What would a new religion that aims to be rationalist, like a “Temple of Reason” defined as:
1) No supernaturalism - no gods, afterlife, reincarnation, nirvana
2) Ultimately guided by Value Rationality (the rational ends, not means) like perpetuating the human race
3) Involving emotions in their proper place- emotions and context as part of human psychology, but subordinate to reason
Practice and what would it believe in a positive sense?
Rationalist Religion
Re: Rationalist Religion
I believe these were more or less the aims of Positivism or the Cult of Reason. So, one answer is 'entertainingly eccentric?'
I don't think these two are good examples, though. Neither lasted much.
Buddhism isn't terribly far from the mark. You did exclude Nirvana, but Buddhism does involve control of the emotions and does not necessarily imply belief in the supernatural.
Confucianism would fit as well.
Greco-Roman philosophy came very close to being religion. Upper-class Romans tended to be Stoics; they posited a god but only in the most abstract way possible and interest in the supernatural ended there. It's not very far from being a religion.
In the Greco-Roman world, of course, Christianity won out in the end. Maybe it had something more of a human touch. Confucianism puts great store on ritual. (I don't know that much about it, so I have little idea what exactly this meant.)
Maybe what it'd need is some ritual, and perhaps some saints / heroes?
I don't think these two are good examples, though. Neither lasted much.
Buddhism isn't terribly far from the mark. You did exclude Nirvana, but Buddhism does involve control of the emotions and does not necessarily imply belief in the supernatural.
Confucianism would fit as well.
Greco-Roman philosophy came very close to being religion. Upper-class Romans tended to be Stoics; they posited a god but only in the most abstract way possible and interest in the supernatural ended there. It's not very far from being a religion.
In the Greco-Roman world, of course, Christianity won out in the end. Maybe it had something more of a human touch. Confucianism puts great store on ritual. (I don't know that much about it, so I have little idea what exactly this meant.)
Maybe what it'd need is some ritual, and perhaps some saints / heroes?
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Nachtswalbe
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Re: Rationalist Religion
Realistically, saints of technology/reason/philosophy would be added.
The real obstacle is - how do you get the average person interested -- maybe a religious spin to Space Colonization and the social/anthropological functions of religion without the supernaturalism.
The sorts of people into this are as zompist said in another thread, middle class intellectuals who believe they're superior to everyone else due to reasoning skills.
The real obstacle is - how do you get the average person interested -- maybe a religious spin to Space Colonization and the social/anthropological functions of religion without the supernaturalism.
The sorts of people into this are as zompist said in another thread, middle class intellectuals who believe they're superior to everyone else due to reasoning skills.
Re: Rationalist Religion
Na, that's not right. or, rather, perhaps it is in 21th century but, throughout history, religions that aren't about mystical stuff but rather about social values has been a big deal, I think mostly for nobles. believing oneself superior on account of some 'rationality' others(tm) don't have is also extremely old: american whites did it to justify slavery, the english to justify the conquest of britain, romans and greeks loved it, etc.
to the original idea, problem is there's no such thing as Rationality uppercase proper noun. at best there are more or less rational things, and at worst there's just a bunch of ways to think and they're called various things as the result of complicated historical reasons. this means anyone claiming to have founded a religion based on rationality is probably founding a religion based on whatever conclusions he thinks his reason has led him to adopt, on a particular -ostensibly rational- view of the world. on a particular set of rational ends (whatever that means)
I guess the thing is that 'religion' is kind of a kitchen sink concept: it started out meaning the mediterranean polytheism and augury and those things, then it meant christianity, and then it got expanded to 'stuff like christianity that isn't christianity'. depending on what one means by religion you'll get very different sets of things under 'rational religion'. for example, religions are often talked about as worldviews and systems of belief, in which case ideologies are rational religions. other times religions are denominations of christianity, and in that case you get stuff like catholic atheism. if religions are 'churches' in the institutional and ritualistic sense of 'things like catholicism' then yeah, you'd get something like comte's religion of humanity (which, no joke, is still a thing).
