredible thing has happened - we are asked to believe that someone has raised himself from the dead. This is a difficult claim to make, and it should be considered with seriousness. Here is the testimony of four witnesses who believe the resurrection occurred.

Matthew 28: 1 "After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb."

Luke 24: 1 "On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.

Mark 16: 2 "Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body."

John 20: 1 "Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb."

Even from the very start, we find a problem, for what any person will naturally wonder, upon reading this, is: Who went to the tomb? And more importantly, what time was it? Mark says the events occurred after sunrise, but John says that it was still dark. So when was it? 3:00 AM? 7:00 AM? Was it daytime or nighttime?

Perhaps these inconsistencies are "slight," and can be brushed aside as such. Yet continuing through the story, we find that the disparities only continue to build.

Matthew 28: 2-7 "There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it." (Only Matthew mentions this earthquake. Earthquakes are rare and noteworthy occurrences, particularly when they are "violent." It is strange that only Matthew mentions such a momentous event; he even mentions another earthquake which the other gospels ignore; see Matthew 27: 51-53.) "His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men. The angel said to the women, .Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: "He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him." Now I have told you.."

Mark 16: 3-8 "And they (the women) asked each other, .Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?. But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. .Don't be alarmed,. he said. .You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, "He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.". Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid."

Luke 24: 2-7 "They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, .Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: "The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, be crucified and on the third day be raised again."."

John 20: 1-8 ".(Mary) saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, .They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!. So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed."

So what happened?

Was there an earthquake? When was the stone rolled away? Did it happen before the women arrived, or in front of their eyes after they had arrived? Did they meet someone before they went into the tomb, after they went into the tomb, or when they saw that the tomb was empty? If they did, was it an angel sitting on the stone, or a young man sitting inside? Was it one man or two men? Or did the women see no one at all, and leave, telling two of the disciples who ran there and also saw no one? Each story continues from here on its own divergent path, but what I have presented is enough to demonstrate that they do not agree on the events surrounding the resurrection.

When we are asked to believe that the miraculous has occurred, we should consider the possibility with an open mind, while still remembering that such a thing requires a great deal of substantiation. The gospel writers fail to provide any substantiation for their claim, beyond the mere fact that they are making it; to the contrary, they each disprove one another at every turn through their own conflicting testimonies.

We do not know if there are such things as miracles, since they are not part of common experience - however we do know that there are such things as raving madmen and liars. And, when we examine the prophecies surrounding Jesus, it becomes clear that the gospel writers were not being truthful.

Did Jesus truly Fulfill the Prophecies?

While I was a Christian it never occurred to me that the gospel writers would misattribute prophecies they credited Jesus with fulfilling. Although my Bible, like most Bibles, had footnotes saying which prophecy was written where, I did not bother to look them up because, I reasoned, it would take a great deal of time for me to look into them, and surely any fool could have verified their truthfulness for himself over the course of the ages. Surely, or so I believed, if someone had done so and found them to be untruthful, the whole world would know, and Christianity would be disgraced.

Before I looked up a single one of the prophecies attributed to Jesus, I knew, as you know now, that the gospels contradict one another, and that, especially, there is a great deal of disagreement among their writings surrounding the Resurrection. But while I worried over their disagreements, and accepted that even though their works might not be divinely inspired, I considered that their true message of Christ may simply have been corrupted throughout the years between Jesus. death around 30 AD, and the writing of the first gospel around 70 AD. It seemed reasonable that there was some underlying truth to what they had said, so I pored more deeply into the circumstances surrounding the Gospels, seeking (and here was where my seeking began) the true figure of Jesus who lay behind the gospels.

What I discovered was not information about the character of Jesus, but rather of the Gospel writers, which I now lay bare before you. Examine, if you will, this excerpt from Hosea:

Hosea 11: 1-7 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love, I lifted the yoke from their neck, and bent down to feed them. Will they not return to Egypt and will not Assyria rule over them because they refuse to repent? Swords will flash in the cities, will destroy the bars and their gates and put an end to their plans. My people are determined to turn from me."

Judge for yourself; does this passage not speak of God's relationship with his chosen people? Does it not describe the love and affection God feels for his children? "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." Matthew quotes this passage in his Gospel.

Matthew 2: 13-15 "When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. .Get up,. he said, - take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so it was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: .Out of Egypt I called my son.."

Knowing the passage which Matthew quotes, it becomes clear that no prophecy was fulfilled in this, but that instead it is an example of deceit on Matthew's part. Hosea refers in that passage to the nation of Israel: "When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son." But to make it seem to fit, Matthew slices the sentence in half and discards the portion which gives it meaning. This is not the only scripture gospel writers have misapplied in order to strengthen their case that Jesus. coming was foretold. Consider this excerpt from the crucifixion as recorded by John.

John 19: 31-37 "Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not beak his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus in the side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: .Not one of his bones will be broken,. and, as another scripture says, .They will look upon the one they have pierced.."

The first quotation given at the end of this passage comes from Psalm 34:20. Here it is, but within the proper context:

Psalm 34: 11-22 "Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies. Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned. The Lord redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him."

This is, clearly, nothing more than advice for men and praise for God, as are the rest of the psalms. When this psalm says the bones of "A righteous man" will not be broken, it is not speaking prophetically of a specific Messiah to come; rather it talks about what happens to "righteous men," and the treatment they can expect in life. John is misapplying it when he claims it is a prophecy directed at Jesus.

If all we have to support the claims of the gospel writers is their own authority, then we should not place any stock in the things they have written, because they have demonstrated that they are unreliable and not to be trusted. These unscrupulous men are more interested in presenting an image of Jesus to which they themselves ascribe than they are in presenting an honest account of his doings free from false prophecies which do not refer to him.

