“Philosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world—the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross” 

                                                                      --Alfred North Whitehead

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A pie chart will demonstrate that most of the people in the world "belong" to some religion.    Most of those religions are no good, and that includes atheism.  The big 17 percent of "unaffiliated" is mostly in China, where the state religion is atheism.  Before Mao (50 million mass murdered) the pie chart would have shown the "unaffiliated" as nearly non existent.    China was largely Buddhist, so counting Hinduism and Buddhism as one faith, the Karmic faiths exceeded even Christianity.  

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Now, most of the world's people are "affiliated" because they are born into it, like all other believers, not because they were persuaded by observation and reason.  Nevertheless, all these adherents have become ready  believers, if "believe" means to "accept as a working theory."   Religion is a default for most people.  

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Imperial Religions

And those numbers reflect not what is most persuasive but what is (or has been) most aggressive.  Those are faiths that most effectively expanded by conquest and huge families.  To maintain forced breeding a society has to oppress women.   To keep a faith strong, apostasy must be strongly discouraged.  For most of history, if you were born a Christian you were property of Christendom and had no choice in the matter.    As I understand it that sort of thing still pertains in theory for Roman Catholics and in practice among Muslims.    They believe they have the only way to God and they make sure of it by blocking the path.  Hell is separation from God and they provide it.  The excuse is that if everyone agreed it would be great.  

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The powerful religions have succeeded by going over to the dark side.   By trading all ideals for success.  They are nothing but an empty container, convinced that the end justifies the means because the contents are so great, when the contents were long ago sacrificed to the expansion project.   It was Christendom and Islam that enslaved the Africans and it was Christendom that practiced ethnic cleansing on the indigenous Americans.  

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Nevertheless, this doesn't mean there's anything wrong with belief in God.  That's like saying food is bad because it rots.  It rots because it's nutritious.  Bacteria know what's good.  These imperial faiths use God because they know the power of people's hunger for religion.  That's a testament not to those faiths but to the worthiness of what they have corrupted.  

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The karmic faiths are little better, though the concept of Brahman (abandoned) seemed to be along the right lines.  Caste is a feature of them because they call for belief in reincarnation:  they blame people for their lot in life (the common western wisdom that your lot is luck but you can improve on it seems to really be the right idea).  If  you are poor  you must have been a sinner in a past life.  Accept  your fate and perhaps you will be rewarded next time.  Not a liberal position, but it does lead to some people having lots of liberty, and as with our rosy view of the middle ages, from a distance we see the leisure class as characteristic.    And of course India and China both have huge populations because of the feminism.   Not to mention the notion that (1) everything is mental, and (2) obliterating your mind is a good thing.  The assumed "ought" is very reminiscent of gnosticism, but less honest.  "We are going to judge, then deny that we're doing it because you just don't understand it until you accept the mysterious and become God by becoming nothing."   Diminishing the self does not enlarge it.      The thing to do with the self is to include more in it, not less.

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These faiths have a lot worth stealing, though it requires modification.  Confession is less poisonous if it's general purpose and done in a group, for example.  But the dead and dying faiths may have much to teach--they are just forlorn because they were never aggressive enough.  What can we learn from UUism, Ptah, Stoa, and Mozi?  

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UUism
To its credit UUism does seem to get the value of enlarging the self to include more rather than less.  The conceptual tent is so big it has no meaning.  There is no common purpose to worship.  People get their real religion in subgroups.  It's antifoundationalism in practice.  Smaller circles.  Activism is supposed to replace shared faith.  If it's a substitute like that then it's activism for the sake of activism, not from anything sincere.  In practice, EVERYTHING IS TOP PRIORITY BECAUSE THERE ARE NO QUANTITIES ONLY CATEGORICALS.  THE CURRENT VIRTUE SIGNALLING FAD MUST BE SUPPORTED WHOLEHEARTEDLY OR YOU ARE EVIL.  Peer pressure can  cultivate character, but character does not consist of the habit of performative submission to peer pressure.   If I wanted that I could be a Christian.  Maybe that's the point.  In fact UUism is reconstructing fundamentalism without all the God stuff.    The governance is ultimately ruled by special interest groups that can play the system, especially the "convention of the well funded" that is General Assembly.  It's the only game in town if you don't accept a major traditional religion or irreligion.  I want to fix that "only game in town" situation--maybe as a "subgroup" initially.  

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Ptah

The God worshipped by the great monotheisms is an "appropriation" of the ancient Egyptian god "Ptah."    A god who creates the other gods, who creates the world by speaking.   But what if Ptah worship had prevailed rather than other faiths seemingly inspired by it?   Where would we be now?   Still attached to the notion of an anthropocentric God?  By the same token, maybe we should graduate from those faiths, with all their baggage.

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Stoa

Stoicism started as a "moderate" version of the "cynicism" of Diogenes.  Diogenes was kind of like some of the  ancient Taoists who thought it foolish to believe effort was required to produce food and clothing, because after all "nature" was generous when and where they were living at the time: living play anarchism in the privilege of a tended garden and advising the world to follow, to live like someone in a tended garden.  Let them eat cake.  He was of a privileged class in a uniquely forgiving society.  Had he practiced his ways in, say Mongolia or Germany at the time, how might he have done?  Nevertheless, crops grow in dirt and Stoicism had some real insights.  It was largely incorporated into Christianity and it's enjoying a slight revival as a self help philosophy.  Study it.  It may not be all you think it is.  I have examined it and rejected it, with respect.   It's better to start from scratch.   A major problem is the notion that your own feelings are what matters most.  Feel free by not caring what others think or even what the world does to you.  This lets you adapt to reality yet remain spiritually detached from it, but it is still prioritizing the subjective.  Sure, there are abstract ideals tacked on, but people aren't motivated by abstractions, they're motivated by self interest.  Moral improvement involves expanding the self concept.  Key to doing great things is to get people to accept an expanded definition of self.   This is the opposite of the antifoundationalist project of increasing fragmentation.  

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Mozi

Then there's Mozi.  Mohism is the direct inspiration for  much of Theoconsequentialism.    It's not a slavish copy, but it's uncanny close.  The ethnos specific elements and sexism have to go.  The democratic leanings need playing up.  Abstract its essence and apply to the more general context.  

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Mohism did prevail despite losing.  Its ideas came to permeate not just China but the world.  Don't criticize unless you have a better idea.  You can't fight fire with fire.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  Many hands make light work.  

 

Religious thought usually comes from people of privilege who have been exiled but not killed.  Out of favor nobles free from the need to work, but denied power lounge about mindlessly, eschewing ambition, and create philosophies extolling lounging about mindlessly and eschewing ambition.  Not where Mohism came from.  

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