What would a new totalizing religion look like?

[Meursault]

By "totalizing religion" I mean a faith which has elevated itself by force or salesmanship to a level of homogeneity within a culture - Atenism in Akhenaten's Egypt, or Christianity from roughly the ninth to the eighteenth centuries in Europe. Explicit metaphysically pluralistic religions (like Roman polytheism, which openly assimilated other pantheons without resorting to tricks like sainthood substitution) do not count.

I think it would have to be anti-moralistic - not merely libertarian on issues of values, but explicitly hostile to the concept of transcendental morality. It would also probably do to adopt the language of computers into its discourse; the individual's identity could be thought of as a solid state, for example. And it would probably need to explicitly appeal to liberal democracy in its imagery: the idea of a "King of Kings" becomes more absurd the further we develop from feudalism.

If Christianity is Piscean, the water religion, this new faith must be Aquarian - of the (prince of) air.

[Cassius]

I imagine it would be some kind of transhumanist bullsh**t. However, I'll leave the finer points of discussion to those with more knowledge and imagination than myself.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

I imagine it would be some kind of transhumanist bullsh**t.

Yeah, I think this is the direction that the features Einzige specifies would tend to lead in. I'd be open to being pleasantly surprised, but it would be just that, a surprise.

[Meursault]

I believe it could be amenable to some kinds of transhumanism while being hostile to others. If it retains the Platonic/Abrahamic preference for 'the spirit' to the flesh, it may encourage consciousness uploading while opposing physical augmentation.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

I believe it could be amenable to some kinds of transhumanism while being hostile to others. If it retains the Platonic/Abrahamic preference for 'the spirit' to the flesh, it may encourage consciousness uploading while opposing physical augmentation.

If. I actually tend to think that's sort of unlikely in the situation that you're describing. A religion that retained that preference strikes me as likeliest to attempt to cast itself as some sort of revitalization of an existing faith or worldview.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I believe it could be amenable to some kinds of transhumanism while being hostile to others. If it retains the Platonic/Abrahamic preference for 'the spirit' to the flesh, it may encourage consciousness uploading while opposing physical augmentation.

If. I actually tend to think that's sort of unlikely in the situation that you're describing. A religion that retained that preference strikes me as likeliest to attempt to cast itself as some sort of revitalization of an existing faith or worldview.

Quite a few faiths, of which Christianity is a prime example, began as a revitalization of an existing faith and separated only because the original faith group rejected the attempted revitalization.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

I believe it could be amenable to some kinds of transhumanism while being hostile to others. If it retains the Platonic/Abrahamic preference for 'the spirit' to the flesh, it may encourage consciousness uploading while opposing physical augmentation.

If. I actually tend to think that's sort of unlikely in the situation that you're describing. A religion that retained that preference strikes me as likeliest to attempt to cast itself as some sort of revitalization of an existing faith or worldview.

Quite a few faiths, of which Christianity is a prime example, began as a revitalization of an existing faith and separated only because the original faith group rejected the attempted revitalization.

I think I may be interpreting what Einzige means by 'new' excessively strictly.

[Meursault]

Christian Science is 'new' and the Emerging Church isn't, though the former predates the latter by a century.

[CatoMinor]

I think an argument could be made for Statism.