There are many other contradictions and disagreements throughout the Bible, and between gospel writers. Some of them are minor and easily explained; others are not. I have not written this as a comprehensive rebuttal of the validity of all the prophecies which were attributed to Jesus as the Christ. (Thomas Paine has already accomplished this in his "Examination of the Prophecies.") I have written this to demonstrate, in as swift and simple terms as I can, that the claims of Christianity are not to be believed.

The Last Resort of Christians

Whenever I have shown Christians one place or another within scripture or within the natural world where the evidence contradicts their beliefs, the argument of "Faith" was usually not far around the corner. "Perhaps none of this makes any sense, maybe there is no reason to believe in it, but that is what faith is for."

Faith, by itself, is not enough. The Muslims and Christians both call for faith, and each will tell you that you are damned if you misplace that faith. We must first know where to place our faith before we decide what to believe. Faith, by itself, cannot tell us this. Only reason can. Only reason can determine what we should have faith in - or whether we should have faith at all.

This is a very important point. Virtually all arguments which I have ever had with Christians have led, through one route or another, to the last resort of faith. We are drilled to have faith in faith itself from a young age, to trust the Bible, to trust God, to trust Christ, to trust this sense of trust, because that will lead us to Heaven, and because without this trust, this faith, we are told, we will find our reward in Hell. All of this flies in the face of sensibility. Through what means are we to know that Hell exists? Faith? By faith we must believe in Hell, and by faith we must believe that without faith we will find our eternal reward there?

What good is this faith? Can it save us from a Hell that does not exist? Can it save Christians from the Hell of the Muslims, or Muslims from the Hell of the Christians? What can it do for us without reason? Nothing! Primitives put their faith in charms, witch doctors, and any other superstition which strikes their fancy. They trust their magic to cure them of diseases and ailments; they place their faith in the superstitions of their culture, never once daring to doubt, and quite frequently they die because of this. "Obviously," you may well say, "They have misplaced their faith."

But how do you know this?

Because of reason!

It is obvious that faith by itself is meaningless, and that it needs reason to direct it. Therefore I tell you, by reason, that your faith is misplaced. You who have faith that Jesus is God, I tell you by reason that there is no evidence to support this. You who have faith that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead, I tell you by reason that this probably did not happen. You who have faith that the Bible is infallible, I tell you by reason that it is not. You who by faith believe that believers can drink deadly poison and live (Mark 16:18), I tell you by reason that you cannot do this, and your own reluctance to do so proves that your reason sees this just as well as mine!

What will you then do?

Will you drink poison?

Or will you admit, at the last, that Reason is the greater virtue?

The Cult of Science

Atheism is widespread, stretching across many cultures. Just as I have grown up alongside Christians, so, too, have I known many Atheists throughout my life. In my personal experience, while I have known some perfectly agreeable Atheists who were open to discussion and had no particular bone to pick with members of other religions, all of the most zealous, fanatic, intolerant, and unreasoning people, without any exception I can recall, were Atheists. As numerous as such Atheists are, it behooves me to address their ideas that they may be sure to understand why, though I agree with them in their denunciation of Christianity, I will never number myself among them.

The Religion which Rejects Religion

Atheists, for the most part, are theophobes; having been marginalized by a society which, justly or unjustly, distrusts their creed, they fear and revile religion. Frequently their theophobia extends to such a level that, after insisting that they are merely being logical, they will turn around and swear that God absolutely cannot exist, that religious works are all lies (usually without having read them), and that the supernatural is impossible. It is these people who are the mainstay of Atheism and these people whom I now, therefore, discuss. The typical Atheist - and not all are typical, but for the most part they fall neatly into the pattern - will tell you that the way of science is the one true path, and that science leaves no room for the possibility of the supernatural.

The truth is that science relies on the very same Self Doubt which lies at the heart of Seeker's Method. Whatever science claims, it must test, again and again, for inherent to science is the principle of tentativity - the principle that knowledge gained is only tentative, that proof through example is no proof at all, and that doubt can never be totally eliminated. Even though the more a principle is tested, the less tentative it becomes, that tentativity never disappears entirely. The scientific method has Self Doubt built into it, and is truly not so different from the way of the Seekers.

The history of science, far from showing us that tentativity is a mere detail, quite clearly demonstrates that it is invaluable. Time and time again, scientists have offered hypotheses about the natural world which seemed to agree with evidence and possess predictive utility, only to have mankind invalidate them with more complete data later on. (Some examples of these disproven concepts still remain in scientific terminology. For instance the Periodic Table goes by the name of the Periodic Table of the "Elements," because scientists used to believe that atoms were basic, elemental, unbreakable units of matter. For another example, the term Calories refers to an old belief that flammable objects possessed a substance called "caloric," and that what we perceived as fire was thought to be this caloric escaping from the burning object.)

That religions frequently reverse their positions the Atheist is glad to point out, but that science believes today things which it held untrue yesterday the Atheist ignores. That religious founders and leaders were mere men, the Atheist is glad to point out, but that scientists are only human, the Atheist ignores. That cult leaders and religious men deceive their followers for wealth or political gain the Atheist is glad to point out, but that scientists lie or misrepresent data for similar reasons the Atheist ignores. That religious texts cannot prove anything merely by saying that it is so the Atheist is glad to point out, but that scientists cannot prove anything through induction, the Atheist ignores. That a scientific law is nothing more than a scientific theory which has not yet been disproven, that a scientific theory is nothing more than a scientific hypothesis which has not yet been disproven, and that, indeed, disproof may forever wait just around the corner, the Atheist ignores.

The Atheist, in his blind faith, forgets all this. He discards Self Doubt and the possibility that, what science says today, it may not say tomorrow. In so doing, he passes beyond the realm of objective scientific thought and into religious fanaticism no less foolish than that of the Judeo-Christianity which he so despises. He has created his own religion (the Cult of Science), with his own religious texts (scientific works), and his own saints (scientists), which may as well be divinely inspired for all the faith he places in their infallibility.

