Universal Secular Religion? (USR)

[osan]

A Universal Secular Religion


Consider humanity in the context of its history. Consider the utterly consistent uniformity and predictability of the patterns of political thinking and action - of those of universal cycles of decay following what is usually a period of relative prosperity and peace - what we often call a "golden age". Every formal empire, every state has fallen; not a one has lasted. Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Egypt, Athens, Rome, and so forth have all come to ignominious ends. These results, more commonly than not, have followed more from the progression of these predictable patterns in human thought and behavior than from external threats or such changes in thought have allowed for the external threats to succeed. In most cases we are able to discern a very clear pattern of degenerative change in the minds, and hence the acts, of both the governed and the governors such that a nation's fall into self-annihilation becomes a readily predictable event.

It is the change of mind that makes this not only possible, but inevitable, for any given mode of living cannot be sustained if the baseline standards for that mode are not maintained. Those standards exist in but one place: mind. They exist within us, but unlike books, we are ephemeral beings whose accumulated knowledge of lifetimes vanishes unless it is passed on to subsequent generations. This is one reason we have books in the first place, yet those are not sufficient for the preservation of standards of thought and behavior that preserve one's way of life. The correlative factor of attitude is equally essential and attitude is largely a function of education, and more specifically training.

Though many people possess an inborn sense of liberty, without explicit training in that mindset it becomes a long shot that any given individual will cultivate an ability to articulate and assert that sense into a practically applicable way of life. It is far less likely that a group of such individuals will come to such realizations, and it is furthest from likelihood that a nation will do so, as history bears out in a sickeningly endless litany of failed states wherein human misery and death have been the rule and where peace and prosperity have been the rarest of exceptions.

We see that training is one of the keys to an explicit knowledge of liberty, which is most likely to lead to an attitudinal bent and the corresponding will toward same. The problem here is not the establishment of such training, for that is an academic exercise. Rather, it is one of the maintenance of that habit and the will to perpetuate the drive to liberty for all people such that it spans the generations unabated, and in fact taking on ever stronger cementation within the nation's culture through the minds of each subsequent generation regardless of the material conditions in which they find themselves, whether in wealth or poverty, ease or hardship, for they are morally wealthy, healthy, and strong in any event.

It is that failure to maintain such a drive that has resulted in the obliteration of empire upon empire, state upon state. This becomes the inevitable conclusion when the waning of that drive is coupled with the inversely proportional strength of the drive and ability of certain groups of individuals to band together and declare themselves masters over the rest, after which their greed for booty and the mad lust for control drives them to plunder and murder their way through the ages for as long as they are able to get away with it.

Humanity's problem, then, is largely summarized in the question of how does one best ensure that generations of the far future will know what we know and live what we live at the most basic levels - that they will know of, understand, and choose liberty over slavery in a dance of perpetual and deliberate choice through time? The only solution that appears to viable is religion, for religion appears to be the one cultural institution that has been successful in spanning the millennia. There is, however, the problem of choosing the set of beliefs and this very problem has been a root cause of, or at least served as the justification for, waging war since time immemorial.

A possible answer to this dilemma of need versus too many and often violently conflicting choices of belief is the adoption of a Universal Secular Religion (USR). Such a religion would stand apart from traditional theologies in that all of its tenets are derived, through reason rather than posited as articles of faith. These tenets would axiomatically and apodictically follow from the acceptance of the single baseline premise that all human beings are created as equals. If one accepts this as true, then the whole of the body of moral law that follows from it does so in a most self-evident and irrefutable manner.

An advantage of this approach is that the USR need not conflict in any way whatsoever with standing religious traditions as the latter are based in articles of personal faith and the former in unbreakable reason. The only circumstance wherein conflict may arise is when some given tenet of a theology implies or even explicitly demands the initiation of force against people in order to impose some condition upon them. One example of this might be a belief in "compulsory charity" (clearly an oxymoron, but such contradictions have failed to stop some people) wherein it is assumed that force may be justifiably employed to compel someone to "give" to some other, ostensibly "needy", party. Humanity already has far too much of this going on, so the adoption of a universal secular religion could only serve to improve this circumstance.

