0.1 Introduction

We have a problem, and it could not be bigger.

​Our systems of belief, which give us a common purpose and create a shared system of values, are collapsing. This is happening because these religions have failed to adapt to the modern world in which we live. Our religions were formulated and understood in the ancient world, which bears no resemblance to the modern world we now live in. Asking the modern mind to accept an ancient tradition is an unreasonable demand. Our religious narratives must be dramatically reimagined.

​Our modern world which has led to this breakdown in Religion is the gift of Science, but Science is a method, not a system for creating a common purpose or shared values. As Religion broke down in the face of scientific discovery and rationality there was a hope that Science could replace Religion as a source of common understanding. This could never work, because it fundamentally misunderstands what Science is. Science is a practice, a strategy for discovering what is real. It cannot provide any common purpose or shared values from those discoveries. This has led to an increase in conflict in our society as we have ever more information to deal with, but no common sense of value through which to understand and act on this information.

​This increase in conflict is coming at the same time as our systems of government are breaking down as well. While not as ancient as religion, the structures of governance upon which our societies rest are hopelessly out of date. They were designed by and for people who wrote with feathers, and who if they wanted to share what they wrote had to hand it to a man on a horse! This world resembles the ancient world much more than it does a world where everyone has a smartphone in their pocket. It would be foolish to expect this outdated system of government to be able to cope with the modern world.

​Our society, our culture, cannot survive this multi-dimensional breakdown. If we do not dramatically update it to meet the challenges of the modern world, it will surely collapse. These problems are so easily seen and so widely agreed upon, yet there seem to be no solutions being offered. What if that’s because they are all one problem? What if the problem is that we are wrong, but we’ve been wrong for so long, and in such a fundamental way, that we’ve never even stopped to consider it?

The story of the Flood is a good example of this. It is a story at the foundation of all the Abrahamic religions: Islam, Christianity and Judaism. We’ve had this story with us from the beginning and we’ve only ever thought about it in one way. Up until recently this was fine, but when Science came along and started to question it, this interpretation became very problematic. But what could we do? How could we reimagine a story which had existed from time immemorial? It is much easier to just turn a blind eye to the problem and rely on “faith”.

Yet now, all those with a modern understanding of the world know that this story can’t be true. It is simply impossible to build a wooden boat and put 2 of every animal on it. So those who embrace a scientific worldview reject it, and consequently all the religions built upon it. But this story also contradicts the faith of those who hold to religious belief. Whether they are Muslim, Christian or Jew all those who believe in God believe that he is loving and merciful. Yet the Flood is a story of God wiping out humanity, the furthest thing imaginable from loving or merciful!

Here we can see that the conflict between Science and Religion is actually not a conflict, they both think that this story must be wrong. But because there is no other option for how to interpret it, this story remains at best a source of confusion and at worst a source of division. Those with a religious faith have not been willing to reimagine this story because it is too fundamental to faith. If we imagine that we are wrong about this story then we are forced to wonder if we are wrong about everything, all the way down to questioning if God himself is real.

This is far too daunting a task and I would say it could never have been done if the Flood was your starting point. Yet I will say that we are wrong. We are completely wrong. The beauty of recognizing that you are wrong though is that it gives you the opportunity to become right. In this case, it gives you the opportunity of discovering a way to reimagine this story so that it not only paints God as a loving father, but also lines up with a scientific worldview.

​If the Flood is too fundamental to start with, how did I stumble onto this new interpretation for it? I came to it near the end of a very long journey. From growing up in a family that was very religious, I began to walk away from that tradition once I started to learn about the Scientific Method. Until by my late teens I was an atheist with a purely scientific worldview. However, the scientific practice of assuming you are wrong eventually brought me back to my traditional, religious roots.

​At this point, having looked at all the major religions and denominations along the way, I recognized that while they all shared the same fundamental beliefs, they disagreed wildly about the particulars of those beliefs. With one notable exception: all religions and even mythologies share the belief in an “end times”, but they all also agree about the particular fact that these end times will be apocalyptic. I found this exception to the rule very interesting, especially since Christians associate the “end times” with the second coming of Christ.  Since Christians call this the second coming I thought it might be instructive to consider the first.

