Will Humans Ever Settle On One Religion?
According to the Wikipedia page on religion, there are an estimated 10,000 distinct religions worldwide. And according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, there are an estimated 45,000 distinct denominations of Christianity alone.
Of course, to fully understand these numbers, we have to ask a couple of questions. For instance, how are we defining the boundaries of any given religion? That is, what’s the difference between a denomination and a religion? And further, what do we even mean by the word ‘religion’ in the first place?
With respect to that last question, I think we often tend to think of religion as just a specific part of a person’s life — an affiliation with a specific group, or just a subset of behaviors or beliefs that correspond with said group. But I think it’s more consistent and accurate to think of religion ultimately as the totality of all of a person’s beliefs. In this regard, all beliefs are religious, and we always have as many religions (or at least as many denominations) as we have people.
With respect to defining the boundaries of religions and denominations, and as far as the researchers are concerned, it is done by self reporting. That is, if a congregation or person considers themself to be Christian, then they reported as Christian in the research.
But I'd like to approach it from a different angle. Because, when it comes to people getting along with each other, I think what's actually more important is not so much what people call themselves, but rather, what they actually believe.
And I’m going to propose that the best way to know what a group of people believe — is to look at their creeds.
Creeds Build Communities
I think the best way to see which groups fit with each other correlates more strongly with which creeds they can agree with. So for example, we could say anyone is a Muslim if their religion includes a belief in the Shahada. And we could call anyone a Christian if their set of beliefs include all of the statements of the Apostles’ Creed.
I’d ultimately like to suggest a creed that could be used as a universal creed. But before I do that, I think it’s helpful to look at some existing creeds that, historically, have been very successful in building worldwide communities. To that end, I’ll examine two such creeds: first, the Muslim profession of faith — the “Shahada”, and then, the Christian Apostles’ Creed.
The Muslim Profession of Faith, the “Shahada”:
I testify that there is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.
The Christian Apostle’s Creed:
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
he descended to hell.
The third day he rose again from the dead.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.*the one true Christian church — not necessarily the modern Catholic church
These two creeds represent, as succinctly as possible, the entire foundation for their corresponding religions.
The Shahada, although very brief, implies, by its reference to Muhammad, a corresponding belief in the whole Quran. Reciting the Shahada, preceded by the words “I testify”, in the presence of another Muslim is, in fact, how a person becomes a Muslim.
The apostles’ creed, by contrast, is longer, and not as closely tied to the conversion process. But it is intended as a very concise summary of all of the most important beliefs of all Christians. Christianity.com describes it as “the most historic and universal summary of the Christian faith in the entire history of the church.”
Both of these creeds are ultimately a declaration of faith. And what's more, they serve as a normalizing factor for identifying all Muslims and Christians respectively. Anyone who says and believes the words of the Shahada is a Muslim, and anyone who says and believes the words of the Apostles’ Creed is a Christian.
But I think there's something else to point out about both of these creeds, namely, that neither is self discoverable. They all depend on the believer having been taught the words — and, more importantly, the beliefs behind them — from someone else. If a Christian evangelist hasn't told you the good news of the Gospel, you wouldn't know — and therefore would have no opportunity to believe — any of the claims within the Apostles’ Creed. And, likewise, if you hadn't been taught the Shahada or read the Quran, you would not independently be able to know or profess the same beliefs that they espouse. If you did, then you‘d essentially be equivalent to Muhammad himself, which runs counter to Islam’s claim that Muhammad is Allah’s final prophet.
And what's also important to point out is that both of these creeds are mutually exclusive. Christianity does not give any credence to Islam, and Islam, although it does recognize Jesus as an important prophet, ultimately demands that Mohammed be recognized as Allah's final profit and rejects the Christian notion that Jesus is God's “only son” — as is declared by the Apostles’ Creed.
And I think those facts ultimately makes both creeds unviable as the creed for a world-uniting religion. Each creed is fundamentally incompatible with the other, and each creed requires its followers to rely solely on a message from someone else, rather than being able to rely on their own discovery and investigation of the world.
