[ExI] The void left by deleting religion

[Torstein Haldorsen]

Hi Lee, thanks for your reply! Actually, I have given this some thought.

While I do not in any way consider my self in league with Marx or Lenin,
the unfortunate fate of their cause serves to prove that the road to hell
may very well be paved with good intentions.

The penultimate rule for any effort must to do no harm, or at least
to try and minimize the potential for suffering.

Now all the examples you cite have in common that they impose a relatively
fixed model from the top down. This is akin to creating a static, "better"
model, and imposing it on a national level, say.. This model may have faults
that one at the time of design is unable to percieve.

What I'm suggesting is that we try to create a rational, modular, and
dynamic open worldview that may be adopted on an individual level as an
ALTERNATIVE to the existing "religions", or to non-religious atheism for
that matter...


This may preserve and cultivate the positive aspects we find in existing
religions, for instance
the deep sense of meaning, a deep sense of belonging, and the
communal aspects of religion, while at the same time concentrating our
factual knowledge of the world, and trying to approximate the truths of life
to the best level of accuracy possible. I suggest that we try to create an
ever-improving open source alternative to the existing worldviews and put it
on the "religious marketplace".

If it were to prove memetically fit for survival it could, over time diffuse
or be adopted by a portion of the global population,
for instance rational atheists and others who currently do not subscribe to
any existing organized worldview.

Again, that which can be destroyed by truth should be. In the 21st century,
we cannot provide supernatural explanations to natural phenomena. We can
however try and find the best explanations we currently have, our best
approximations to the truths of life, the universe and everything, and try
to structure and organize these truths into a humanly cognizable framework.

Now, to contrast this with Marx and Lenin and the others.. Boy, they failed
on a lot of counts.

Among these: Having fundamental flaws in the model. Not seeing or improving
upon these flaws.
Allowing for coercion and the supression of democracy, engaging in
groupthink, eliminating dissent, violating human rights,
and last but not least; requiring the defeat of of the prevailing paradigm
(market capitalism) in order to suceed.

This means that from the outset they created adversaries with a vested
interest in their demise.

No bloody revolution is needed in this case fortunately, although
fundamentalists of all creeds and nationalities tend to prove ever so
slightly unsupportive of anything new. We do not need to upend the existing
organized worldviews in order to put a rational alternative on the market.
Co-existence is a good thing, the more we can influence existing
alternatives with rational, scientifially sound ideas, the better.


One problem with _the existing_ organized worldviews is that they have no
safeguards against beeing abused.
This results in political leaders declaring war in the name of God, and
doing other wicked things in the name of the greater good.

Now, having political leaders with a faith that includes and accepts the
philosophy of eye for an eye was never a very good idea,
but it becomes a potentially catastrophic existential risk when such people
are in command of a significant nuclear arsenal,
not just sticks and stones as was the case when the prevailing paradigm of
monotheistic religion evolved.

Principal safeguards against beeing misused could, should and must be
developed, and applied at the very top level.
This would be one of many significant funtional improvements upon the
existing alternatives.

I think it is possible to carefully design safety-valves to disencourage
abuse, and reduce potential negative outcomes.

I think it is possible to harness and amplify the positive features of
existing religions without resorting to fairytales.

I also believe that it is time to cautiously and with great humility start
to lay the groundwork for a creating a vastly better post-religious
worldview for a significant portion of the worlds population. Wouldn't it be
ethically wrong not to do so, letting things remain as they have for the
last several hunded, if not thousand years?

Things have been at a virtual standstill, for a looooooooong time. Way to
long. It's time to see some progress...

We shouldn't necessarily limit ourselves to sharing our ideas with a tiny
sub-fraction of philosophically inclined tech-geeks.
Proactionary extropian values could have a significant part in such a
philosophy / post-religion / what-you-wanna-call-it.


-TT


On 5/4/07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:
>
> Torstein writes
>
> > I am one of these fools you [Eliezer, below] speak of. That is to say,
> I've been
> > thinking about how we can best fill the void left by deleting religion
> for some time.
> >
> > However, I see no reason why it should be impossible to design an
> up-to-date,
> > rational worldview to fill the roles that ancient religions currently
> play in many
> > peoples lives,
>
> In your urge to re-design, are at all or have you ever been dismayed at
> the
> mess made by some of your predecessors who tried their hands at
> redesigning economic systems, nations, governments, or even housing
> projects?
> It is for absolute sure that Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Mao Zedong, and
> American urban planners of the 1950s beyond number also believed that it
> would be, at least conceptually, "a simple matter" to design an up-to-date
> rational economic system, or urban neighborhood system, or what have you.
>
> I advise extreme caution and humility in the face of thousands of years of
> evolved systems that work, however badly from our points of view.
>
> Lee
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Whatever needs are being psychologically met by the world's religion, I
> predict
> that it will be flatly impossible without superhuman assistance, to design
> rational
> up-to-date replacements.
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