When asked why miracles cannot occur, the Atheist says that science has found absolute laws which the universe must obey, and that a miracle breaks these unbreakable laws of the universe. Never mind that we have no way of showing that these laws have never been and cannot be broken, and that a miracle certainly might occur to disprove the absolute nature of these laws at any time.

When faced with the limits of scientific endeavor, and asked why God cannot exist, the Atheist often resorts to the concept of "soluability," claiming that God's existence is "insoluble;" in other words, the question of God's existence cannot be tested scientifically through direct observation, and is therefore not a valid question to the Atheist. Never mind that we have a wealth of information about the world around us, and can use this to test all manner of predictions indirectly.

Supernatural Questions are not Insoluble

I have shown, by behaving like a scientist, that the Bible is not an infallible source of knowledge. By starting with the hypothesis that it was wholly true, I made the testable prediction that it would disagree with itself in no place, and found that it did, in fact, contradict itself; the fruits of this research I have provided previously. I have come upon a different hypothesis, that being that there is no God and that there is nothing which exists outside of nature. This gives us the testable prediction that everything which exists in nature can be explained by natural causes. The fruits of this research I have also provided previously.

These investigations have demonstrated that the contents of the Bible, or at least the gospels, probably have nothing to do with God, but that some sort of God probably does exist. If Christians and Atheists were to test their own hypotheses, they might very well come to similar conclusions. They might also come to different ones. I do not stand before you saying that there must be a God, nor that Jesus must not be divine, which is the error of the both the Cult of Yeshua and the Cult of Science, each of which, in turn, excludes doubt. However, that which I have demonstrated, I have done not through empiricism, nor through revelation, neither of which is transmittable, but through reason, which is recorded here for all to follow.

Where Empiricism Fails

At the heart of the Cult of Science lies allegiance to the philosophy of Empiricism. True Empiricism, or the belief that "experience, especially of the senses, is the source of all knowledge," is a simplistic and childish world view. The truth is that all knowledge comes from reason. "I think therefore I am" is the sum of all genuine knowledge, because the statement is self validating. All else can never be truly known, only surmised. All else relies on perception and memory, both of which are inherently fallible. Indeed, Empiricism calls for its own moderation, for who among us cannot remember ever being deceived by his senses or his memory?

Do the things which we perceive in our dreams have substance? When we awaken, do our memories of them give them truth? The Atheist has no difficulty telling you that when Jesus went into the desert and fasted for forty days and forty nights, he probably hallucinated his so called temptation. The Atheist has no difficulty telling you that when Christians pray and hear the voice of God speaking inside of them that their faith is deluding them into believing that they hear things which do not exist. The Atheist knows peoples. perceptions and memories are fallible, and that they can be tricked by physiological or psychological problems, and he knows this well, but he fails to make the connection between the fallibility of others. senses and the fallibility of his own senses, or of the senses of the scientists. His faith in his "non-religion" tells him that he could never be duped by these religious errors which pervade the thoughts of believers. He fails to realize that at any time his brain chemistry could be altered without his knowing, or that he may be deluded about the world without realizing it (and I am here to tell you that he is).

In the end, I do not wish to claim with any certainty that the Atheist is wrong to believe that God does not exist, or that the Atheist is wrong to claim that there is nothing which is supernatural. Indeed, I am inclined to agree with Atheists when they say that that science and observation are better sources of information than the assertions of long dead men. However where they remove all uncertainty and deny all doubt, they are no better than Christians - and Christians at least have an excuse for their faith, for they think that by faith they are saved. The faith of the Atheist is a sad and pointless thing, and the sooner he abandons it, the sooner he can begin searching for the truth.

Idealism, Nihilism, and Sophistry

Throughout history there have been several movements which opposed the belief in objective reality. To provide a brief background, Sophistry is, beyond a mere rejection of rational thinking, a form of early Idealism. Grecian Sophists such as Protagoras made the claim that there is no such thing as objective truth, and Gorgias neatly expounded upon this Idealism to create Nihilism, writing that nothing is - and if anything is, then it is not knowable - and if anything is knowable - than it is not communicable. All of this has, at its heart, the concept that objective reality does not exist, that nothing is truly real, that the world of our senses is no more than a collection of dreams.

Refuting the Subjective Stance

Firstly, I would like to state that the attack on the existence of objective reality is well taken. Obviously Descartes. "Cogito ergo sum," or "I think, therefore, I am" is the only provable fact, because it is self supporting. But it is a simple matter to disarm the Sophist (or Idealist, or Nihilist) stance against objective truth by saying that there is no evidence that objective truth does not exist. Anyone who makes the Sophist's claim that there is absolutely no objective reality is guilty of the sin of faith, and no more need be said of this.

Even arguing in defense of the probability for there to be no such thing as objective truth is still intellectually dishonest. It is possible that reality is subjective, but it is not at all probable that it would be. We know what a subjective universe looks like - we all dream. In our dreams, objects lack permanence, nature follows no consistent laws, time is distorted and discontinuous, and everything around us is, one way or another, an aspect of our own semiconscious psyche. With training and concentration, we are able to literally control our dreams by recognizing them as such in a practice known as "lucid dreaming." This is what we would expect of a universe without objective truth. So let us examine the world outside our dreams and see if it bears these qualities.

In the waking world, events follow logical consequences. We are not the center of the universe, and much goes on outside the confines of our perception. Everything has permanence; people, once dead, stay that way, the sun rises and sets according to its pattern, and objects or places do not change position in relation to each other without some force acting on them. None of this supports the concept of a subjective reality.