And that's where I think we can do better. I think we can find a creed that resolves those issues, and could theoretically be adopted by everyone in the world.
A Creed for Everyone
Finding a creed that everyone in the world could agree with is not a simple task. And it's not something that one person can dictate to the world. It can't be spread through force, but it can be spread through exposure and explanation, and the gradual spreading of ideas that people recognize as good. It needs to be a democratic process — not something that everyone votes on per se, but just something that everyone can affirm for themselves.
And so the example creed that I will offer in this article is merely a suggestion. It's the seed of an idea, and a launching point for future discussion.
The building blocks of a creed are individual statements, describing individual beliefs. And so if we want a creed that feels intuitive and viable for everyone, we can start by identifying a few small beliefs that everyone can agree with and relate to.
The passage below describes some beliefs that I think everyone could agree with. With this passage, I'm not trying to build the actual creed, but just trying to establish some base level understanding:
I was born with a body that has certain needs in order to stay alive, and to feel good. I did not choose this body, but it is the only body I have. I need food, water, and air to survive, and I need additional things to feel happy.
Do you think anyone would disagree with any of the beliefs expressed in that passage? If not, how about those below?:
I do the best I can to get the things I need, but I am not always successful. My success is limited by the limitations of my physical body and my mind. My physical influence over the world, and my knowledge of the world are both limited. But I do the best I can with what I know.
I hope everything in that passage seems intuitive as well. We all want certain things, but we are all also limited, sometimes very much so, in our ability to succeed in getting those things. And part of that is because we are limited in our power. But the other part is because we are limited in what we know. The passage below tries to sort out some general principles of how we know what we know, or at least how we decide to believe:
It's not always obvious what to believe. But I am generally more likely to believe things that I witness and can make sense of for myself, rather than simply believing things that other people tell me to believe. I am also generally more likely to believe things I hear from friends and family, than I am to believe things I hear from strangers who I don’t trust. I am also aware that my mind can imagine almost anything. But the mere fact of my imagining something doesn't make it more likely to exist in the physical world.
I hope that all makes sense too. I'm not really trying to make any claims about the existence or nonexistence of anything here, but rather, just trying to identify some simple guidelines that I think we all use when forming our beliefs. If you're still with me, let's look at one final passage:
I understand that I am not the only person in the world. There are lots of other people, and they all have bodies like mine, which all come with the same manner of abilities, limitations and needs as me. Although I can't witness anyone else's experience directly, I trust that they are all just doing the best they know to meet their own needs — just like me
I think that last passage is a little bit harder to get behind, because it involves a small amount of speculation about other people, rather than merely self-reflection. But I do think that small leap of faith it's ultimately necessary if we are trying to build a single, worldwide creed.
With all that said, I think if we try to put the above passages into a more succinct and specific format, that it might look something like the creed below.
The Human Creed:
1. Our influence over, and perspective on, the world are very limited. And any powers of influence and perception that we do have are ultimately granted — and may be revoked — by forces external to ourselves.
2. All value and meaning in the world can be found in the witnessing and experiencing of good and bad feelings and perceptions by conscious beings.
3. The intent of all conscious beings is always to experience more net happiness — although we may often accidentally act in ways counterproductive to this intent, due to our limited powers of influence and perception.
4. Although we never know anything for sure, we need to make many educated guesses in order to navigate the world. But these guesses must be educated; a totally uneducated guess is worse than no guess at all.
5. Everything that exists must ultimately pass one test: that it can endure the environment where it resides.
I think this creed would form a solid starting ground for humans to talk about any number of things. It touches on our primary fundamental motivations, desires, and limitations. And I think that anyone, upon self reflection, could recognize the same traits in themselves.
I do think this creed takes a small leap of faith in assuming the same intentions and desires of all conscious beings, rather than limiting it’s scope to the speaker. I ultimately think this is an appropriate assumption to make, at least in the context of this project, which is, after all, to provide a framework that we all could agree with.
With that said, I think that any two people who profess this creed would be able to fruitfully talk about many other subjects together. Below, I've offered several insights that I think can be derived from the claims presented in the creed.
