IN THE BEGINNING 2

From: Daniel Young <danielyoung4@verizon.net>

Date: September 14, 2011 3:14:02 AM EDT

Subject: Fwd: Design Religion

Audience: atheists, agnostics, people dissatisfied with their existing religions, people following traditional religions for social, familial reasons, without truly believing their fundamental premises.

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Daniel Katz" <katzdan1@verizon.net>

Date: April 27, 2011 9:42:43 AM EDT

To: "'Daniel Young'" <danielyoung4@verizon.net>

Subject: Design Religion

I am working on the design of a new religion. For purposes of discussion and "marketing" it is probably best not to call it a religion because that word has become associated with a few ancient irrational, god worshiping systems (even though [gap in original]

So from now on I will call it a fundamental belief system. (I have not followed this naming in the analysis which follows because it is much more convenient to refer to the design as a religion or a "new design." One of the subsidiary questions in the design process is whether it can be called a "religion" without being damaged by the bad reputation of most existing religions.

It is intended to be a system of fundamental beliefs capable of providing life guidance and capable of commanding the societal rights given to other religions. By this definition, there are many secular religions in addition to  those which are considered religions in the traditional sense, Science is a religion as is capitalism, communism and socialism. For some people art can be a religion or sport. All that is needed is for a person to give a particular subject the primary controlling importance in his or her life. For reasons which will become clear I call the new religion Paradoxy.

The new religion tolerates the existence of other religions and religious practices, so long as they do no harm and are themselves tolerant. The new religion does not require belief in or worship of a god or gods. The new religion does not require belief in supernatural powers. The new religion does not require any beliefs inconsistent with the realities of the world.

What should a religion be?
It should be a set of fundamental beliefs which give a person guidance and
help in all the important questions of life. It is a set of beliefs which
takes priority over rules and regulations from other sources when they are in conflict.
When I say "beliefs" I mean things that a person really accepts as
completely true. Belief is not unbased irrationality. Without a true belief in a religion's basic principles a person does not really practice that religion. It is just an act or a
pretense.

9/11/11 What better place to work on the design of a new religion than Jerusalem, a city associated with three of the world's important and most problematic religions? These religions, along with all those that depend on belief in gods giving instructions, are unbelievable. Because they are unbelievable they must depend on irrational "belief". Because they depend on irrational "belief" they justify irrational behavior, the most dangerous of which is violent behavior to follow and enforce religious "beliefs". There is room in life for peaceful irrational "beliefs" and for delusions which may offer comfort for problems and suffering when there are no better solutions. But there should be no tolerance in the world for irrational "belief "which itself is a source of problems and suffering.

One often hears a religious point of view defended as a matter of pure "belief", as if it is a personal choice to be made without any proof, evidence or logic. This is a fundamental mistake which confuses the nature of belief with irrationality. There should be no conflict between belief and rationality. For example, the force of gravity is something everyone believes in. The belief is demonstrated by not acting in defiance of gravity without taking precautions. This does not mean that a person understands the origins and full nature of gravity. A person who believes in gravity does not leave a tall building by way of the window. The behavioral pattern of using stairs or an elevator is a consequence of a rational belief in the existence of a force which we do not fully understand. That is the same sort of belief which should be involved in religion. We may not understand the basic premises of the religion but we know they are real and subject to proof by the most demanding standards used in human affairs.

Ancient humans believed in gods because they believed the gods were real to them, as real as lightening, thunder and fire. They were the best explanation of phenomena and the best way to cope with them and with the unpredictable events of life. That belief was acceptable so long as the reality was not understood in a deeper way. But maintaining that sort of belief in our time is no longer a traditional belief in a believable reality. It has become an irrationality. Irrational religion is no more acceptable than irrational forms of any other human endeavor.

The desirable form for a religion is a paradoxical one. It must be truly believable. Yet it must also have the quality of numinousness or mysterious open-endedness which lets it serve as a balance to the other systems used to govern human life. 

The problem with choosing capitalism, communism or even "science" (in its mistaken characterization as a type of certainty) as the governing system is that they all tend toward becoming intolerant totalitarianism when applied to life as the dominant system.

The fundamental belief of the new religion is that humans cannot know and will never know everything important needed to make life decisions.  Stated differently, the deep knowledge of the operation of the world and human behavior will always be beyond our grasp. Stated still another way, we believe in the eternal existence of a zone of the unknown. In this respect, Daoism comes closest with its concept of the unnamable and unanalysable Dao. Yet another way to put it is that we will never reach total control and prediction of important events in life.

We can call this eternal ignorance.