Furthermore, and most humorously, if the Sophist is correct, and believes that reality is not objective, existing on its own accord, but rather is subjective, existing only as he perceives it, then he should be expected to have great powers over this world! He should be able to "dream lucidly," as it were, and simply disbelieve tragedies and misfortunes, even his own death. His power over the universe should be utterly without limit.

The truth of this matter, which any man can easily explore for himself, is to the contrary. While we should not rule out the possibility for magic or supernatural influence on the universe, your influence on this universe is not absolute, which demonstrates a simple, but profound thing: You depend on the universe. The universe does not depend on you. When you die, the universe will go on. But if the universe should fail, then you will go with it.

Consequences of the Sophist Nightmare

Having said all of this, I recognize, as always, that I cannot prove what I say beyond all doubt. It is indeed possible that truth is subjective, not objective. However a moment's thought tells us that even this unlikely possibility is not worth considering for long, since there is little benefit to be gained from it. Even if, despite all evidence and logic which points to the contrary, the world is nothing but a dream, do we lose anything by believing that it is no dream and that it is "real" in the absolute and objective sense, and by participating in it as though it were "real?"

But I go still further, saying that there is everything to lose by rejecting objective reality. Taken to its ultimate conclusion, Sophistry results in the revocation of all sanity, for it tells us that we - or rather you, for there is no longer any such thing as "we" - are utterly alone. No one else around you is any more than a figment of your perceptions, an aspect of this cosmic dream you call life. There is no point nor purpose to forming bonds of love or friendship with such figments, since they are incapable of genuinely returning such sentiment.

The search for truth is likewise fruitless if there is no truth. If all facts are merely ghostly imaginings, then what purpose is there to unmasking the secrets of the universe? Indeed - what universe? The sophist's universe is his consciousness! There it begins and there it ends, leaving room for nothing more than lonely imaginings or empty, endless hedonism. The sophist's truth is his private hell, and he lacks even the consolation that others suffer beside him.

Pragmatism

While it is generally unnamed and unspoken of, the most prominent philosophical system throughout the ages has been to philosophy what Atheism is to religion: The philosophy of non-philosophy. Most people, as they go through life, simply prefer swift answers which lend themselves to direct, real life application, and philosophers generally pay no attention to such people, except perhaps to view them with vague scorn. Very rarely does any philosophical school seek to justify the practice of philosophizing; philosophy is, to those interested in discussing their beliefs, both the means and the end. Those who are not interested in belief systems see no purpose behind the refinement of their thoughts, and I have lumped everyone who thinks this way under the label of "Pragmatist."

Strength and Weakness

Pragmatists, in their demand that ideas have a practical, realistic basis, point out a great flaw in the general practice of philosophers and religious thinkers. What good is it to know how many angels may dance on the head of a pin if you cannot make them do your sewing for you? What good is it to know that the Capitalists are oppressing you and your fellow working citizens if that knowledge will not change your lot in the slightest? And the love of money may be the root of all evil, but food, clothing, and shelter costs money, and you can - t live on morals.

However, by discarding what they think of as philosophy, pragmatists are actually doing themselves a disservice. Without a philosophy of "buy low, sell high," you won - t get very far on the stock market. Without an understanding of relationships, you aren - t going to be able to make a marriage work. Everything you do requires some strategy, everything you see requires some interpretation, and these things are essentially a person's philosophy.

A Philosophy for the Pragmatists

Although Millennium was made and refined by philosophizers who may have spent too much of their youths thinking and not enough working, its Method is most obviously useful in the arena of the real world. Ideas are abstractions, and it's difficult to see which ones are better beyond a feeling of satisfaction and motivation which comes from a healthy mindset. But in the real world, truth and falsity become glaringly obvious.

A driver who is wrong about what the speed limit is will eventually end up with a speeding ticket. A cook who gets his recipe wrong will end up with something strange and inedible. A student who is wrong about the subject he studies will end up with a bad grade on a test. If these people, after failing, still cling to a false faith in the wisdom of their behavior, they will continue to make the same mistakes, again and again. However if they have the presence of mind to realize that they aren - t always right about everything (Self Doubt), consider the way other people might do things (Objectivity) and think the problem through logically (Reason), they can resolve their problems and improve their life.

The search for the truth is important for all people in all walks of life. It is not only some grand quest for enlightened thinkers; searching for the truth is something everyone must do to succeed. And the Seeker's Method is the most basic, useful, and universal way of doing that. Any other pragmatic philosophy, such as "Learn from your elders" or "you can reach your dreams if you try hard enough" won - t work for everybody in all circumstances. It isn - t that the truth is somehow mutable and subjective, it's that not everybody has wise elders, and not everyone has dreams that are within the reach of his talents. Circumstances change, and the only principles which will work no matter what are the principles of the Method.

Millennium is, more than any other religion, a religion for the pragmatists. It does not promise dubious rewards which can only be realized after you die. It does not encourage irrationality or slavish devotion to any principle other than those with obvious practical value which comprise the Seeker's Method. It does not ask that you give your hard earned wealth away. It does not tell you that your natural feelings are wrong. Instead, it gives you a framework to clear your mind and gives you a means to succeed at your endeavors, free from delusions and falsehoods which will otherwise hold you back. What these endeavors are will be up to you to decide.

The Great Delusion of This Era

There is one final philosophy of our age which I wish to discuss in this work, and it is also perhaps the most important for me to address, for while it is the most widely embraced and widely accepted of all beliefs in the modern age, it is also the most insidious - insidious because this great delusion will destroy our society through dysgenics if it is not stopped. Insidious because this great delusion has and will continue to strangle free thinking through fanatic opposition to the pursuit of science and to simple objective reasoning. Insidious because this great delusion incites its followers to attack, with sanctimonious fury, the very principles for which Seekers stand.

This great delusion is Egalitarianism.

