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Tract 1: Building an Abrahamic Faith Optimized for Interstellar Empires
Most traditional religions in the world, while relatively more resistant to prosperity-induced fertility collapse, are still facing extinction (just with a slight delay). This buys these religions precious time to build better defenses and acquire more allies for the coming trials. Those that indolently decide to return to a structure and mindset that evolved within (and was optimized for) a pre-internet, pre-AI world, ... heck pre industrial world—blinded by arrogance and Golden Age Thinking—deserve their fate. Only through cultural innovation does our species survive.
It need not be seen as all bad that the old ways have failed, as this gives us a chance to build something greater. It is not lost on me that while the Abrahamic tradition has been the source of most of humanity's greatness over the last century, it also was rejected by most of the great, innovative scientists during said period—this is a problem if we are choosing traditions to take us to the stars. A cultural system that is differentially less compelling to its most inquisitive and productive minds, leaving them to be predated upon by the urban monoculture, is exactly how we landed in such a bad situation to begin with. However, it is the very nature of the Abrahamic tradition to intergenerationally change and improve. By infusing it with innovation, we are not betraying it but embodying what makes it so powerful.
I grew up an Atheist. When thinking about turning back to the church, I asked my dad why he left—because my kids would likely leave for similar reasons. He said he left after being punished in Sunday school for trying to dive deep into the logistics of the Noah's ark story. He could not figure out how all the animals fit without magic and if there was magic, why was it not mentioned when the story was so meticulous in all its other details? If the story of Noah's Arc was meant to be a parable, why give exact measurements? If my kids are anything like me, they would leave for the same reason. Some churches solve this by taking a more metaphorical approach to the subject, but the churches that loosen restrictions on biblical literalism also loosen other rules that contrast with social norms and thus lose their fever of practice. This is not something I want either.
Why is this the case? Because the metric they use to judge what parts of Christianity they accept and which they don’t is how those parts contrast with what is socially acceptable to believe. Not a single group has experimented with another system. Instead of bending the traditions of Christianity to confirm to society my family evolves and fortifies them in the best interest of the next generation. We ask not, “what will prevent my persecution by secular society,” but “what will lead to the intergenerational flourishing of our family.” In fact, we believe there is strong evidence from God that this is exactly what we are commanded to do and any other course of action is to live in open rebellion to God's will ... but that's for Tract 3.
How does this work in practice?
We ask our kids, a hundred thousand or one million years from now if their descendants are still alive, do they think they would be closer to the way they think of a man or the way they think of a God. Most reasonable people would respond, “the way I think of a God”. Keep in mind we are very likely far less than a thousand years away from being able to have an AI internet of things lattice wrapped around the globe one can pray to for intercessions, that watches us and judges us, and that can port our likenesses into either simulated heavens or hells and host us there for great lengths of time. I don’t say this because I think this would be a good idea to build; I am just pointing this out to contrast the technological capacity we will have in a thousand years with what we will have in half a million. This far future entity will likely be far greater than what we could even imagine a God t
Published on 1 year, 10 months ago