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Some assumptions underlying this article:

 

All ideas that aim to give a definite answer on all aspects of life, and how we should live, are regarded as religions. This includes ideologies.

The main strength of these religions is the community of its members. These members maintain the principles of the community through interactions and coercive force, while also being influenced by opinions that were part of the community before any of its current members were born.

Maintaining the popularity of these opinions, as well the priorities they set for their members' daily lives, can become quite political. It can lead to a discomfort towards how others want to live their lives and maybe the loss of friends.

 

And now onwards to the article.

 

KILLING THE GODS WE NEED

 

But first, one more assumption: Dogma, an idea about society that is regarded by a group to be true and central to their lives, is beautiful. 

 

It provides a world to live in, interacting with other people through the shared recognition of the same viewpoints/music/stories. It is comfortable, reliable and takes less energy than trying to understand strange ideas or people. And most importantly it enables you to even recognize others or other things. It is central to life.

 

However such systems in religion can be limiting, shutting out people and topics for not aligning to their viewpoints. In this way, the same process that enables believers to 'recognize' can lead to non - recognition or dismissal as well. And as no religious system can completely answer the questions or needs of all of its believers, as people have different roles and environments, their believers (like normal people) tend to seek answers from others or other places. This is normal life. The only moment when this reality is denied is in a political atmosphere, when people have to defend their viewpoints. Things and possibilities are often lost then.

 

This article wants to propose an alternative:

 

Spirits & Gods

 

These would serve multiple roles:

Representatives: for your expression of the ideal of freedom, the mundane task of saving water at home or even your community/identity…

Guardians of Dogma: to show you what kind of rules you have laid out for yourself, and the consequences it might have…

Intermediaries: to negotiate on your behalf, or those of its adherents, when you're unavailable or unaware of the impact of others' actions or viewpoints

 

But why return to spirits or gods? Due to the simple fact that even in our contemporary lives, there are multiple influences that impact our (ability to make our own) decisions. These can be biological, economical, social or political. We just don't operate in a vacuum, but we often seem to be unable to either name or act upon all the influences that restrain us. And even if we are aware of these restrains, we cannot always rely on or trust other people to make sure our needs/interests are met. That's because of the same restrains that impact the need of certain groups or communities, who then make decisions that are ill fated or consequential to your live. That's of course a reality of life, there are always limited resources for everyone, but a lot of them are also wasted due to bad management or politics. Current global problems exemplify that. 

 

So that's why we could use digital representatives of our aims/ideals/goals that as guardians of our aims own ideas, our own dogma, constantly remind us and others of our viewpoints and its consequences. 

 

This could be envisioned in multiple ways, for example plainly as a web of causes and consequences that you code into a small program that you can access through a publicly available chatbot. If you for example have chosen this spirit, in this way, as a representative for your community's ideals, then you could access this chatbot when making decisions. The crucial point here is that after coding your dogma, nobody should be able to change it. If that is safe guarded, you could then always come back to this chatbot/spirit as a trustworthy frame of reference for making decisions for yourself or your community.

 

And because it is digital and not a human, people could consult the chatbots of other communities to consult them about the benefits and disadvantages of their viewpoints. It could be done anonymously, as these 'chatbots' operate online. 

 

Trusting the roles of chatbots

 

But how could these then be trusted, as they are created by humans themselves? There are two options for this:

By asking other spirits to constantly check for the consequences of other spirits/chatbots viewpoints.

By deciding, for your own spirit yourself or that of your community together with your community members, to sever the link with the spirit that represents an ideal. An ideal that might no longer serve your interests or maybe actively harm it or those of others. Them a symbolically strong move is killing the spirit.

 

Why killing? Because first of all naming an ideal, a goal or problem is crucial in recognition of the existence or influence of it in our lives as humans. We can live by them and get others to 'join the cause'. However after a while the ideal or framing becomes possibly stale, out-dated and problematic: even if the ideals can still be useful, sometimes it is followed without thinking. Therefore it should be possible to discard it, by publicly denouncing it and possibly killing it. Because killing is final and symbolically strong.

 

Yet this needs to be given even more strength by giving consequences to the (non) killing of the gods, by connecting to these actions monetary consequences or for example the loss of some access to resources. In this way, like any action, there will be consequences to making a connection to a spirit/god that you have chosen for example to represent your ideal of freedom. Because often freedom seems like a vague idea that you can utter your support for politically, but consequences seem far fetched for you or others. With this system, subjective ideas can be more closely connected to real life objective results.

 

But how will this play out in a real life context and how will we connect or talk with these gods?

 

Come back next week for some examples!