The term "egalitarian" initially meant one who simply believed in equal rights. These rights were rarely accorded equally to children or animals; the line was drawn at adult humans, which, while arbitrary, seemed wise enough. However, in the aftermath of desegregation and universal (adult) suffrage, the term "egalitarian" has come to mean something else - the belief that all races, all genders, all groups, and, sometimes, that all people, are equal.

There is nobility, generosity, a sense of fairness, in this statement. A man from Quebec might well be expected to promote Quebec before all other lands, and to hold up himself and his countrymen as superior to others, but he is being both objective and kind to acknowledge the merits of other people and other lands. This sort of kindness and generosity is associated, by the modern man, with a value of "goodness."

What modern man fails to understand is that all virtue stems from the truth. Without belief in the truth, there is no good. The acceptance of human equality is good only insofar as it is the truth, no matter how otherwise charitable it may be. If human beings made the claim that they were equal to monkeys in intelligence, strength, constitution, and so forth, would this claim be "good?" Could any genuine good come from it? Our society has no problem declaring to its children, "You are inferior, you are foolish and small and weak, you are ignorant and stupid and reckless and not to be trusted, and we will afford you a place in this society according to your worth" but is it "good" to send this message to them, and to make them second class citizens in our society because of it?

It is commonly known that not all breeds of dog are equal. Any layman can quite easily look at a Great Dane and a Chihuahua and take a guess as to which can run faster and fight better. He can tell merely by looking at a Poodle that it is removed genetically from a Wolf (with whom it can still mate). He would never be so foolish as to believe that these differences are anything other than genetic in their origins. And he can tell by looking at a child and an adult that there are differences in ability which are so firmly affixed in his mind as to be unquestionable. Yet when looking at adult human populations, he is encouraged to be charitable, and generous, and kind, and mouth the words "all people are equal" at the expense of honesty.

Does admitting inequality not give us insight into the methods for addressing and resolving the problems it presents? Does admitting differences, even if this necessarily results in the stigma of "superior" and "inferior" for any one group (and I do not believe that it does) not give us the means to either accept the failures of the "inferior" without holding their limitations against them, or else a means of improving all people together? Has the admission of inequality not proven useful in our dealings with children, who might otherwise misuse the freedoms which gun ownership and alcohol consumption would grant them? Is it so good to say "all people are equal" and allow five year olds to vote and to drive?

But perhaps I should put a different line of questioning to those who make the assertion that "all are equal" - does this act of polite equivocation make the weak and sickly any more healthy than they were before? Does this charitable fib make the criminal and aggressive any less prone to violence than before? Does this lie make the primitive and unintelligent breeds of men any smarter than they were before?

No! If it is, in fact, untrue, then it is a lie like any other, and for that reason - and only for that reason - it must be stamped out! A lie is a lie, a falsehood is a falsehood, delusion is delusion, no matter why it is embraced, no matter why it is promoted, no matter why it is taught as fact.

I do not stand before you telling you without Self Doubt that the equality of man is a lie. Instead, at the last, I say this: If you truly believe that all groups of people are equal, then do not hide behind a shield of "goodness" or of faith. Test your belief. I ask you:

Does the field of medicine uphold your theory? Do people of all ages, genders and ethnicities suffer the same diseases in the same proportions? Diabetes, Sociopathism, Alcoholism, Cystic Fibrosis? Do they have the same nutritional requirements? Do they grow at the same rates?

Does history support your theory? Has language, art, or science evolved the same way in all populations? Have people of all ages, genders, and ethnicities contributed equally to cultural advancement? Have they behaved historically in ways which indicate that they are the same?

Does the field of statistics uphold your theory? Are members of all races, ages, and genders equally represented in professions which do not artificially discriminate between them? Do they test equally on intelligence or other psychometric scales? Do they commit crimes at equal rates?

For myself, I do not believe for a moment that they do, for I have seen the great body of evidence available for this subject, no part of which upholds the claim that "all people are equal," not within populations, nor between populations, not even from one sister to her twin. So it seems, at least to me, that the truth is not "noble," not "generous," not "charitable," not "kind." And neither should you be, if, for even one moment, it makes you a liar.

Book IV

To the Children of Millennium

Seekers are, in many ways, unlike members of other religions. Our ceremonies are sparse, our tenets few. To be a Seeker you must simply seek, ordering your thoughts in accordance with the three virtues of the Method, and recognizing that future generations depend on the decisions you makes in procreating.

However it is good for you, as a new Seeker, to find new habits. At first much of the Method will require conscious effort on your part, but if you make this effort long enough, and consistently enough, paying close attention to your thoughts and to your words, and listening to the suggestions of others, Self Doubt, Objectivity, and Reason will soon enough become second nature to you. And if your experiences are anything like my own, you will feel as though a great weight is lifted from you, and find a peace with yourself and with the world around you of which you never dreamed before - by striving to overcome your flaws, while knowing that they will never disappear, you will come to accept them, and the shortcomings you perceive in others.

Becoming a Child of Millennium

In truth, to become a Seeker, all one must do is begin applying the Method and try to support the Nation. However, to officially join this religion as a Son or Daughter of Millennium, you should speak the Seeker's Pledge, taking care to understand the concepts it embodies:

1. "I am not perfect. No one is perfect. I am not always right. I am human. I am fallible. I will never trust my judgment absolutely."


2. "Ideas foreign to me may be correct, for where I am wrong, others may be right. I will consider the thoughts of others even if I disagree with them. I will never stop looking for new ideas."


3. "I will not reject any idea because it frightens me, saddens me, or contradicts all else I think to be true. I will weigh feelings with my heart, but I will weigh ideas with my mind."


4. "The future depends on our children. I will procreate in accordance with the genes I have inherited, never irresponsibly, and will give my children love, understanding, and support."