On the other side of that coin, adoption of the USR may be attractive to many people of the various faiths because the more universally accepted and practiced it is, the stronger are the assurances that individuals and communities will be free to practice their respective faiths.

The USR is the religion of Liberty. It is the most fundamental set of beliefs we may adopt because it provides the basis for the possibility of the practice of other systems of belief without the need to murder each other to prove points or to usurp. It sweeps away all monopolies of belief and with them the ready ability to successfully apply force against peaceable and lawfully acting citizens because those citizens will be imbued with an attitude of absolute and unbending intolerance for anyone attempting to interfere with the rightful actions of others by virtue of the proper knowledge of our rights and the single basic obligation we each hold to each other to respect the sovereignty of every man.

Imagine a nation where people respond to one who attempts to so much as suggest the infringement of the rights of men with vigorous condemnation! Imagine people who respond with material non-equivocation against a usurper such that others with similar notions are given endless pause to reconsider the prudence of such ideas.

Religion is the one cultural artifact that withstands the test of time. Is it perhaps time to design and implement the Universal Secular Religion of Liberty for all people?





Opinions? I would love to hear what you think of this idea.

[Theocrat]

What validates liberty as the chiefest end of life? Why should the USR's definition of "liberty" be the universal definition accepted by all people?

[sevin]

What validates liberty as the chiefest end of life? Why should the USR's definition of "liberty" be the universal definition accepted by all people?

This is exactly what I was thinking while reading it. Some factions would have a very different meaning of liberty. You can't get everyone in the world to agree on it. Others will agree with your definition of liberty but with exceptions (which is a contradiction, I know, but they'll do it anyway). This would never ever work. Wow, I'm actually on Theo's side for once.

[Son of Liberty 2]

Liberty is best preserved when it is understood that liberty is given by God and not humans. What is given by humans can be taken away by humans.

[erowe1]

The USR is the religion of Liberty.

No it isn't. The hallmark of liberty is not unity, but disunity, when countess individuals disperse into the ideologies of their choosing, and not some central unifying one. It's no coincidence, of course, that for all intents and purposes, the religion currently embraced by practically all the world's public schools is essentially a universal secular religion, and most communist countries legally mandated that all their citizens eschew all other faiths and universally embrace a secular one.

USR isn't the religion of freedom. It's the religion of one-world government.

[Travlyr]

A Universal Secular Religion

Secular Religion is an oxymoron.

Consider humanity in the context of its history. Consider the utterly consistent uniformity and predictability of the patterns of political thinking and action - of those of universal cycles of decay following what is usually a period of relative prosperity and peace - what we often call a "golden age". Every formal empire, every state has fallen; not a one has lasted. Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, Egypt, Athens, Rome, and so forth have all come to ignominious ends. These results, more commonly than not, have followed more from the progression of these predictable patterns in human thought and behavior than from external threats or such changes in thought have allowed for the external threats to succeed. In most cases we are able to discern a very clear pattern of degenerative change in the minds, and hence the acts, of both the governed and the governors such that a nation's fall into self-annihilation becomes a readily predictable event.

The fall of empires are caused by the chaos of the internal power structure and has very little to do with the behavior or mindset of the powerless.

It is the change of mind that makes this not only possible, but inevitable, for any given mode of living cannot be sustained if the baseline standards for that mode are not maintained. Those standards exist in but one place: mind. They exist within us, but unlike books, we are ephemeral beings whose accumulated knowledge of lifetimes vanishes unless it is passed on to subsequent generations. This is one reason we have books in the first place, yet those are not sufficient for the preservation of standards of thought and behavior that preserve one's way of life. The correlative factor of attitude is equally essential and attitude is largely a function of education, and more specifically training.

The change of mind is actually mind control through indoctrination and repetition. The power elite have monopolized the educational system and the media; thereby, indoctrinating the powerless in order to maintain their power. For example, what version of history were you taught in public school? Were you taught that WWI had been planned for many years and that the war could only be financed after the creation of the central bank and "fiat" money? Were you taught that during WWI the Federal Reserve Chairman and the Head of the German Secret Service were brothers & international bankers who financed and profited from both sides of the war? Have you heard this in the media? The powerless are indoctrinated.