These insights, like the creed itself, are all ultimately up for debate. And rational convincing, not force, is ultimately the only way for these ideas to spread. I hope they will spread — or at least some version of them — , and I hope they will add value to the human community.
Resulting Wisdom
Human Worth and Human Equality
Human life is inherently valuable. We know this for the simple and obvious fact that we all have the capacity to witness good and bad feelings. We really don’t need to reach any further than that. Human life has meaning, and we witness it every moment of every day.
It is in this same respect that we presume all humans to be equal. Of course, not all humans have the same fitness for survival, or the same capacity to provide value to their communities. But we have no good reason (and in fact are not looking for one) to presume that some humans experience good and bad feelings more strongly than others. So we assume by default that all humans experience the same depth of feeling, the same capacity for pleasure and pain, and are therefore all equal in value.
Human Frailty Is Merely Survival Tactics Gone Awry
The humans who are alive today are here because their ancestors survived and propagated (i.e. procreated) in an indifferent universe. That’s it. Unfortunately, in our effort to survive and propagate, we’ve carried with us a lot of baggage that, although useful as a survival tactic, often does not help us to be happy, and ultimately contributes to our collective misery.
The Catholics actually spell these out brilliantly with their seven deadly sins, namely: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth.
But what is pride, other than a desire to be seen as valuable by a community that you depend on? What is greed, but a tendency to collect resources in an often scarce world? What is wrath, other than an instinct to make people afraid to threaten or trouble you ever again?
Indeed, these “sins” as the Catholics call them certainly can bring misery upon the people who struggle with them, and everyone around them. But we don’t have to invent the concepts of sin or evil in order to understand them. Instead, we can understand them simply as basic survival instincts that we have to manage better in order to be happy.
Evidence Must Be Democratically Observable
If you're trying to build a belief system that includes all people, we need to let all people have equal access to the evidence for any claims we make. As science advances, this can sometimes be hard. Not everyone can access the large hadron collider for experiments, or even understand how it works. But we need to always focus on making information as accessible as possible. Ancient texts and single authority sources, claiming to be messages from God, are not democratic evidence, and not suitable for facilitating worldwide collaboration.
The Universe is Indifferent
Although what we desire is happiness, most of the events in the universe are indifferent to us. Everything that exists, does so ultimately by virtue of its ability to persist and propagate. The degree to which we can achieve happiness, therefore, ultimately depends on our ability to make the processes that make us happy align with processes that are able to persist and propagate within the universe.
Our Past Decisions Were Inevitable. Forgiveness is Easy.
I always pursue my own happiness, as well as I know how. So does everyone else. Whatever happens after that is luck. Every wrong decision I’ve made in the past can ultimately be traced to insufficient knowledge of a better option. The same goes for everybody else. The only way I could have done something differently is if I had at least slightly different knowledge. But I didn’t. And so whatever way I chose to act at the time was inevitable. There’s therefore no reason to be angry at myself for my prior actions, or at anyone else for theirs.
The Future Is a Die Roll. Don’t Be Too Afraid.
All I can ever do is make choices that I think will make me happy in the long run, based on the knowledge I have now. I just have to work with the knowledge I have, and know that I will forgive myself if things don’t work out as I hope.
‘Evil’ is a Judgmental Word for ‘Scary’
When we say ‘evil’ it usually implies something with a fundamental nature altogether different from our own. But remember, everyone is just doing the best they can with what they know to meet their own needs. To be clear, some peoples needs may be entirely at odds with everyone else's. An anaconda or shark may kill someone without a second thought. But we don't need to call the animal evil. It was just doing whatever it felt it needed too. But people are ultimately no different than animals. And some people may kill like animals. Society can respond to such people in whatever way it needs to, for example quarantining (i.e. imprisoning) them or even killing them. But it's not actually helpful to call them evil. Ultimately, they are just different from us, in a way that is not compatible with us. Rather than calling them evil though, it's simpler, and more accurate, to simply admit that we are afraid, and call them what they are to us: scary.
Love that Causes Misery is Not the Love You Want
Love is a hard word to talk about definitively, because many people use it in different ways. But whatever you consider love to be, the most important thing to remember, is that you never prioritize it above happiness itself.