The Tree of Knowledge

The Tree of Knowledge is a record of all the people through which the teachings of Millennium have passed. Having made the Seeker's pledge, you have become a Son or a Daughter of Millennium, and are eligible for a place in the Tree of Knowledge. This tree is something like a family tree, going from yourself to the person who taught you about Millennium, to the one who brought him into the religion, and so on and so forth back to myself. If you were not approached by another Seeker and found Millennium simply by reading this short book, you may list "Millennium" as your symbolic parent.

Although you are not obligated to memorize your religious lineage, it is best that you do in case you should ever lose contact with the others along your line and you need to give your own line to someone else who comes after you. Also, you should keep track of your children (those fellow Seekers who list you as their own parent) in order that the lines of the Tree of Knowledge can be more easily traced as the generations pass.

Receiving this religious ancestry and a place in the Tree of Knowledge should not be a special privilege; be wary of anyone who asks for money or some other service before accepting you as a Son or Daughter and giving you his lineage - too many religions have been mere fronts for charlatans and hucksters, and you should not feel obligated to give anyone money simply because you perceive him as your religious superior. In fact, it is usually best to avoid all financial entanglements with other Children of Millennium, since if anyone accuses you of being brainwashed or of joining a cult you can explain that you have not been, and will not be, asked for any money.

Symbols

After you become a Son or Daughter of Millennium, it is good to declare your religious affiliation by wearing its symbol, the Seeker's Triangle. It is best if you construct such a triangle yourself; begin with a short horizontal line. Perpendicular from the rightmost tip of this line, attach a second line, the length of which is equal to the length of the first line times phi; 1.62 is a good approximation for phi. (If the dimensions are difficult to replicate perfectly, it is best to err on the side of conservatism, with an angle less than 90 degrees or a second line shorter than phi.) Connect the two free tips with a third line, and rotate the figure so that it hangs directly downward from its outermost tip. It is intended that you should wear the triangle point up if you are merely a follower of the Method, although if you have procreated responsibly and in keeping with your conscience, you may instead choose to wear it point downward to symbolize your devotion to the Nation.

While I encourage you to display this figure proudly at all times, you need not do so. The purpose behind the symbol is to let other Seekers know who you are, and also to spread the word about Millennium. However, if this is not expedient for whatever reason, do not feel obligated to wear the symbol perpetually (or even at all). This is a personal decision which I leave up to you.

Of course, you may also draw support from any other rituals, devices, and slogans as you see fit. I see no reason for you to avoid symbols, poems, or any other forms of art which stir the emotions. The way in which you express your allegiance to Millennium is your own decision, and should, ideally, reflect your own personality and aesthetic sense. If you take pride in displaying the symbol which I have chosen to symbolize the Method or the Nation, or in reciting the Seeker's Pledge I have written above, then I encourage you to do so. And if you consider such things superfluous, then feel free to ignore them.

Priests of the Apocalypse

As it stands now, many tongues will wag about the shadowy pitfalls of eugenics when one brings up the concept of genetic improvement. Marxists, professors, media darlings, cultural determinists, so called "leftists" and "liberals" who struggle to enforce their debunked ideology in an effort to preserve their decaying dream, none of them have any intention of breaking free from the dysgenic tide which threatens to sweep everything away. And all of them can think of one reason or another why eugenics is a bad idea.

I have spoken to many on the subject, and while most eugenists have common views, even though they are otherwise a rather disparate group, their opponents cite reason upon reason, each wilder than the last, for why the Nation is not a reachable goal, not a desirable goal, not a definable goal, or not a moral goal to reach. These Priests of the Apocalypse stand between us and our survival, and if we cannot publicly refute their objections, we may not succeed in our efforts to spread either the Method or the Nation, and just as Rome fell, so must we fall.

Therefore, even though a discussion of all of their arguments in turn would be almost impossible to compile, each argument often being stranger than the last, I thought it good for me to provide at least a brief discussion of the topic so as to give fellow Seekers a firm background for the issue and a strong set of arguments to offer anyone who opposes the Nation.

Compassion as Dehumanization

Most people do not take the objective view of morality; they have no problem with the assumption that their own set of ethical principles are universal. This is a very flimsy assumption to make."good" and "evil" change every 200 years or every 2000 miles. Nevertheless the assumption is made, and this will create a strong conflict between conventional morality and the morality of Millennium, which is to seek truth and avoid falsity.

Most conventional morality confuses goodness with compassion, and cruelty with evil. This can make the eugenics argument somewhat muddled, since the statement that the world would be better if certain people and groups procreated less and others more can seem like a heartless insult to those whom we would prefer left fewer descendents. Indeed, those who feel insecure about their heritage will take such statements personally.

Such people will take for granted that it is "good" to aid the unfit, because this seems most compassionate, and thus they oppose eugenics because they believe that it is uncompassionate and dehumanizing, claiming that it treats people who were unfortunately afflicted with hardship as being somehow less than human. The truth is that eugenics stems from the very idea that these people, for all the poverty of their genes, are still people. The true eugenist is less interested in punishing the unfortunate for their misfortunes than he is in striving to help future generations overcome them.

Many among us were born genetically poor. Unattractive, disease ridden, unintelligent, these people suffer and struggle daily as a result of the misfortunes of their birth, for which they cannot be held responsible. Any objective human being with the capacity to imagine what it must be like for others besides himself should have little difficulty realizing what a tragedy it must be for these people to suffer as they do!

Conventional morality would insist that we offer aid to these people, treating the symptoms of their problems while avoiding discussion on the causes. An important point to be made is that when the unfit are helped to thrive and reproduce the genes which made them so, they will be inflicting their condition on more and more people - this is simple dysgenics. If, however, we can extend a helping hand to future generations, we will be going far beyond the shortsighted compassion offered by social aid. What is more compassionate, to order society such that the burdens of the deaf are easier to bear, or to give them the gift of hearing? What is more compassionate, to supply drugs to diabetics and schizophrenics in order to help alleviate their plight, or to cure the conditions entirely?

