Essence of Religion
by Allison L. Bayles

The necessity of religion is seldom disputed, but which religion to choose? Instead of quibbling about the merits of one religion over another, Allison Bayles celebrates the inherent beauty and similarity of all religions. In exquisite metaphor, Bayles compares God and religion to a lotus; the stem is God and the petals religions, flowering from the center.

About the Author

The late Allison L. Bayles was born in Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, and spent the first seven years of his life with his parents on a three-masted cargo schooner, sailing the waters of the Atlantic Coast, Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. He graduated from Lehigh University with a Mechanical Engineer degree in 1925. He is a Life Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In the early fifties Allison opened offices in Pittsburgh and continued to practice there until 1989. His assignments were largely on feasibility studies, predicting whether proposed projects would become profitable or unattractive. The work required extensive travel to distant areas for extended stays and included India and Southeast Asia, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Western Europe, the Holy Land, the United Kingdom, and Venezuela. This travel provided opportunities to observe various cultures and customs as they affected social values, and eventually led to his first book, The Eternal Triangle, and this one, The Essence of Religion.