How accurate were the expectations of those waiting for the first appearance of the Christ? From a Christian perspective they were disastrously wrong. Those who were waiting for the Christ were so wrong in their expectations of what he would look like that when he appeared they ended up calling for his crucifixion! My scientific assumption of being wrong led me to wonder if the Christians are just as wrong about the second coming as the Jews were about the first?

This perspective helped me understand a problem I had been wrestling with for years. It seems to me to be a historical fact that the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution were born out of a fervently Christian Europe. So why is there now such a divide between Science and Religion? If Science was born out of such a religious society how could they now be incompatible? I think it has to do with this assumption of being wrong which is baked into the scientific method.

Within Science you can ask the question “What if we’re wrong?” all the way down. There is nothing that is off limits and therefore your scepticism can roam wherever it likes. Within Religion this is not the case. There exists within religion, ideas and beliefs which you are not allowed to question. Such as the Flood, because if you’re willing to question such deep beliefs then pretty soon you’ll be questioning the very existence of God.

The first coming of Christ provides a way for us to understand how we can separate our faith and scepticism. It is significant that the Jews weren’t wrong about the fact of his coming. They were wrong in the details of what it actually looked like when the narrative language of religion met the real world. The narrative language of religion differs so widely from the real world because it was written by and for people who had no way of knowing what the real world was actually like.

This is not true for someone living in the 21st century. We know a great deal about what the real world is composed of and how it is structured. So if we are willing to question our interpretation of the religious stories all the way down, we can maintain a belief that they did in fact occur. Then, using our knowledge of the real world we can reimagine what the events those stories are describing actually looked like. This is what I began to do. Surprisingly, what began to develop as I put this method into practice was not just a new way to imagine each individual story, but actually one continuous narrative that played itself out logically from one part to the next.

Rather than a collection of disparate stories, told one after the other, there began to emerge a unified story that was so rational that even ardent atheists saw the next step as obvious, once they had seen the first few. This story not only explained where we came from and how we got where we are today, but it painted a clear picture of where we are going, and even how to get there! It gives us clear ‘Directions to Purpose’.

This now leaves me with the problem of how to share it with others. The difficulty is that everyone knows who Adam and Eve are. Everyone has heard of Noah and Jesus and so everyone has opinions and assumptions that they bring to these stories. In a face to face conversation that is fine. I can address each of them as they come up and explain how to go from the traditional view to this new one. Unfortunately, this will never work when publishing to a wide and varied audience because each individual assumption leads to a different objection.

I struggled with this problem for a long time. How do I address an almost infinite number of objections without the resulting book being unbearable to the individual who only has a few objections which are unique to them? Then, after years of trying, my wife and I conceived a son. My excitement at the prospect of being a father was indescribable! On top of that universal joy I couldn’t believe that my son would have the opportunity to know and understand all that ‘Directions to Purpose’ has to offer, from day one.

There wouldn’t be any old interpretations for him to unlearn. There wouldn’t be any confusion about how a loving God could do so many tyrannical things. He could know who he was and where he came from. He could grow up knowing what his place in the world was. He would never have to wonder what this is all for and why life is so hard; or how an all-good, all-powerful God could allow so many evil things to happen. And there it was, the solution to my problem. Rather than write ‘Directions to Purpose’ for a general audience, I would write it for my son.

This would free me from having to address the infinite objections and allow me to present this new interpretation from a blank slate. This will be difficult to read in the beginning, but I think very quickly the logical and harmonious way the story unfolds will become convincing. It is the unified nature of the story, from Adam and Eve, all the way to the second coming of Christ, which is the best defense for this new perspective anyway. So why spend my time stopping along the way to address different objections? All this would do is break up the story and detract from its unified nature.

If this unified story can then be shown to line up with modern science doesn’t that provide it with a strong enough defense? If on top of that it uncovers principles which lead to a novel form of government, capable of operating effectively in a modern society, then surely arriving at that point sooner rather than later, is more important than addressing every possible objection along the way.

So if you’re willing, what I would ask you to do is set your assumptions aside and read what follows with an open mind. Rather than compare it to what your current interpretation of these stories is, ask, “Is this logical?” Ask, “Does this story show God to be the loving father I believe him to be?” I believe that if you’re willing to come along for the ride you will find a solution to our common problems. I believe you will find that Science and Religion can be reconciled. I believe you will find that with directions to our common purpose to guide us, the future can be better than we ever dared dream it could be.