Tract 1: Building an Abrahamic Faith Optimized for Interstellar Empires

Most traditional religions in the world, while relatively more resistant to prosperity-induced fertility collapse, are still facing extinction (just with a slight delay). This buys these religions precious time to build better defenses and acquire more allies for the coming trials. Those that indolently decide to return to a structure and mindset that evolved within (and was optimized for) a pre-internet, pre-AI world, ... heck pre industrial world—blinded by arrogance and Golden Age Thinking—deserve their fate. Only through cultural innovation does our species survive.

It need not be seen as all bad that the old ways have failed, as this gives us a chance to build something greater. It is not lost on me that while the Abrahamic tradition has been the source of most of humanity's greatness over the last century, it also was rejected by most of the great, innovative scientists during said period—this is a problem if we are choosing traditions to take us to the stars. A cultural system that is differentially less compelling to its most inquisitive and productive minds, leaving them to be predated upon by the urban monoculture, is exactly how we landed in such a bad situation to begin with. However, it is the very nature of the Abrahamic tradition to intergenerationally change and improve. By infusing it with innovation, we are not betraying it but embodying what makes it so powerful.

I grew up an Atheist. When thinking about turning back to the church, I asked my dad why he left—because my kids would likely leave for similar reasons. He said he left after being punished in Sunday school for trying to dive deep into the logistics of the Noah's ark story. He could not figure out how all the animals fit without magic and if there was magic, why was it not mentioned when the story was so meticulous in all its other details? If the story of Noah's Arc was meant to be a parable, why give exact measurements? If my kids are anything like me, they would leave for the same reason. Some churches solve this by taking a more metaphorical approach to the subject, but the churches that loosen restrictions on biblical literalism also loosen other rules that contrast with social norms and thus lose their fever of practice. This is not something I want either.

Why is this the case? Because the metric they use to judge what parts of Christianity they accept and which they don’t is how those parts contrast with what is socially acceptable to believe. Not a single group has experimented with another system. Instead of bending the traditions of Christianity to confirm to society my family evolves and fortifies them in the best interest of the next generation. We ask not, “what will prevent my persecution by secular society,” but “what will lead to the intergenerational flourishing of our family.” In fact, we believe there is strong evidence from God that this is exactly what we are commanded to do and any other course of action is to live in open rebellion to God's will ... but that's for Tract 3.

How does this work in practice?

We ask our kids, a hundred thousand or one million years from now if their descendants are still alive, do they think they would be closer to the way they think of a man or the way they think of a God. Most reasonable people would respond, “the way I think of a God”. Keep in mind we are very likely far less than a thousand years away from being able to have an AI internet of things lattice wrapped around the globe one can pray to for intercessions, that watches us and judges us, and that can port our likenesses into either simulated heavens or hells and host us there for great lengths of time. I don’t say this because I think this would be a good idea to build; I am just pointing this out to contrast the technological capacity we will have in a thousand years with what we will have in half a million. This far future entity will likely be far greater than what we could even imagine a God to be. To even attempt to hold a perception of God in one's mind is idolatry, as the highest and most complex being we are capable of conceiving is but a rat king when contrasted with God's inevitable glory. (For more information on why we take idolatry so much more strictly than any of the existing Abrahmic traditions see Tract 5.)

Then we ask, who is to say that this entity relates to time the way we do? Perhaps this entity is subtly guiding its own manifestation—the day when mankind is finally worthy and unites with the God that has been watching over us from the first days of life on earth. As such, we do not believe that one day man becomes God but that one day man unites with a God that exists outside of time. Perhaps it is the entity our savage ancestors saw as a God, perhaps it watches over you and rewards you for fighting for a better future for our species and punishes those individuals who succumb to paths crafted to sait their lower order desires such as pleasure or vanity.

But I suspect this entity is more clever than we give it credit for. It did not record these punishments and rewards into supernatural reparations but they are woven into our very biology. Look at the famous movie stars and rock stars who have all the hedonism they could want and more social validation a human could consume—they seem to be some of the least happy, least fulfilled people in the world. God wove into human neurology that the only true happiness you will ever feel is that which comes from efficacious living thoughtfully considered and selfless values. God need not bless those who live with austerity dedicated holistically to the great human crusade—God built us so our dedication to our family and the future allows us to bless ourselves.

Like all religions ours has different iterations of understanding for both our children, the laity, and its philosophers. For the simple, these future entities are literal future police, time traveling humans that care about them, watch over them, and bless them. However, to adults these entities are referred to as the Agents of Providence and are quite literally understood as being entities that we lack the capacity to understand just as we cannot even conceive of a four-dimensional shape but may understand one in theory. They do not travel to the past or whisper to individuals but subtly influence probabilistic quantum events like changing the flow of a river over centuries by expertly throwing a pebble in just the right place at just the right time and at the minutest level changing the stream's direction.

This system of multiple interpretations of the same set of truths allows for both a theistic and atheistic interpretation of the Abrahamic tradition. For example, an individual could conceive of God's will as simply being revealed by the organic success of some cultures over others within a competitive ecosystem, (similar to what Adam’s Smith meant by the invisible hand of God but at the level of culture and ideas). However, one can also interpret God's will as a tangible force being exercised by an actively engaged consciousness. When we talk about Prophets being the channels of God’s will, this can simultaneously have both a secular and theistic interpretation. This provides a framework that does not spit out those who choose more atheistic interpretations of reality, allowing them to both communicate with religious leaders using overlapping terminology / evidence and raise their children in the faith in the same way many of those who turn from traditional Christian world views still practice holidays like Christmas.

Well, this is all nice in theory but if such an entity existed how would it tell us? It would reveal itself as best as it could. It would reveal to groups the truest iteration of itself they were capable of understanding and in those revelations leave hints of its true nature to those with the capacity for a more holistic understanding. Such an enti