What Could a Religion of the Future be like?

This piece is intended for anyone who's largely dissatisfied with spiritual paths that currently exist on this planet. Is there a way of life for the person who thinks the very idea of a God (or Gods) with human characteristics is stupid? Who thinks that cozy beliefs about a force of good triumphing over evil and a creator that's always looking out for me is an infantile belief-system that makes a mockery of human hopes and yearning?

I'm often in utter awe at some of the beauty in the world, and I can appreciate the vast untold wonders of a universe that I don't fully understand. So what's the use of having a God anyway? Or, at the very least, what's the use in giving a name to the infinite regress of causation when we can't possibly know anything about it? Can someone please construct a sensible spiritual path without one?

I have this dream...of attending a spiritual service that's kind of like your typical service, except the preacher is reading Bertrand Russell and telling me I can live without mythologies. He's telling me the point of living is to live, damn it! (he'll often swear if the situation requires it). I glance up at the stained glass windows within the narthex and see hallowed figures from the pantheon of science who gave their lives for the betterment of our species. Maxwell is up there, Mendel, Darwin, and a well-researched catalogue of major unsung players. Our martyrs are people who suffered under religious intolerance and sought only to increase safety and peace on the planet.

I look down at our bibles in each pew. Leafing through them, I see quotes from the giants of philosophy and empowering phrases that make me feel a little better about being human. Quotations saturate each page that I run my hands and eyes over, preaching peace, the kinship of all human-beings and their interconnectedness with other lifeforms in the universe, the lessons that our ancestors have taught us -- and poetry with art that inspires more than smirks from onlookers. In this fantasy church-service, I thirst for more knowledge and greater self-understanding -- not just earplugs and a .45 to escape mythological pleasantries. Meanwhile, back at the pulpit, my preacher is now telling me that finally the most state-and-"church" funded project is a group of technological initiatives set to make sure our species' life on this planet is given the longest possible chance with the least possible encroachment on anyone or anything -- and then everyone cheers in acknowledgement!

Sound good? Or at least...a step in the right direction?

Well, let's start from the ground up.

I think, first and most importantly, is to establish a key rule to follow. Most religions and spiritual paths have some kind of dogmatic prime directive, a "Golden Rule", if you'll allow me the cliche. So what would that number 1, primary, golden-type rule be for a religion styled after secular humanism but inclusive enough to adjust for intellectual variance? Would it be a thermoregulatory system-styled argument of self-correcting nature or a hard-and-fast rule like that of the "typical" Golden Rule?

"Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You"

Or the Confucian notion that the Christians ripped their Golden Rule off of:

"Abstain from doing onto others things you would not want done to yourself."

It's no secret that the Christians ripped off much of their mythology from neighbouring religions (the flood, immaculate conception, death and rebirth of the saviour, etc), and what's more -- they were not alone in doing so. It's because of this ideological borrowing that I feel primed to cherry-pick good notions from each religion (just like they did) in creating a new one that suits the future.

So I think what is perhaps the best golden rule of all - and would also be self-correcting - would simply be: Be Tolerant. It's that simple! Being intolerant includes such behaviours as forcing your beliefs on other people and telling them you believe something when, in reality, you couldn't be further from that belief. Being intolerant would be imposing economic imperialism on other countries just so you (not the populace of your country) and a select group of megalomaniacs can get a few more years of supreme comfort in a world where happiness is generally relative. Being intolerant would be persecuting Jews, gays, blacks -- or anyone else for ridiculous and superficial reasons that have no logical basis whatsoever. So it basically stands to reason that the world is, at the moment, full of jerks from all walks of life and in most major religions.

But don't get me wrong. While this is intended to be a scathing indictment of religions that have perpetrated massive wrongs against humanity - both physically and mentally -- it is not intended to point a righteous finger and note which ones are completely wrong which others being completely right. The point is just to promote something new, something that's a little farther away from ideologies that have, in the past, often stunted humanity and would make us all look like clowns to extraterrestrial onlookers. And that's not to degrade clowns by comparing them to religious zealots.

