The role of contemporary prophets is to resolve the human condition, and by so doing make the need for religions obsolete

The authoritativeness of unresigned thinkers can cause people concern because resigned people can project their way of thinking and mistake it as the arrogance of a deluded charlatan. Similarly, someone recognising themselves as a prophet can lead people to fear that the person is the worst form of deluded false prophet, someone so insecure, and as a result suffering from such delusions of grandeur, that they are fallaciously putting themselves forward as Page 463 of
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In pre-scientific times religions were founded around unresigned, denial-free-thinking individuals or prophets. There was a time when unresigned prophets legitimately put themselves forward as sources of soundness for people to associate themselves—to be ‘born-again’ through—when they became overly corrupted. However, with the development of science, the role of prophets is the very opposite to that of creating a religion. Their task now is to bring understanding and amelioration to the human condition and by so doing make the need for deferment of self to a faith obsolete.

There are many contemporary or modern-day prophets, both resigned and unresigned. I have already mentioned those that I have become aware of, for instance, Sir Laurens van der Post, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Arthur Koestler, R.D. Laing and Sir James Darling. No contemporary prophet has been concerned with creating a religion around themselves. Having grown up in a scientific age, in a world dedicated to explaining existence, they have only been concerned with bringing understanding to the human condition, and a person simply cannot be concerned with demystifying the human condition, and with it religion, while, simultaneously seeking to create a religion.

The presence of explanation, especially accountable, accredited first principle biological explanation, easily differentiates someone trying to explain the human situation, and in the process demystify religion, from someone trying to establish a religion.

In the same category of concern for people as the claim of being a prophet, is any suggestion by a person of them being ‘the messiah’. People fear that it indicates the worst kind of deluded false prophet, someone suffering from extreme delusions of grandeur, someone so insecure that they ultimately represent themselves as a deity. When I first self-published my understanding of the human condition it was in the form of a somewhat naive article—naive in terms of what I now know about the deaf effect and people’s inability to respond to denial-free thinking. In it I referred to myself as ‘a contemporary “messiah”’ (National Times, 24 Feb.–1 Mar. 1980) and it caused some people concern—even though I enclosed the term ‘messiah’ in inverted commas, and qualified it with the word ‘contemporary’. As will be explained below, the inverted commas around ‘messiah’ was an effort to dissociate myself from the emotive, religious connotations of the word, and the term ‘contemporary’ was added to emphasise the Page 464 of
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The fact is anybody who dares to grapple with the human condition, anybody who is a truly holistic thinker or prophet, may also be labelled ‘messianic’ or a ‘messiah’. All resigned humans know that it is not safe for humans to confront the subject of the human condition, and that if a person is attempting to have others confront the subject of the human condition then that person is taking on a messianic role, a role of attempting to liberate humanity from its fundamental insecurity and fear of the subject of the human condition.

To illustrate what has just been said, in his London Times obituary, Sir Laurens van der Post was described as a ‘prophet’ and his work as ‘messianic’. It was mentioned earlier that Arthur Koestler who has been described as a ‘prophet’, was noted as having a ‘messiah complex’. R.D. Laing was also described as a ‘prophet’ and labelled a ‘messiah’ (R.D. Laing A Biography, Adrian Laing, 1994, p.161 of 248).

Since the titles of my first two books, Free: The End Of The Human Condition and Beyond The Human Condition, clearly state that my work is to do with freeing humanity from the human condition, taking humanity beyond the human condition, my work is clearly messianic.

In terms of people simplistically labelling human-condition-confronting, holistic thinkers as ‘messiahs’, I felt it important that I acknowledge this description. Significantly however, to clearly dissociate myself from any suggestion that I am suffering from delusions of grandeur and putting myself forward as a deity or object of worship, I strongly qualified my use of ‘messiah’ with the word ‘contemporary’. As mentioned above, there are many contemporary or modern-day prophets. The Australian physicist Paul Davies has been described as a ‘latter day prophet’ (ABC-TV Compass, God Only Knows, 23 Mar. 1997), and Australian biologist Charles Birch has been described as a ‘scientist-prophet’ (Sydney Morning Herald, 30 May 2000). Latter day prophets or scientist-prophets or contemporary prophets are not concerned with creating religions or offering themselves as objects of worship. They have only been concerned with bringing understanding to the human condition, and as stated, a person simply cannot be concerned with demystifying the human condition, and with it religion, and, at the same time, be seeking to establish a religion.

To further dissociate myself from the emotive, religious connotations of the word, and to emphasise the objective of Page 465 of
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Significantly, I also emphasised in the text that ‘we can now understand that the possibility of inferiority and superiority does not exist’, an attitude that is inconsistent with megalomania, with seeing myself as superior to others and desiring of adulation. The very essence of the understanding of the human condition that my books present is that all humans are God-like in the sense of being completely meaningful, worthwhile and wonderful, simply differently corrupted and alienated by the heroic 2-million-year long battle to find understanding of the human condition. The essential insecurity of the human condition was that humans were not sure of their worthiness, they could not understand what was meaningful about being divisively behaved. Understanding of the human condition clarifies that insecurity, it explains why humans have been the way they have been, divisively rather than cooperatively behaved. It explains that all humans are a part of God or integrative meaning’s plan.

Further still, the sub-heading of my 1980 National Times article emphasises the material is about ‘the reconciliation of Theology, Philosophy and Behaviour’. Far from promoting a new religion or faith, my article is about bringing reconciling understanding and demystification to the religious domain, which obsoletes the need for deferment of self to a faith. The first paragraph of the article begins, ‘We [humanity] have now isolated the principles which unifies the material and spiritual domains, and it accords with sound biological explanations for the origin of our ethics.’

