My religion:
 

   I believe that the meaning of my life is a matter which I determine. 
I have found that the following three principles are beneficial within 
the context of that belief. I understand that they are in some sense
probably stated imperfectly and that they are most likely incomplete
in some ways. I know that they potentially have numerous variations 
and exceptions, for those are characteristics of most verbal statements. 
I have found that they function well throughout a wide range of
circumstances, so I like to remember them, and sometimes I share them.

Three guiding principles:

I am the only legitimate authority over my own life and myself.
I need to do what is in my own real interest.
I intend to believe only what is true.

   Those three principles are the religion in its entirety. Everything else 
is commentary. 

   The principles are brief, simple, easy to understand, and they are
not infinite in number. For me they work better than anything I have
found in any of the world's other religions. They are pragmatically
realistic, not based on superstitious misunderstandings.

   You can say they constitute a religion, or you can say they don't.
It depends on how you split hairs.

   What about the popular religious idea that everything is actually 
united and that it and we combined together are all just one divine
being?

   That belief is a mistake. It is a failure to understand what is real.

   I am complete as that which I am, even though I am only a human 
individual. It is the idea of being at unity with everything that exists
that is incorrect. Such ideas are superstitious misunderstandings of
real phenomena which appear to validate them but which actually
do not.

   I am not trying to make it seem that I am holy and you are not.
The principles are written in a way that no matter who says them, 
that is who they are about.


Robert Hampton Burt
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