A sympathetic and objective observer would rationally conclude that, while giving aid to these people as individuals is a compassionate thing to do, it treats only the symptom, not the cause. True compassion would be to remove these bad genes from the pool, to ensure that they are inflicted upon as few people as possible. True compassion is eugenics.

It is important not to dismiss the "undesirables" as being undesirable; and in truth they are themselves not undesirable, merely unlucky, for it is misfortune bestowed upon them by the genetic lottery which has made them so. It is precisely the fact that we are more than the mere sum of our genes that makes improving the Nation so important. If it were simply that we began and ended with our genes, then would it truly matter whether civilization died for want of intelligence to support it? Why should we care, if few or no gifted individuals remain to suffer?

This is contrary to the ideals of the Nation.I desire that all might share genetic wealth, and it is difficult for me to imagine a more noble dream than this. If we can reach our goal of creating the new Nation, our descendents for a thousand generations will look back on us and say, "thank you for the efforts you made in order that we would not have to suffer as you did." Nothing could be more compassionate than our struggle for the Nation.

The Tainted History of Eugenics

It is difficult for some people to listen to the word "Eugenics" and not immediately associate it with all that they know of as evil.National Socialism, totalitarianism, heartless oppression of minorities. It is all too true that many deeds were done in the name of eugenics which would have been best left undone, and that many times eugenics was implemented in a crude and unfeeling manner which failed to take into account human emotion or dignity.

To strive for a better Nation is to strive for the happiness of all. I believe the best reasons to promote the Nation are to alleviate suffering, to elevate mankind to a higher level of understanding, to improve the quality of human existence. With this in mind, forced sterilization, governmentally arranged marriage, genocide, and any of a dozen other ugly concepts which most people immediately associate with eugenics, run contrary to the entire purpose behind the science.

It is a simple fact that all knowledge brings with it the potential for misuse. Would we think of gunpowder in the same light if it were not for handguns? It is well known that for centuries, the Chinese used it peacefully in their fireworks before Western man used it in warfare. Does our modern application of the substance make gunpowder itself evil? Even if one could ignore the fact that guns are often used as a deterrent to violence and make the argument that firearms themselves are a bad thing, it is absurd to claim that there is no positive, productive use to which gunpowder can be turned.

I therefore say that whatever the history of eugenics may be, this should not deter us from pursuing our goal of an improved Nation. If we apply the principles of genetics and heredity with foreknowledge, compassion, and responsibility, there is no reason to presume that we would repeat history's mistakes. Like medicine, electricity, or any of a hundred other disciplines, it has had a shuddering start, but that is no reason to stop it.

Indeed - eugenics is an end to history's mistakes. No civilization has ignored it and survived.

Science as Pseudoscience

The term "pseudoscience" is often tossed around blithely by anyone who opposes some scientific finding or principle for personal reasons. I stand before you to say that there is no such thing as pseudoscience, only truth and falsity. When someone claims that eugenics is a pseudoscience, he is trying to claim that the concepts on which it is based are false, and that in practice it will not work. Nothing could be more at variance with reality.

There are fundamental differences between terriers and poodles, between greyhounds and pit bulls, between collies and dalmatians. Some are smarter, some faster, others stronger, others healthier. We have been able to create these breeds from ordinary wild dogs simply by looking at observable characteristics and encouraging dogs which displayed desired traits to mate and produce offspring. It is true that in many cases, the breeds are less healthy, strong, or intelligent than an ordinary mutt, but this is because such traits were not taken into account by the breeders, who focused on one or two traits (usually appearance) to the exclusion of all else.

Even though many genes are often involved, even though the complexities of heredity are often such that desirable genes are masked by undesirable ones, and even though sometimes genes are only useful when they exist singly, rather than in pairs (Sickle Cell is a classic example of this), we were able to slowly create breeds of dogs as we desired them to be. This is concrete evidence of the validity of eugenics.

Indeed, our very existence is evidence for the merits of eugenics, for if selection pressures could not boost intelligence by winnowing out the dull, how could man have risen above his primate cousins? The principle of heredity is the principle on which all evolution stands; therefore anyone who wishes to attack eugenics must also attack evolution. Since, as I write this, many among the religious community still deny that evolution occurred in any form, I will not belabor the point, but it is an important one, which those who insist eugenics does not work are missing.

Narrow Viewpoints

People often believe that they must oppose eugenics since they oppose cloning, ethnic cleansing, abortion, or genetic manipulation. This is much the same as opposing law enforcement because one opposes the stocks and public executions. It is a fallacy related to the idea that since eugenics can be put to negative use, all eugenics must be evil; however, it claims instead that since eugenics can sometimes be pursued through harsh, undesirable means, eugenics itself is necessarily undesirable.

There are dozens of ways one can effect eugenic pressure; for example, consider the application of technological advances in sperm or egg selection. If it becomes possible to choose the precise sperm and egg we wish to use when making our children, this will allow everyone with access to the technology a great many options for their future child - and through that child, the future of mankind.

An alternative to this, which would work with technology currently available to the industrialized world, would be to socialize contraceptives - that is, to make birth control easily available to all individuals at no cost to themselves. As it is now, a disproportionate percentage of babies are born to families in the underclass which cannot adequately nurture them.

Another alternative would simply be to raise public consciousness of the issue, and encourage the intelligent to procreate above replacement as a fulfillment of moral and civic responsibility. In a sense, that is precisely what Millennium does.