Though many people possess an inborn sense of liberty, without explicit training in that mindset it becomes a long shot that any given individual will cultivate an ability to articulate and assert that sense into a practically applicable way of life. It is far less likely that a group of such individuals will come to such realizations, and it is furthest from likelihood that a nation will do so, as history bears out in a sickeningly endless litany of failed states wherein human misery and death have been the rule and where peace and prosperity have been the rarest of exceptions.

Virtually everyone has an innate sense of liberty. That is the reason we give up our liberties to the power elite. We inherently trust our leaders to be as concerned about our general welfare as are we. Even though we trust them, down deep we know that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely," yet we are powerless because we have been indoctrinated. We do not possess the power to even audit the fascist cabal of counterfeiters let alone rid ourselves of them. We maintain hope that we can work within the system to effect change, but we should take a different tack. For the first time in the history of the world the powerless have instant communication with the masses. This free exchange of ideas through the Internet is revolutionary and people are waking up to the realization of the power structure. This time is different. This is the first time ever that people can truly seek and find the truth quickly enough to defeat the oligarchy.

We see that training is one of the keys to an explicit knowledge of liberty, which is most likely to lead to an attitudinal bent and the corresponding will toward same. The problem here is not the establishment of such training, for that is an academic exercise. Rather, it is one of the maintenance of that habit and the will to perpetuate the drive to liberty for all people such that it spans the generations unabated, and in fact taking on ever stronger cementation within the nation's culture through the minds of each subsequent generation regardless of the material conditions in which they find themselves, whether in wealth or poverty, ease or hardship, for they are morally wealthy, healthy, and strong in any event.

It is that failure to maintain such a drive that has resulted in the obliteration of empire upon empire, state upon state. This becomes the inevitable conclusion when the waning of that drive is coupled with the inversely proportional strength of the drive and ability of certain groups of individuals to band together and declare themselves masters over the rest, after which their greed for booty and the mad lust for control drives them to plunder and murder their way through the ages for as long as they are able to get away with it.

Thomas Jefferson said it best, "Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." What the liberty movement needs is the weapon of education and repetition. We need a comprehensive broadcasting system of movies, TV, radio, Internet, newsprint and magazine to counter the disinformation currently under the control of the power elite.

Humanity's problem, then, is largely summarized in the question of how does one best ensure that generations of the far future will know what we know and live what we live at the most basic levels - that they will know of, understand, and choose liberty over slavery in a dance of perpetual and deliberate choice through time? The only solution that appears to viable is religion, for religion appears to be the one cultural institution that has been successful in spanning the millennia. There is, however, the problem of choosing the set of beliefs and this very problem has been a root cause of, or at least served as the justification for, waging war since time immemorial.

A possible answer to this dilemma of need versus too many and often violently conflicting choices of belief is the adoption of a Universal Secular Religion (USR). Such a religion would stand apart from traditional theologies in that all of its tenets are derived, through reason rather than posited as articles of faith. These tenets would axiomatically and apodictically follow from the acceptance of the single baseline premise that all human beings are created as equals. If one accepts this as true, then the whole of the body of moral law that follows from it does so in a most self-evident and irrefutable manner.

An advantage of this approach is that the USR need not conflict in any way whatsoever with standing religious traditions as the latter are based in articles of personal faith and the former in unbreakable reason. The only circumstance wherein conflict may arise is when some given tenet of a theology implies or even explicitly demands the initiation of force against people in order to impose some condition upon them. One example of this might be a belief in "compulsory charity" (clearly an oxymoron, but such contradictions have failed to stop some people) wherein it is assumed that force may be justifiably employed to compel someone to "give" to some other, ostensibly "needy", party. Humanity already has far too much of this going on, so the adoption of a universal secular religion could only serve to improve this circumstance.

On the other side of that coin, adoption of the USR may be attractive to many people of the various faiths because the more universally accepted and practiced it is, the stronger are the assurances that individuals and communities will be free to practice their respective faiths.

