Do Good

 

 

proposal for a new religion

 

We are living in an age of reason, but reason is only one tool for humanity to choose how to organise and prioritise.

 

We need something else, something in addition to reason, something to bind us together, not just something we can reason separation from.

 

 

we are all in this together

 

Homo Sapiens flourished and displaced all the other branches of our family tree largely because we were better at cooperating with each-other. However, with our massive expanse in population covering all corners of our planet there has not been an equal increase in our ability get along well with each other, to cooperate, and this is precisely the function of religion; to teach us to be respectful and supportive of one another - to love one another.

 

We out-evolved our competitors by cooperating better amongst ourselves. We no longer have competitors - outside of the problems we have brought upon ourselves -  which we now need to cooperate to deal with.

 

For this we need to build and implement powerful technological ways to build truly interactive, deep and involved dialogue for huge numbers of people, we also need to use the height of human intellect to think through the problems we face, but at the very core, we need to accept that we are in this together, we have to  develop the core moral and emotional compass which links us together into harmonious cooperation.

 

Enter ‘homo ensynaísthisi’, mankind the empathiser. Maybe shortened to just homo ’ensy.’..

 

 

a new religion

 

For this, it's not enough to have a democracy and a market, we truly need to understand that we are parts of something bigger than any of us, we need a new religion.

 

The requirements for a new religion is simply that adherence to its principles will engender more harmony among all people; that more people will do more good for themselves and all people.

 

It is not enough to 'feel close to nature'. The focus is on behaviour and not simply on how a personal feels inside. With an acceptance of God we accept that God is everywhere and everything - we accept the world itself as holy and with this perspective our actions are framed with the holy in mind, we are always dealing with the holy, for which we must show reverence and respect, which will hopefully make us more likely to work for each other, not against each other. The God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims is the same God, and gives us a rich perspective based on a long tradition of religious thought. The Proposal herein is to combine the Torah, the new Testament and the Koran into one volume, with the additional volume found below.

 

 

what this religion is not

 

A question of an afterlife, on the emotional value of having a 'faith' or a 'belief' is left to the individual, and is outside of the scope of this religion, which is purely focused on the action towards others, not salvation, karma, rewards or anything beyond our interactions with each other and our world.

 

There are no holy buildings, places or clergy. There are no rituals, no taxes and no conversion. Equally there are no 'others', no 'non-belivers'. There is simply an acceptance of the beauty and holiness of creation and the importance of being good to other people and our world in general.

 

 

God

 

For clarification, this is not an exercise in bowing down to a white male God with a beard sitting on a cloud who tells us how to think and what to do, then judges us for eternity - or any other God we have in our power to imagine.

 

This reflection of God is God in all things, all actions, all places, things, people and thoughts - it is about the holiness of all of life. And no, putting God everywhere does not negate the specialness of God, it suffuses God into all, since God exists within us, outwards; God is love. And that is no joke. That is the actuality of God.

 

 

engagement

 

To be a part of this movement, one simply works continually to understand and act on the precept in the bible:

 

 

bible

 

The New Bible unites all the sacred scriptures including the Torah, the New Testament and the Quran and binds them together with this perspective pinned at the end, a white sheet with just a few words:

 

        “Do good,

          while taking complete personal responsibility of your actions,

          in real dialogue with others"

 

That is the whole addition to the new religion and the name of this new religion is simply: Do Good.

 

What you feel inside ('be good') is your business and if you do not feel good your should receive help from friends and professionals but how you behave is what impacts others and is thus the focus.

 

 

responsibility & dialogue

 

The act of doing good is complex. The call to “Do good” is an unequivocal call that you take full responsibility for your actions and that you do so on dialogue with others - so that you will always seek to learn what being good really is and how being good to one person at one point would not necessarily be good for another person at another point.

 

Working to be a “do gooder” is the most fundamental perspective we can hope to nurture in order to create a world where collaboration is the basic approach, where our shared humanity is the focus.