Responsibilities, Rights, and Justice are a Strategy
Responsibilities and rights are not inherently valuable or even real. Rather, they are social contracts that people are assigned to as a way of organizing and distributing labor and the fruits thereof within a community setting.
Specifically, responsibilities are the actions that people have agreed to do for — or are compelled to do by — their community, and rights are the benefits that they expect to receive from the collective labor of their community.
Justice then refers to the measurement of how well these contracts are being fulfilled, or to the system of assigning rights and responsibilities itself.
Fairness is Overrated
Fairness is a measurement of how evenly happiness and misery are distributed among the people of a community. If some people in a community are mostly happy, and others are mostly miserable, that is not fair. But it’s also not necessarily worse than a more fair society — which is to say, the unfairness isn’t what causes the misery per se.
Fairness is, at the very least, probably a good heuristic for the overall well-being of a community, though perhaps not necessarily a good thing in itself. A change to a community that results in an overall increase in fairness while simultaneously decreasing the overall number of people who are net happy is probably a relatively bad change.
Violence is Always an Option
Violence is always the underlying default way of settling disputes, if we are not able to settle our disputes in another way. The universe is ultimately a physical universe, and so the physical world is ultimately where all scores are settled. But so that being the case, our goal in building a society needs to be this: that we make violence the least desirable way of settling disputes, so that we don’t resort to it. The only way to avoid violence is to build up systems that settle disputes before violence is deemed necessary.
Punishment and Torture Are the Same
Torture is any action taken to elicit bad perceptions — such as sadness, fear, or pain — in one person, in order to discourage or deter that person from acting in ways that would be bad — or to encourage them to act in ways that would be good — for another person or community. Punishment is merely a subset of torture. It is torture done in response to a grievance, after the grievance has occurred.
Because any sort of pain is a fundamentally bad thing in the universe, torture must always be used sparingly, and always with the hope of alleviating other, more severe, forms of pain. But torture does not have to be physical. Any sort of mental or physical stress caused to someone is torture.
A “Proper” Apology Is Hard Because Changing a Mind Is Hard
Some apologies operate specifically as punishments, where the shame of being forced to apologize serves as a subtle torture, and, ultimately, as deterrence for future transgressions. That can serve a purpose. And sometimes, that purpose is all we can expect.
But people often decry such apologies as not “proper”, because the apologizer “didn’t really mean it”. But this is usually an unreasonable complaint. Because in order for someone to truly “mean it”, they have to first believe that what they did was wrong. And they often don’t. But changing a mind is a hard thing to do. And people usually can’t do it of their own accord. But it’s literally impossible for someone to offer a sincere apology for something that they don’t believe is wrong. And so, unless you’ve done the long, hard work of convincing the person that they were wrong, it’s ultimately not ever constructive or pragmatic to complain that their apology wasn’t sincere.
God Is Not Worth Talking About
This is not to say definitively that a God does not exist, but rather, simply that the concept of God is never relevant to any conversation. And the reason is this: if you ever describe a God with enough detail that this God would become relevant to a conversation — for instance, suggesting that God wants us to behave in a certain way, or frowns upon certain behavior, or looks like a person, or looks like an elephant, or looks like pure energy — you have left the realm of democratic reasoning, and entered a realm of pure speculation.
Final Thoughts
This is not meant as a final testament of “my truth”. Nor is it an attempt to force everyone to believe what I believe. It is an attempt, however, to suggest, or to convince — or at least to expose you to a new idea. And, moreover, it’s an attempt to start a dialogue, and the seed of an idea.
There are a lot of words that could describe what it is I think we need: religion, mythology, belief system, mental model, rulebook. I think it's useful to call it a religion, and to welcome anyone into that religion who believes all of the statements in the creed — or is at least willing to adopt the claims in the creed for the purposes of having a conversation with someone else who is doing the same.
I think the world needs a universal religion — that is, a universal creed. And I think if we have the right one, that it could allow us all to get along much better in this world we all share. And if I’m right about that, I think this text here might be a good start.
But I could be wrong. But either way, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