While the ‘contemporary “messiah” statement uses the simplistic terminology applied to human-condition-confronting, holistic thinkers, the real messiah, the real liberator of humanity from the human condition, as I have always emphasised, is science, supported by humanity as a whole. In support of this understanding I have emphasised that Christianity maintains that the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the conscious intellect in humans of which science is the ultimate expression of, is the liberator of humanity. Incidentally, the reason Christianity maintains that the Holy Spirit is the messiah is because Christ referred to another who would come after him (the so-called ‘second coming’), a teacher and comforter, as the Holy Spirit. He said ‘But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things [in particular it will Page 466 of
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Although presented in a denial-compliant way, mechanistic science did unearth the first principle understandings of the details and mechanisms of the workings of our world, the understandings that make clarifying explanation of the human condition possible. It is true that the person who synthesises the explanation of the human condition from these hard-won but evasively presented insights that mechanistic science has found, had to be an unresigned prophet, but that does not mean I am promoting myself as a figure of religious worship, or as someone deserving or desiring adoration.

As already explained, there have always been one or two unresigned prophets in the world and any one of them could have produced this synthesis had they lived at the time when science had completed its job of finding the insights into the workings of our world. I simply happen to be the unresigned prophet around when the job of synthesising the truth about the human condition became possible. The jockey Jim Pike happened to be in the right place at the right time to ride Phar Lap, the great Australian racehorse, to his famous 1930 Melbourne Cup victory. Far from promoting myself as any kind of religious figure of worship or even as someone deserving or desiring adoration, I have always gone out of my way to dissociate myself from such a misrepresentation. For example in my book Beyond I talk about the ‘important but minuscule concluding role [that the synthesising prophet plays] in our search for knowledge’ (p.163 of 203).

As time goes by and people begin to digest the understanding of the human condition that is now available they will appreciate more and more this truth that science is the liberator of humanity, the messiah.

Part of the reconciliation of science and religion is the inevitable demystification of religious abstractions. As has already been carefully explained, unresigned prophets are not mystical, supernatural, divine beings. They are no more special than the rest of humanity. Nor are prophets gods or deities, although in pre-scientific times some unresigned prophets became revered as such. My work and the work of other contemporary prophets is dedicated to ending the need for worship, which is the very opposite objective of creating a religion for worship. As stated in Beyond, ‘all the prophets have looked forward to a time when understanding would replace dogma’ (p.186 of 203), a time when, as it says in Genesis, we ‘will be like God knowing’ (p.186). ‘Religions aren’t being threatened, they are being fulfilled’ (p.187) and ‘This is the end Page 467 of
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For its part science has always expected to make religion redundant. To quote again the physicist Paul Davies from his acceptance speech of The Templeton Prize of 1995: ‘Yet among the general population there is a widespread belief that science and theology are forever at loggerheads, that every scientific discovery pushes God further and further out of the picture. It is clear that many religious people still cling to an image of a God-of-the-gaps, a cosmic magician invoked to explain all those mysteries about nature that currently have the scientists stumped. It is a dangerous position, for as science advances, so the God-of-the-gaps retreats, perhaps to be pushed off the edge of space and time altogether, and into redundancy.’

George Bernard Shaw understood this destiny when he said, ‘All problems are finally scientific problems’ (The Doctor’s Dilemma Preface, 1906). Biologist Edward Wilson was more specific when he said ‘biology is the key to human nature’ (On Human Nature, ch.1, 1978). As Professor Charles Birch has said, ‘I think science has done a very important thing for theology—it has shown us what are the false views and the views that were superstitious that necessarily arose in a pre-scientific era’ (Australian Biography, SBS TV, 27 Sept. 1998).

We can demystify the human situation now, explain mysticisms, expressions of spirituality and religious metaphysics—make the supernatural natural, including prophets.

To summarise; the three misconceptions regarding the messiah are firstly, that the truth-synthesising prophet is the messiah when the real liberator is science. Secondly, the use of the simplistic label of messiah for the truth-synthesising prophet does not infer that he is superior than other humans since the understandings he is presenting are about explaining the fundamental equality of all humans. Thirdly, the use of the simplistic label of messiah for the truth-synthesising prophet does not mean that he is putting himself forward as a religious figure of worship, in fact the reconciling understanding he is introducing obsoletes the need for humans to defer to a religion or faith.

As has been emphasised, if care is taken, it is not difficult to differentiate between true and false prophets. If care is not taken, or if the threat of the unresigned mind’s denial-free thinking attracts deliberate misportrayal as being the work of a deluded false prophet, then undeserved and indeed criminal misrepresentation of the denial-free thinker can occur. The responsibility of people who are not Page 468 of
Print Edition able to appreciate the world of true prophets is to trust in the democratic principle of freedom of expression that allows new ideas to be openly and fairly assessed on their merit. Without tolerance in society, prejudice, scepticism and fear would mean that no one would ever be allowed to address the human condition or have their explanation of it considered, and humanity could never hope to free itself from the human condition.

Finally, I want to re-emphasise that prophets, people sound enough to look into the human condition, are the least egocentric of people. To be sound and secure in self is to not suffer from insecurity and delusion. It is certainly true that I am immensely excited that the human condition has been solved, because it means all the suffering in the world can at last be brought to an end, and it is also true that I am desperately keen for that understanding of the human condition to be communicated to others, because I want that suffering to stop as soon as possible. However, having been able to look into the human condition, and being thus unresigned, I have not had to adopt the resigned strategy of seeking reinforcement through power, fame, fortune and glory. I am not ego or self-worth centred or preoccupied. I am not ego-centric. My orientation is selfless not selfish. I want to stand up and tell the world as assertively as I possibly can that the human condition has been solved, but my efforts to do so are not motivated by self-glorification, rather by the desire to stop the terrible suffering in the world.