The USR is the religion of Liberty. It is the most fundamental set of beliefs we may adopt because it provides the basis for the possibility of the practice of other systems of belief without the need to murder each other to prove points or to usurp. It sweeps away all monopolies of belief and with them the ready ability to successfully apply force against peaceable and lawfully acting citizens because those citizens will be imbued with an attitude of absolute and unbending intolerance for anyone attempting to interfere with the rightful actions of others by virtue of the proper knowledge of our rights and the single basic obligation we each hold to each other to respect the sovereignty of every man.

Imagine a nation where people respond to one who attempts to so much as suggest the infringement of the rights of men with vigorous condemnation! Imagine people who respond with material non-equivocation against a usurper such that others with similar notions are given endless pause to reconsider the prudence of such ideas.

Religion is the one cultural artifact that withstands the test of time. Is it perhaps time to design and implement the Universal Secular Religion of Liberty for all people?

A Universal Secular Religion is not appealing to me, but a universal secular understanding should be taught and reinforced.
Liberty is not a belief, it is a fact. We are born alone and we die alone. Our lives are our responsibility.

[kkassam]

A possible answer to this dilemma of need versus too many and often violently conflicting choices of belief is the adoption of a Universal Secular Religion (USR). Such a religion would stand apart from traditional theologies in that all of its tenets are derived, through reason rather than posited as articles of faith. These tenets would axiomatically and apodictically follow from the acceptance of the single baseline premise that all human beings are created as equals. If one accepts this as true, then the whole of the body of moral law that follows from it does so in a most self-evident and irrefutable manner.

There already is a universalist secular religion derived from the (demonstrably false) premise that "all human beings are created as equals," it is commonly known as progressivism, but Mencius Moldbug calls it universalism; here he is on "tenets [that] are derived through reason rather than posited as articles of faith."

[kkassam]

BTW, one can logically reject the truth of "all human beings are created as equals" without also rejecting "all human beings ought to be equal in rights/liberty/law".

[Travlyr]

BTW, one can logically reject the truth of "all human beings are created as equals" without also rejecting "all human beings ought to be equal in rights/liberty/law".

Never mind.

[kkassam]

Who should not be equal in rights/liberty/law?

There are good reasons to make distinctions for children, criminals and a few other categories of people. Generally, I prefer systems of government under which the laws apply equally to all.

Never mind.

[osan]

What validates liberty as the chiefest end of life? Why should the USR's definition of "liberty" be the universal definition accepted by all people?

Because it is self evident given the truth of the premise.

[georgiaboy]

heh, I thought the title said 'Universal Soccer Religion'

World Cup on the brain.

nvm.

[osan]

Liberty is best preserved when it is understood that liberty is given by God and not humans. What is given by humans can be taken away by humans.

The problem with that is not everyone believes in "god" and many believe "their" godis different from all others. These are articles of faith and have no place in secular government. What I am proposing is a standard that is promoted like a religion, that holds a similar strength in appeal, but is based upon purely reasoned elements that in turn follow from the acceptance of but a single article of faith that we are created as equals. The derivation of the body of moral law based on this single, simple presumption is straightforward, simple, and easy to follow. The most difficult aspect of comprehending and accepting it is that of keeping out noise issues and sticking sternly to the logic.

When you assert to Joe Communist that liberty is given by God and he is likely going to tell you you're full of $#@! and there is nothing you can do to prove him wrong on that basis because you cannot prove God's existence, his nature, his gifts, nor commandments. That is why such beliefs are referred to as "faith". You do not know it to be true in any demonstrable fashion. You choose to believe that it is. You may even be correct, but you will never be very likely to demonstrate this convincingly to your atheist neighbor, two doors down. You cannot even prove it to another of your own faith who happens not to believe that it is a gift from God but from man, or his uncle Fred's kitchen sink.

That is the whole point of this "secular religion". Use of "religion" must be taken with a few grains of salt... perhaps I was being too oblique in its use. The secular standard of behavior should be promoted as if it were a religion in the sense of maintaining strong cultural vigor in pursuit of maintaining it and of not allowing its dilution and eventual corruption. I am speaking of a fundamental refocusing of our priorities such that liberty becomes the single greatest concern of all people such that any time any so much as hints at approaching the freedoms of other men they are sent to shiver in a corner to take a good long think about their ideas.