Even if all other methods for inducing eugenic change are somehow undesirable, be they technological or governmental, you yourself can still decide whether or not you wish to procreate. No matter what anyone may say about eugenics, you will find few willing to argue with your decision if you explain that you intend to have, or not have, children based on your own ideals about what the Nation should be. If you can explain that the Nation need not depend on any more than this, you will have removed all reasonable objections others may have to your beliefs. Sometimes it is necessary to divorce yourself from the foolish (and, truthfully, irrelevant) negative associations others make with eugenics to demonstrate that the science itself is not "evil."

Ability as Disability

Some have said that intelligence is a weakness - that geniuses are incapable of performing the sort of work done by the unintelligent. While appealing in a sort of simplistic way, this is also something like claiming that a strong man cannot lift up a feather and that he would need a weak man to do it for him. Even if this argument carried weight, in a society where ability was the norm, not only would the unfortunate and unintelligent share the prosperity of everyone around them by mere proximity, but they would have less competition for those few positions they were suited to fill - by supply and demand, their scarcity would increase their value, and thus their wages would increase relative to the wages of lawyers or scientists or CEOs.

The fact is that our society is becoming more and more intellectually demanding. Gone are the days when all one needed was a plot of land and a strong back to make a living. Now, with the help of machines, one farmer does the work of fifty. Where did the other forty-nine go? Now, with the aid of machines, one construction worker does the work of fifty. Again, where did the other forty-nine go? The market is saturated with cheap labor - this is why a minimum wage must be set; if these people were paid their true worth, they would scarcely be able to feed themselves!

The time is gone when a person could compete without literacy or a diploma. The only thing a person is fit to do without the necessary ability to function in this technological society is perform those dwindling manual duties, or steal from those better off than himself.

We need not send our Nation rocketing into levels of intelligence which surpass current human maximums. We need only take small steps to ensure that man has the capacity to fulfill the requirements of the world in which he lives, and, more importantly, to reason. As it is now, man is right where his elite masters want him smart enough to obey, but not smart enough to think for himself. I am dissatisfied with this circumstance. Are you?

How to Live as a Seeker

Experience is not transmittable. The lessons which life has taught me are far from absolute, and they may not work for you. So I am somewhat reluctant to set down guidelines for life as a Seeker beyond those inherent to the Method and necessary for the improvement of the Nation. However, I know that many of you who read this are seeking advice at least on where to begin, and, especially those of you who forsook a strict religion, will wish for some framework on which to base your new lives. I will now provide such a framework, with the understanding that you who read this and agree with my every word will continue to learn and apply your own best judgment rather than deferring to my advice your entire lives.

So the best advice I can give you regarding my own advice given here is this: That which works, remember; everything else, leave behind.

General Advice

Set good habits for yourself. Many people who believe in free will are living under the presumption that each and every decision they make is made new each time they make it. This is not the case. People's behavior is subject to habit some moreso than others. If you make healthy eating a habit, it will not be a struggle to eat properly at every single meal. Likewise, if you make following the Method a habit, it will come more easily to you than when you first begin to apply it.

When others beg forgiveness for their mistakes, strive to forgive them, for you are no more perfect than they. More importantly, try to forgive yourself when you fail. No matter how hard you strive for perfection through the application of the Method, remember that at the heart of the Method is the understanding that perfection is a goal to shoot for, not a quality to possess.

Do not force yourself to question your actions as you take them and sabotage your success with doubt, but consider your actions in carefully before you make them, or if there is no time, then consider them in retrospect when you are finished, and learn from experience if you can.

Remember that your emotions are there for a purpose. Although you must never allow your heart to dictate your thoughts, do not try to dictate your emotions with your head. Do not feel guilty for what you desire or for the emotions you harbor which seem wrong or unreasonable. Your feelings are not your fault - only your actions are your own responsibility. Do not be afraid to vent your feelings, so long as they are in ways which cause no harm. Don't take your miseries out on those who care about you.

Be careful about the way you treat other beings, even if they are not human. Use objectivity; remember that they may have feelings which are every bit as important to them as yours are to you. While you need not become a vegetarian (there is some evidence to suggest that pure vegetarianism may be unhealthy, but this is another area which you should investigate for yourself) it is better that you not derive benefit from the suffering of other beings, so I suggest that you avoid foods like veal. Also, be careful about supporting research which uses animals as guinea pigs; very frequently experiments are done using animals which would never be done on a human being, and there is no reason to assume that the animals being tested are somehow immune to the pain and discomfort that science inflicts upon them.

The reputation of all Seekers rests on your shoulders. Take care of your health and appearance. Obey local law and custom; do not make a mockery of yourself or an enemy of the society in which you live. Try not to profit from legal loopholes or from ignoble professions; rather earn your place by offering something useful or meaningful back to the society in which you have chosen to live.

So long as Seekers are not persecuted, try to let everyone know that you are a Seeker, so that others may see by your example what this means, and learn from you if they have questions. As long as they are not disinterested in the subjects, speak to those you meet about the Method or the Nation. If you truly believe that it is of value, you should encourage them to follow its principles, even if they will not become Seekers. Likewise, encourage those who are blessed to pass these blessings on to society with children, and discourage the less fortunate from having many children.

Recognize the value of money. Money has its place, and is necessary for many things, but it cannot buy those things in life which are truly precious. Be thrifty; avoid buying what you can live without, especially if it is something expensive. Many of the wealthiest waste money on themselves when they should be using it to raise and support more children. If your genes are good and you believe in the Nation, then follow through, and use your money to help strengthen it. Most importantly, stay out of debt if you can; if you lose control of your finances, they will control you.

Be sensible about preparing for eventualities. Set a little money aside for when you might need it. Store up enough food and water to last you a week, and replenish your supply regularly. Keep some means of defense by you where you will need it - a can of mace or some other non lethal item is safest, but different circumstances may call for more or less elab