so, from a conworlding perspective, I'd say a secular religion can look like whatever you want it to look, you just have to make it so it has philosophical arguments and makes a big deal out of how rational they are, and about how good reason is, and about how they definitely don't believe in 'supernatural' things. of course, supernatural is itself a fuzzy term, so whether the thing itself is a secular religion or not might be a subject of disagreement: I once had someone suggest I was religious for believing in the external world.
to the original idea, problem is there's no such thing as Rationality uppercase proper noun. at best there are more or less rational things, and at worst there's just a bunch of ways to think and they're called various things as the result of complicated historical reasons. this means anyone claiming to have founded a religion based on rationality is probably founding a religion based on whatever conclusions he thinks his reason has led him to adopt, on a particular -ostensibly rational- view of the world. on a particular set of rational ends (whatever that means)
I guess the thing is that 'religion' is kind of a kitchen sink concept: it started out meaning the mediterranean polytheism and augury and those things, then it meant christianity, and then it got expanded to 'stuff like christianity that isn't christianity'. depending on what one means by religion you'll get very different sets of things under 'rational religion'. for example, religions are often talked about as worldviews and systems of belief, in which case ideologies are rational religions. other times religions are denominations of christianity, and in that case you get stuff like catholic atheism. if religions are 'churches' in the institutional and ritualistic sense of 'things like catholicism' then yeah, you'd get something like comte's religion of humanity (which, no joke, is still a thing).
so, from a conworlding perspective, I'd say a secular religion can look like whatever you want it to look, you just have to make it so it has philosophical arguments and makes a big deal out of how rational they are, and about how good reason is, and about how they definitely don't believe in 'supernatural' things. of course, supernatural is itself a fuzzy term, so whether the thing itself is a secular religion or not might be a subject of disagreement: I once had someone suggest I was religious for believing in the external world.
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Nachtswalbe
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Re: Rationalist Religion
I’m aiming for something very different from say, lesswrong or other movements calling themselvws rational.Torco wrote: ↑Mon Oct 25, 2021 2:14 am
so, from a conworlding perspective, I'd say a secular religion can look like whatever you want it to look, you just have to make it so it has philosophical arguments and makes a big deal out of how rational they are, and about how good reason is, and about how they definitely don't believe in 'supernatural' things. of course, supernatural is itself a fuzzy term, so whether the thing itself is a secular religion or not might be a subject of disagreement: I once had someone suggest I was religious for believing in the external world.
As in “reason” can be used to justify a different set of conclusions.
Frex the following axioms:
- Near altruism - helping those near you because they can help you back
- One foot into the future at a time - X-risks and the like are less relevant than having correct relations with Man and the Universe, and Following in the right path
- Rituals are rational because they keep people mentally on track, and help individuals connect to other people
- Individual desires are important, but collective utility is more than the sum of its parts since psychologically, humans are social animals in the sensw they interact and organize collectively
- Social norms and people’s ability to conform to them or bend them is a sign of intelligence - you subvert norms, not reject them
- Uplifted minds - mere physical enhancement or immortality does nothing if your mind still functions according to base instincts — the use of ascetic practices to try taming these
- Less focus on The Good in a platonic sense like in EA — there are many “Good”s and morality is secondary to survival. Also an action intended for Good can bear evil and what is good for one person can or does harm others
- A division into left-hand and right-hand paths, s tolerance for involvement in politics as long as that power can be dominoed for the Greater Good (for humanity as a whole) or the Lesser Good (benefit to the Path)
- Involvement in defensive warfare (e.g the Mohists) especially for weaker states and Centers of Knowledge
- Reason as a day-to-day construction built by many hands across the globe
- The idea that many cultures contributed to reason, and no culture is better or more rational than any other
Re: Rationalist Religion
Sure, those are totally tenets one can base a rationalist conreligion around. if you're good with those, I suggest the following steps:
> apologetics and exegesis: it seems to me that any healthy rational religion has to have conventional ways of countering whatever arguments are most the obvious -given the cultural context- objections to the religion itself, as well as prescriptions for the correct interpretation of exactly what the tenets mean: for example, does altruism based on 'they can help you back' imply that, say, people near death aren't bound by the duty of altruism? does the duty of obedience and subversion -as opposed to straight up opposition- admit of a limit? i.e. if you find yourself in a slaver society, do you buy slaves and treat them a bit better or do you just outright oppose?