[osan]

No it isn't. The hallmark of liberty is not unity, but disunity, when countess individuals disperse into the ideologies of their choosing, and not some central unifying one. It's no coincidence, of course, that for all intents and purposes, the religion currently embraced by practically all the world's public schools is essentially a universal secular religion, and most communist countries legally mandated that all their citizens eschew all other faiths and universally embrace a secular one.

USR isn't the religion of freedom. It's the religion of one-world government.

You have greatly misunderstood what I wrote, which is likely my fault.

[osan]

A Universal Secular Religion is not appealing to me, but a universal secular understanding should be taught and reinforced.

As I use the term, these are one and the same. I was apparently too subtle in my use of the term - my bad. The point was to promote it with the vigor that people devote to their religious beliefs - thence issued my use of the world "religion". I suspected the term might be too loaded to be safe to use, but decided to risk it. Lesson learned, I suppose.

Liberty is not a belief, it is a fact.

If you re-read, you will see that this is precisely what I wrote.

I gave people far too much credit for having the ability not to get loused up in their own personal take on the use of terms. Another lesson learned.

[osan]

BTW, one can logically reject the truth of "all human beings are created as equals" without also rejecting "all human beings ought to be equal in rights/liberty/law".

While true, strictly speaking, acceptance of the former does not allow for rejection of the latter because the latter follows directly from it. However, without the former, the latter may be agreed upon on Tuesday morning and as easily dismissed by the afternoon because the basis for agreement is likely to be purely arbitrary.

[kkassam]

Because it is self evident given the truth of the premise.

Is your premise that all humans are created equal in fact? Because if so, its falsehood instead of its truth is what's evident to me. Some people are tall others are short, some are smart others are... not so smart--what i'm saying is that there are innate differences between humans.

Here's Ludwig von Mises:

The doctrine of natural law that inspired the eighteenth century declarations of the rights of man did not imply the obviously fallacious proposition that all men are biologically equal. It proclaimed that all men are born equal in rights and that this equality cannot be abrogated by any man-made law, that it is inalienable or, more precisely, imprescriptible. Only the deadly foes of individual liberty and self-determination, the champions of totalitarianism, interpreted the principle of equality before the law as derived from an alleged psychical and physiological equality of all men.

[Travlyr]

If you re-read, you will see that this is precisely what I wrote.

Yes, I knew that... and I merely agree. You and I seem to have the same overall goal, but we simply are approaching that goal differently.

I gave people far too much credit for having the ability not to get loused up in their own personal take on the use of terms. Another lesson learned.

I often take things too literally.

[Travlyr]

How about a Universal Secular Broadcasting Network?

[Rancher]

"Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it." -Mark Twain

If somehow you could get people to really understand freedom, in the way that people defend their religious beliefs, then yeah... secular liberty would rock and roll.

[heavenlyboy34]

one world religion types make me

[Vessol]

one world religion types make me

This. I'm not religious, but people should be able to worship in any way as long as they don't restrict the liberty of others. This is why I don't like many organized religions.

[Travlyr]

one world religion types make me

One world government, one world religion, one world currency, one world salary, everybody is exactly equal in mind, body, spirit, and possessions singing kumbayah... Utopia!

[BootStompingAFaceForever]

100% ridiculous

[Acala]

The plight of the human race is not the result of a lack of or loss of knowledge in the conventional sense and therefore cannot be solved by institutional accumulation of knowledge. This is why our efforts to educate people about liberty have largely failed. If you have done any of this work you know that time and time again you will meet intelligent, knowledgeable people who are simply "stuck" and cannot see the light. It is not the lack of knowledge that has doomed us.

The state of the world, with its brutality, corruption, and deceit, is a projection of the state of human consciousness in the aggregate. The vast majority of human beings are driven by emotions - fear, anger, sadness, hatred, and so on. These emotions are often so subtle that people do not even recognize they are being driven. But they are. Nearly all of them.

Because human beings are driven by emotions, they are easily and predictably manipulated. And there is a perennial class of human beings that specializes in manipulating the emotions of the rest of the species as a way of acquiring wealth and power. They are virtually always successful.

