A recent woman visitor said to me, "Why don't you teach your
pupils about the life of Jesus, so that they will be inspired to
follow in his steps?" I answered that one learns to live, not
by hearing of other lives, but by living; for words are infinitely
less important than acts. Many have called Summerhill a religious
place because it gives out love to children.

That may be true; only I dislike the adjective as long as religion
means what it generally means today--antagonism to natural life.
Religion as I remember it, practiced by men and women in drab
clothes, singing mournful hymns of tenth-rate music, asking for-
giveness for their sins--this is nothing I wish to be identified
with.

I personally have nothing against the man who believes in a
God--no matter what God. What I object to is the man who
claims that his God is the authority for his imposing restrictions
on human growth and happiness. The battle is not between
believers in theology and nonbelievers in theology; it is between
believers in human freedom and believers in the suppression of
human freedom.

Some day we will have a new religion. You may gape and
exclaim, "What? A new religion?" The Christian will be up in
arms and protest: "Is not Christianity eternal?" The Jew will
be up in arms and protest: "Is not Judaism eternal?"

No, religions are no more eternal than nations are eternal. A
religion--any religion--has a birth, a youth, an old age, and a
death. Hundreds of religions have come and gone. Of all the mil-
lions of Egyptians who believed in Amon Ra through the better
part of 4,000 years, not a single adherent of that religion can be
found today. The idea of God changes as culture changes: in

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