> stories and concrete rituals: it's all well and good to say that rituals in general are good, but which are the rituals? also, all religions have important stories which fulfill a variety of purposes. here, it's common to have the story of the founder or founders, but also when you're starting such a religion you probably want to make it look like the movement is a continuation of at least some good things which the broader culture already values: if you were to start one in the real world, for example, you might want to say that comte, mozi, confucius and socrates were visionaries who had the right idea -saints, perhaps?- but didn't manage to implement it as well as you have.
> religious workers. who are the ones doing the religion? sure, the faithful -or reasonful, here, i guess?- but more often than not you're going to need dedicated clerics, monks, priests, ulemas, gurus or whatever: who are they? how do they live? how do they exert power and influence over the rest of the world? philosopher-priests, or whatever you end up calling them, will of course have their own class interests and internal contradictions, and it's fun to lay those out.
specific points in your axioms also suggest things which would be interesting to explore: for example, this emphasis on defensive warfare: is it a duty of the reasonful, or is it the province of the cleric, or perhaps even a particular subsection of the cleric? you could have like the Order of the Knights Templar of Reason and Humanity or whatever, and they could be, say, warrior-cleric-engineers that train in construction of fortifications, logistics and, I don't know, sniper tactics?
and, of course, in the imaginations of many societies reason is strongly linked with books, so temples might also be -or have in the basement- libraries, scriptoria, printing shops, universities, research labs or whatever else.
finally, no religion is completed without an aesthetic: you know, logos, colours, funny hats, robes, statues, etcetera.
> apologetics and exegesis: it seems to me that any healthy rational religion has to have conventional ways of countering whatever arguments are most the obvious -given the cultural context- objections to the religion itself, as well as prescriptions for the correct interpretation of exactly what the tenets mean: for example, does altruism based on 'they can help you back' imply that, say, people near death aren't bound by the duty of altruism? does the duty of obedience and subversion -as opposed to straight up opposition- admit of a limit? i.e. if you find yourself in a slaver society, do you buy slaves and treat them a bit better or do you just outright oppose?
> stories and concrete rituals: it's all well and good to say that rituals in general are good, but which are the rituals? also, all religions have important stories which fulfill a variety of purposes. here, it's common to have the story of the founder or founders, but also when you're starting such a religion you probably want to make it look like the movement is a continuation of at least some good things which the broader culture already values: if you were to start one in the real world, for example, you might want to say that comte, mozi, confucius and socrates were visionaries who had the right idea -saints, perhaps?- but didn't manage to implement it as well as you have.
> religious workers. who are the ones doing the religion? sure, the faithful -or reasonful, here, i guess?- but more often than not you're going to need dedicated clerics, monks, priests, ulemas, gurus or whatever: who are they? how do they live? how do they exert power and influence over the rest of the world? philosopher-priests, or whatever you end up calling them, will of course have their own class interests and internal contradictions, and it's fun to lay those out.
specific points in your axioms also suggest things which would be interesting to explore: for example, this emphasis on defensive warfare: is it a duty of the reasonful, or is it the province of the cleric, or perhaps even a particular subsection of the cleric? you could have like the Order of the Knights Templar of Reason and Humanity or whatever, and they could be, say, warrior-cleric-engineers that train in construction of fortifications, logistics and, I don't know, sniper tactics?
and, of course, in the imaginations of many societies reason is strongly linked with books, so temples might also be -or have in the basement- libraries, scriptoria, printing shops, universities, research labs or whatever else.
finally, no religion is completed without an aesthetic: you know, logos, colours, funny hats, robes, statues, etcetera.