The point here is to shake the image from our ideological vernacular of a spiritual man as someone that's crippled with fear and a head full of nonsense, or the type that must've spent entire science and/or logic classes with fingers in both ears humming loudly enough to miss the crucial skills necessary for dispelling superstition. I would rather not picture mega-popular public speakers that lead entire congregations of believers as the type of humans with that loud and overbearing voice screeching out easily defeated arguments with all the eloquence and sublety of a bandsaw cutting a piece of slate -- or the congregation lead entirely and unquestioningly by antiquated literature of loud opinions from misinformed men. I'm trying to have just a slice of pride for our species here.

So What Would a Spiritual Path of the Future Promote?
Imagine a religion based on hope for this life and the betterment of mankind in the attainment of a long future. Not one that's telling you that this life is garbage and that your best hope is to pray, do nothing and await the next life that we have no evidence for. It wouldn't be a spiritual path that's telling you to abstain from everything that makes you happy because it will be the only way to escape from being reincarnated and getting - gasp! - more life. Does that sound insane to you? Maybe...because...it IS insane.

First and foremost, the most ideal religious/spiritual path that serves our species would promote living this life well. Obviously there are some caveats to eliminate or reduce in that way of life, but overall, since we have no idea what death will bring, living this life should be about living this life. Being happy, spending time with people you care about, and getting a really nice track-record of great experiences should be the prime directive -- right after abstaining from assholery.

So for those of you keeping score:

1. Be tolerant.
2. This life is for living - so try to spend at least some of your time in the present, indulging what you like, and doing things that make you happy.

I'm not suggesting that the focus of life should be lavishly overdone, wild and unbridled hedonism. But really, trying to eliminate the things that make you happy simply because it might make you stronger without having to want them is ridiculous because of the sterile nonexistentence it would turn your life into...especially because these ascetics are often based on an almost-certainly fictional post-life life.

While we're discarding superstitions of a fake hereafter that we have absolutely no evidence of -- and ergo no reason to believe in -- let's go a little further and embrace science. Now, I know you're going to read too much into that last comment: you're going to say that I'm absurd because I'm seemingly suggesting that a spiritual path is completely incompatible with science or that my love affair with empirical evidence and reason is unsound. Or for suggesting that the religions of our day are completely incompatible with science -- or that I'm absurd for believing in rationalism because I'm discounting all that which is beyond my sensation or beyond my comprehension. I'm really not. I'm discounting that which is full of details that can't possibly be known. Anyone who tells you that not only is there an afterlife, but that it's full of bliss -- is lying to you for some reason. Usually it's to take your money.

Yes, it's usually to take your money.

I'll admit it up front - I'm in love with science. Basing your belief-system on an approach that attempts to correct itself based on new evidence, promotes falsifiable evidence and tries to further mankind as much as possible -- is the best of what's available. If you embrace science and critical thinking (yes, the two go together) then you've got a recipe that embraces our species' natural inclination toward making things bigger and better through a mindset that caters to finding truth.

3. Embrace science. Teach it in schools and promote critical thinking.

Only science gets you a view like this.

So now we've got a way of life that's focused on living a good life in the here-and-now, genuinely seeks to find truth (via science) and is tolerant of new or differing ideas - AND tells people not to be assholes. Sounding good so far? I hope so, because it sure sounds good to me. But let's take it another step: we're all trapped in the human body and we're trying to make the most of it, so what would that entail in terms of a spiritual path? Obviously it would not strive to renounce and eliminate everything that makes us human - that would only produce the kind of man that Nietzsche once called, "a sick human animal, taught to dance by blows and starvation". When you try to eliminate the humanity from a human, it produces, in its extreme, the ascetic that seeks to renounce every natural instinct in favour of physical and mental abstinence. Again, if that sounds insane - that religions of today (and the past) have taught people to renounce their natural instincts completely, to live a life devoid of cravings, desires, personal faults and passion in favour of attaining liberation from not just this wretched life, but every wretched life thereafter to live everlastingly in a fake-o afterlife that we have zero (ZERO!) certainty of......if that sounds insane to you, that's because it is.

What wouldn't be insane is, again, something that embraces human nature and tries to make the best of it. Now I've studied quite a bit to get a sense of what 'human nature' might be - branching through the likes of philosophy, psychology, neuropsychology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, etecetera - so let me run down what I believe to be natural to the human species and you can let me know whether you agree.