The only way to change the pattern of history, to free mankind from endless war and tyranny is not through building and preserving intellectual knowledge. Even the most knowledgable and intelligent are susceptible to manipulation. The ONLY way to liberate the human race is to change human consciousness - to dig out the emotional drivers that make manipulation possible. This is not to say that we need to make people unemotional, but just the opposite. What is needed is to make people fully aware of their emotional state. Not to teach them intellectual knowledge, but a direct experience of how their own consciousness works. A kind of deep emotional literacy. Only then will they be immune to manipulation. And then the human race will no longer be doomed to an eternity of corruption, brutaliy, and deceit.

[osan]

The plight of the human race ... cannot be solved by institutional accumulation of knowledge. ... It is not the lack of knowledge that has doomed us.

The state of the world... is a projection of the state of human consciousness... vast majority of human beings are driven by emotions - fear, anger, sadness, hatred, and so on... often so subtle that people do not even recognize they are being driven... ...are easily and predictably manipulated.


The only way to change the pattern of history... is to change human consciousness - to dig out the emotional drivers that make manipulation possible. This is not to say that we need to make people unemotional, but just the opposite. What is needed is to make people fully aware of their emotional state. Not to teach them intellectual knowledge, but a direct experience of how their own consciousness works. A kind of deep emotional literacy. Only then will they be immune to manipulation. And then the human race will no longer be doomed to an eternity of corruption, brutaliy, and deceit.

You were doing well until that last paragraph where you contradict yourself in a fairly subtle way. "Deep emotional literacy" is an intellectual pursuit precisely because it is literacy. You are incorrect that intellect fails. What you have not quite grasped, it seems, it that all those people of whom you speak, often live on the emotional bases you cite precisely due to the lack of the right intellect. There is all sort of intellect, just as there are all sorts of emotions. If you do not possess the right intellectual habits, you will always be lead around by the nose at the hands of your emotions. It is precisely intellect that raises you above mere brain-stem existence. To forsake intellect would be an act of suicide - probable literally so.

I agree with your contention about improved literacy. But you cannot have it without intellect. Mid-brain existence is the ultimate unexamined goal of so-called modern liberalism or progressivism. It's all about the feelings. Those have their place, that is for sure - but to allow them to rule one's every decision is wholesale lunacy.

[osan]

heh, I thought the title said 'Universal Soccer Religion'

That one already exists. Seems to be significantly powerful, too.

[osan]

There already is a universalist secular religion derived

A couple of things. First, I said "universal", not "universalist" - which really boils down to the difference between an adjective and a noun, respectively.

Second, you may have done well to have posed the question of what, precisely, would the tenets of this "religion" be? I was playing with the word, which I now realize was a large enough mistake that I ought not have gone there. Mea culpa.

What I have been hinting at here, apparently in poor fashion, was the dissemination of the basics of liberty to the population - training and education - in a manner similar to that of the way religions are advocated. The real difference here would be that the "facts" would be demonstrably extant and true whereas with religion, they are taken on faith, regardless of truth.

A religious devotion to liberty... perhaps that is the better way of phrasing it? I don't know.

from the (demonstrably false) premise that "all human beings are created as equals,"

Another grave, if somewhat subtle, error on your part. Being created AS equals is not the same as being equal in the sense you appear to imply, as below. People are clearly not equal - were this not so, we would be clones. We look differently, act differently, like different things, etc. and so on. Clearly we are not equal. But we are as equals. Put two newborns next to each other on a table. One is to become a doctor and the other a ditch digger. Give them the once-over and tell us which will be the doctor. Those infants are AS equals. One is neither master nor slave. Their rights are equal, which leads directly to their equivalence, i.e. their equal value as living beings. Being equals is in no manner the same as being equal. The two concepts are wholly and utterly foreign to each other.

it is commonly known as progressivism, but Mencius Moldbug calls it universalism; here he is on "tenets [that] are derived through reason rather than posited as articles of faith."

That poor guy needs to learn how to get to his point. Very tedious style wherein that which is of value risks being lost in a torrent of irrelevant noise. Not a good mode of communication when the subject at hand demands uncompromising clarity and precision. Just my plugged-nickel opinion, of course.