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Theoconsequentialist Doctrine

Metaphysics

Because the alternatives are nonexistence and arbitrary limitation, existence is infinite.  Its essence is that what can be must be.  Every manifestation implies new possibility, which must manifest, so creation is continuous, and we experience this as time.  Orderly progressions are created in ever increasingly greater abundance than random chaos, because order implies infinitely from a finite definition.  We see such orderly progressions as time space continua in which physical forces follow predictable laws.  But because existence is infinite and constantly growing, identical copies of each of us exist simultaneously in every environment which could have possibly produced us.  We don't know exactly which world each of our selves is in, though probabilities reflect relative abundances among the possibilities.   Each of the worlds we exist in is constantly replicated many times over as new creation, slight variations on the old creation extending into new dimensions, so probabilities constantly change as order increases.  We exist in many time space continua at once, each of which is one kind of time that is fixed, but because the set of such universes is growing there is a real and living type of time that is not fixed. 

 

Theism

The tendency of Existence to produce order at a greater rate than chaos means that the implications of every possibility affect the implications of every other possibility.  Everything is connected through what can only be characterized as the intelligent desire of the multiverse to grow more orderly and complex and abundant.  The impact of this creative will is perceivable in what appear to be probability distortions in the world we encounter.  Throughout history, people have observed these probability distortions and conceptualized entities called God. 

 

Theology

In speaking of God or gods, religions are all talking about the same thing, but have different understandings of It.  Characteristics traditionally attributed to God are qualified truths.  God is all powerful, in that God creates all that can be as soon as it can be, so this is not just potential power but manifest power.  Yet God does not have the power to self-contradict.  God cannot refrain from creation, but that is true only because God, being both emergent from and identical with the primal infinitude of reality and the will to existence, naturally chooses not to refrain from creation.  Everything must be created, without reservation.  This limitation means that God, despite having infinite power, must use that power efficiently because efficiency maximizes creation.  This is important to understanding God’s traditional benevolence.  God values purposeful intelligence because it transforms minor probability distortions into much greater works in the world.  God likes people, generally, because on the whole we tend to respond to God's nudging by doing things effectively.  Use of us is efficient, and thus creates more creation.  But this caring for people generally is not infinite love for each individual.  Such a thing is impossible because people can be detrimental to each other and to God's plans for the future.  So, we see evil existing, despite an intelligent all powerful and humanity favoring creator, because due to the necessity of infinity the world perforce had to be created with initial imperfections which we exist to help with correcting.  The reason we don't find ourselves surrounded by perfection is because we exist in time, serving as part of how God makes the world better.

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Religion

The reason we don't find ourselves surrounded by perfection is because we exist in time, serving as part of how God makes the world better.  God constantly nudges history to promote effective civilization and the thriving of intelligent life.  Those who are more inclined to be useful to that effort are more likely to be given the power to do their good works, while those less inclined to productivity are more likely to be steered away from the power to do harm.  But there are no guarantees, as we manifestly see.  Life is full of uncertainty because the world is imperfect, so we can't be sure of outcomes, but given that we are aware of that uncertainty it is logical that we choose the path of serving God's will because that gives us better odds, among all the unknowns. 

 

Faith

If you intend to be pro-social you will have superior good fortune, on average, but there are no guarantees.  And to clarify, a couple of points need to be made: (1) better luck means you are more likely to be given the power to do good deeds, not that you will be given greater joy (2) this favor appears only in response to potential for the future, not in gratitude or recrimination for anything in the past.  God wants the devoted to be strong, not necessarily happy.  And God doesn't really care about justice, just results.  Happiness can increase effectiveness, and justice can motivate behavior, but they are only instrumental values, not primary ones.  Accepting this increases your value to God.  Ultimately, you may arrive at the maturity to agree that it really is God that matters, not what you can get from God.

 

The Purpose of Sapients

From the pattern of history, God seems to want humans to build thriving civilization, develop scientific understanding and technological prowess, and grow our power as a species.  We can extrapolate from this, along with our understanding of God's essence and character, to conclude that God wants us to colonize and transform the entire universe.  God's overall plan is too much to consider in daily life, but we can see how our own lives may fit into the plan.  As a rule of thumb, getting along and being productive and decent human beings, as promoted throughout many effective cultures, tends to support God's plan for the universe, so promoting and exemplifying such behavior tends to be a wise role to play.

 

Social Perspective

Older religions (including gnostic atheism) use their influence to advantage their adherents and disadvantage the adherents of other religions.  This disadvantages many worthy people who are rejecting theological conformity rather than virtue, partly by leading them to reduced virtue and its disadvantaging consequences (often on the basis that since this world only has secondary importance, virtue here has no value of its own, it only serves as evidence of orthodoxy and spiritual purity--which do not reliably serve the claimed purpose).  Ignorance breeds ignorance in this environment so, despite exhortations to benevolence, older religions actually tend to limit improvement beyond the level of the environment which produced them.  We suspect that other religions, in their elevation of doctrine promotion over the real world, actively produce bad conditions in order to take advantage of them, and we reject and condemn this practice. 

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Theological Variance

We reject the proposition that the phenomena that have led most of the people in the world to hold religious beliefs are just cognitive distortions.  There's something there, but it is indeed subtle.

 

We reject doctrines that distort justice. These include the ideas of original sin, submission to abuse (turning the other cheek and loving your enemy), substitutional atonement, moral scores inherited from past lives or ancestors, and disproportionate afterlife consequences (especially eternal ones).  Forgiving evil encourages it.  Impacts matter, not internal purity or lip service to orthodoxy.

 

We reject the idea that God has delivered a final message through any human being.  God can speak directly any way God wants, and since the world is never finished God's word to us is never complete.  We speak to God through our actions and we perceive God through the world we encounter. Often this is essentially a things-to-do list.  

 

We reject the value of prayer separate from ordinary life.  God is all-knowing, so we can tell God nothing.  God is as powerful and righteous as it is possible to be, so we don't selfishly ask God to change things on our account.  Regarding God, we are here to serve, not to be served.    

 

Organization

Adherents to this doctrine, who shall be termed “Theoconsequentialists,” will naturally organize together to promote widespread understanding of our doctrine, to promote the kinds of real-world results and behaviors our doctrine calls for, and to strengthen ourselves and our organizations.  By helping those who truly believe rightly, we serve God. 

 

Morality

We defer to the collective will regarding what is good for the collective.  We would teach devotion to the collective benefit, with the larger and higher level of scale taking priority.

We are most highly devoted to good consequences for the world under the supervision of God, but we know God largely through the shared, cumulative perception of sapient persons. 

 

Application of this Doctrine

Theoconsequentialist organizations justify all decisions based on this doctrine. 

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