Friday, October 26, 2007

God is Great, confessions of an agnostic atheist

One might think that it is an absurd view for one that does not believe in God nor religion to believe that "God is great", but let me elaborate.

First off let me acknowledge that a lot of bad and evil has been done over the centuries in the name of God and religion. To name the crusades, the inquisitions, countless wars is just to skim the surface of the subject. And this continues today with religious motivated terrorism, the war in Iraq, the Balkans war, India and Pakistan's cold war, Sri Lanka's tensions.

Religion has not just to answer for evil, but also ignorance, the burning of books and censorship of knowledge throughout the ages. The murder of Socrates, the imprisonment of Galileo, the continued illogical slandering of biological evolution and science.

But there has also been good. Throughout history in societies of little to no laws religion has motivated countless people to be good. Religion instituted many of the first legal systems. Religious schools were for the most part the first schools, even today many schools throughout the world are funded by religions, many people would not be able go to school at all if it were not for this funding. Literacy in general owes a great dept to religion.

Compassion and charity are causes championed by religion. Not only are the majority of charities today linked with religion, but even non-religious charities are largely funded by donations from religiously motivated people.

Some of the greatest achievements of humanity owe a dept to religion. The absolution of slavery in the British empire and eventually the world was a movement started by a group of religious Quakers, and for the most part backed and successful because of the support of religion. Martin Luther King was a Christian minister, Gandhi was a devote Hindu.

The animal rights movement began with religion, the first vegetarians were Hindu and Buddhist. Traces of animal compassion can be found in most religions, from avoiding eating meat on the Sabbath, Kosher and Hala food, Christian sects such as the Seventh Day Adventists promoting vegetarianism. For all its effort and celebrity endorsements even PETA has inspired meagerly little people to avoid meat when compared with Hinduism and Buddhism.

Religion more than benefits society, it benefits individuals. It gives them purpose, provides them with a community and support network. Many health studies have shown that religious people are healther and live longer than the average. This is because after they retire, they still have a community and a purpose.

There is a fundamentalist sect of Atheism emerging of late, which seems bent on religions demise. I recently read the novel God is not Great, religion poisons everything of which this article is a play on its title. The book was immaculately written, and I would strongly recommend it, and not disagree with any of it points, however I think that perhaps it is one-sided, and may be in danger of promoting a view that would have the baby thrown out with the bath water.

Some argue that we do not need religion to obtain all its benefits. We can be good just because it the correct thing to be, we can come together as a community in other ways, we can give to charity simply because it makes us feel good, we can live virtuous and ethical lives because it is the best way to live. I don't know, to me, it sounds a lot like a religion.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Open Sourcing Religion

The majority of people are unaware of this, but humanity has recently passed the greatest fork in our evolution since before we evolved from apes.

There are basically three forms of life from a social standpoint. Those that are solitary and rarely interact with their own species other than mating, those that organize themselves socially in a hierarchical group, and those that live in swarms.

For over a million years humanity has organized itself hierarchically. Family units were hierarchical, tribes were hierarchical, chiefdoms, kingdoms, countries, corporations, schools, government. However, recently, things have fundamentally changed and the shock waves are emanating through society.

The Internet, globalization, cell phones, email, instant chat, wikis, blogs, Facebook, MMPOG, SourceForge, have given a subset of humanity the ability to interact and collaborate with others on a massive scale. This is starting to fundamentally alter our society and species, we are becoming a swarm.

Ants, bees, wildebeest herds, live in large interconnected groups. This fascinating realm of scientific study is called swarm theory.

Although there is a "Queen" ant, this is just an honorary title and does not come with any power. If one studies swarms the interesting thing is that no one is in charge, of anything, at all. Each individual interacts with those around them in the swarm, and this interaction gives the swarm a greater intelligence and power that no single of the individuals could ever hope to obtain on their own. A herd of thousands of wildebeest can migrate hundreds of kilometers to the exact location of their mating ground with only a small number of herd knowing the direction. Ants can harvest a large area around their nest optimally for food without any plan nor ant managing the operation. Evolution proves that a swarm is the best organization for a very large interconnected group, just as it proves a hierarchy is the best origination for a small group.

If one looks at the new communities emerging over the Internet lately they exhibit the same behavior as a swarm. This has triggered a new economical model, one that has allowed open source software projects to compete with, rival, and replace some of the most sophisticated software products produced by the largest corporations, Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Tomcat, Eclipse, Wikimedia, Jboss, OpenOffice. This is not just a computer software fad, it is permeating every industry from bio technology to manufacturing. Publishing companies are having to compete with Wikimedia and other wikis, record labels are competing with independent music and MP3tunes, auto makers no longer make most of the automobile but instead assemble thousands of part from independent producers.

This is just the beginning, this is not just a new economic model, this is a new way of life. Not only will every industry be “open sourced” but so will government, schools, communities, families and religion.

There are already several new open source religions, the Church of Reality, Yoism, wayism to name a few. There are also countless religious groups on Yahoo Groups, Google and Facebook, as well as religious wiki communities such as the Religion Wiki, where anyone can create their own new religion, or join a community of a existing one.

This is by no means a fad of new religions, traditional religions are embracing the Internet and massive online collaboration through websites, wikis, groups, online churches, online communities and online services. Annotated versions of the Bible, the Koran and other religious texts are emerging, allowing anyone to discuss, question or collaborate on the meaning of the text. This is the golden age of religion, for the first time allowing religion to represent the true soul of the people, not handed down from a hierarchy of priests, monks, clerics, popes, kings, governments and God.