Democratic development, spirituality and religion

The underlying democratic intention behind democratic development can also be applied to the realms of spirituality and religion.

A religion that was consistent with this intention would share its commitment to personal and community empowerment, a commitment to developing awareness and an interest in working with the natural flows and rhythms of the universe, a reliance on influence and persuasion rather than coercion and violence, a trust in informed individual choices and preferences, a faith in our ability to create heaven on earth together (albeit slowly and with difficulty), and a recognition of the divinity within all of us. It would cultivate humility in the face of all that we don't know and the vastness of the universe, but also a sense of awe and responsibility that comes from recoginizing how much power we have individually and collectively to shape our world and our future.

As we learn more about the extent of emergent phenomena and emergent processes at work in the universe, we can begin to get a glimpse that counteracting the entropy and slow falling apart of all things, there is a powerful organizing force that naturally brings things together into more and more complex forms of organization over time. Robert Wright makes an eloquent case for the pervasiveness of this force in his book Non-zero. A flock of birds in flight is self-organizing: there is no "master bird" telling the other birds what to do: their flight path emerges from a few simple rules being followed by each bird. People have already modeled these rules and behavior on computers beautifully. Likewise, could it be that there was no creator god who created the world in total in all its detail, but instead this omnipresent organizing force has lead to the amazing complexity and beauty we find the world slowly over time? I believe so. As for how this organzing force came to be, that is certainly an unanswered question like where gravity comes from from. Some would say God, and I wouldn't disagree. But regardless of where it comes from, the fact is that it is exists and we need to understand and work with this force rather than against it. To the extent to which this force is bottom up and self-organizing rather than top down and controlling, it is consistent with a democratic intention. In fact, I might go so far as to say that a democratic intention is built into the fabric and rules of the universe. Just as Einstein's relatively allowed us to understand more and do more in our universe, and I would argue has even effected our cultures and ways of viewing the world, I believe what we are learning about emergence will have a similarly profound, or perhaps more profound impact on us.

I'm not going to single out spiritual practices or religions as having a democratic intention at their core, but I encourage you to think about how a democratic intention is or is not manifested in the religions you are familiar with, how a stronger democratic intention might change those religions, and whether that is a good idea. Personally, I believe the world is slowly moving away from a hierarchical model in human endeavors to a non-hierarchical peer model. Facilitated by our communications technologies and the number of people on the planet (and fewer places to hide), this is an inevitable transition. Religions can help or hurt this process. I believe those that help will hold out a belief in our creative power to make the world better than we can even imagine now, a willingness to reflect and rethink its dogmas, and would be pragmatic and evolutionary in its rules, asking, "What works for us [all humanity]? How do we move closer to manifesting heaven on earth?" They will understand how authority and tradition can be abused and how they may need to change to account for advances in our undertstanding of the universe.