In the new design, what belief there is centers on the proposition that we can never know enough or control enough to remove important unknowns and important chance events from life. Unlike the unprovable basic beliefs of god-worshippers, this basic premise is provable in the scientific sense. Unlike the basic beliefs of secular religions this has no narrow pre-conceived personal or social objective built into it. There are at least two proofs of the new design's central beliefs i.e., Heisenberg's uncertainty theorem in Physics and Godel's proof in Mathematics. The new design is based on propositions which have been proven to the satisfaction of scientists and mathematicians by the most persuasive methods known, namely, experiment and logic. The beautiful paradox is that they although they are rigorous proofs they are proofs of the limits of our knowledge, otherwise known as our ignorance. This means that our deepest understanding, must, of necessity, involve acknowledgement of our ignorance.

Many religions have design defects. In the line of traditional myth-based religions the defects are obvious. Not many people really believe that a powerful god created the earth, made man in his present form and pulled woman out of man's body. Not many people really believe that a god had a son and sent him to earth to get killed and absorb the sins of
humanity. These sorts of belief are weakening as time goes by because they
are not supported by any proof. 

There is a school of thought which argues that belief is appropriate precisely because a proposition is unbelievable. That is an amusing but dangerous approach because it allows no distinction between good or bad propositions or good or bad designs. I don't think anyone seriously disputes that it would be best if the fundamental beliefs by which one conducted one's life were true rather than illusory.

So the first thing a good design needs is a really believable and provable
set of fundamental beliefs. 

If indeed there is something in the human psyche which demands a measure of
irrational belief regarding the world, (and this may be a healthy balancing component of human nature) that demand will still be somewhat satisfied in the new design. Not because the new design is based on irrationality or prizes irrationality, but because it is premised on a permanent element of uncertainty. This approach does not remove the satisfaction of raw belief or mysticism or ineffability because only a small percentage of people will understand the actual proofs in their full mathematical form. It is sufficient if the experts in such matters agree on their correctness and their consequences are observable in the real world. For the average person, which includes myself, the belief in these fundamentals will resemble the
belief in gods. But there is one big exception, even though we may take it on "faith", it is because we do not fully understand or have not taken the time and effort needed to understand the real proofs - not because we reject the ordinary conduct of life's most important areas by rational means. We know there are those who can prove it by the most rigorous proofs available in our civilization and, given sufficient education, any intelligent person can understand the proof.

The new design is agreed to by members at a time of life when they can knowingly agree with its fundamental principles. It is not imposed on anyone, particularly newborns or children. It is certainly not imposed by force.

For those whose concept of god or gods is not locked into an anthropomorphic caretaker and instruction-giver there will be sufficient room in the new design to consider the zone of the unknown to have godlike qualities. In other words, those people can adopt the new design and still apply the term "god" to the numinous area which is eternally beyond human knowledge and control. That area is not accessible other than by aleatory methods so it is not subject to influence by prayer or sacrifice. 

After one has a belief in the fundamental propositions of a the new design comes the question of how these affect or guide one's actions in the world. How does this new religion act in the world. What does it require of a believer? How does this serve a beneficial role in the advancement of human civilization? How does the new design keep itself going in society? Does it have a "Vatican" or "rabbinate?" Does this new design have rituals or methods for getting in touch with the unknown? Does it have a socializing component/regular meetings or festivals? How is membership indicated? At what age can one join? Does it have "accessories"? and, if so, what are they? Does it produce art?

I will deal with these questions next.

design does not have to generate morality. That can be achieved by logic and reason alone.

Modesty/balancing excesses of other powerful social forces, harmony/encouraging beneficial behavior, caring/dealing with suffering, framing rites of passage, Methods of achieving the deepest spiritual condition or connection with the unknown.(meditation, I-Ching)

The use of aleatory methods to reach decisions will be criticized as inconsistent with rationality. In particular, the linkage of certain linear patterns with ...  The main pupose is to put the consultant in touch with his or her deepest insights after all other attempts to arrive at a logical decision have failed. It is as close as the individual can get to the zone of the unknown.

Membership ID. This touches on the existence of a central administrative body which issues ID's upon receipt of signed (and witnessed?) statements of agreement with the fundamental principles. Is it anything more than an automated record file with the obligation to issue ID when agreement is received. (resembling internet programs which grant access when terms and conditions of a site are agreed to. Query whether membership is a public or private matter - whether a person's membership can be kept confidential. 

Ecological behavior is part of the new design because it is an outgrowth of harmony with natural principles. All industrial, technical and scientific developments are examined to see how far they are from natural processes and how many unknown factors or imponderables they introduce into society (for example, nuclear power versus, steam power, solar power, wind power, water power).

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