False Secularism — From “”The End of Virtue”
The world that is unfolding should be secular — that is to say
it should be one,
it should be unified and
it should be good.
I think most would agree with these objectives. But most would wonder how we can have such a world when religious wars are on the stage, when huge disunities exist and when large swathes of harm can still ravage whole populations.
The problem with the notion of a secular, unified and good world is that it is a impossible.
The real world runs on something we generally ignore. It is called forgiveness. A synonym for forgiveness is cutting slack. When the world is tight as a drum, we need to make a few turns and loosen things up. Without a spirit of forgiveness the world cannot and will not survive.
This may be why folk within the precincts of religion are nervous. The institutions may be imperfect, but without them where would we be? How can we make forgiveness normal in a world that is more and more secular?
The proposal of this text is simple and potentially revolutionary. We teach reciprocal forgiveness not as religion but as secular wisdom, necessary to survival. We insist that the daily practice of meditative conversing with oneself, while a free choice that is optional, is necessary to achieve goodness on the planet.
The simple way to put this is to say that for secularism not to be false, idolatrous and evil, it must achieve more than religious institutions have been able to achieve in two thousand years.
In other words, the Triadic Philosophy that I have developed is not some esoteric backwater. It is the basis for a universal movement that must occur that will move us past the conflict between religion and atheism to a world where
Democracy is accepted as the basis for local governance everywhere.
Nonviolence is accepted as the basis for all activity among people.
Basic income is a universal policy in a world that is automated where creativity and work are choices and sustenance to all is guaranteed.
and where
The values of tolerance helpfulness and democracy are taught as the basis of action and non-idolatry is seen as the underlying value and the basis of scientific method.
The Forgiveness Protocol
The need for a daily meditative period should be accepted as a necessity in the secular society of the future.
The act of seeking and receiving forgiveness is achieved by the simple recitation of these or similar statements:
Forgive the wrongs that we have done
As we forgive those who do wrong
The secularism we need for the future is Triadic Secularism.
Here is the 20th Aphorism from the seminal work Triadic Philosophy 100 Aphorisms:
Let me share what I do and suggest what is “required” and what is optional. I divide my half hour walk (on a treadmill or outside depending) into six segments averaging five minutes each. My text is my version of the Lord’s Prayer:
Abba whose home in heaven is
Hallowed and holy is your name
Let your realm come your will be done
Till earth and heaven are the same
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive the wrongs that we have done
As we forgive those who do wrong
Lead us not into temptation
Deliver us from evil Lord
And guide us safely to your shore
Yours is the power to heal and mend
Yours is the glory evermore
I may sing to myself very slowly or speak to myself. I alternate these segments with three other segments which I will explain. I recommend that every practitioner have a text such as this. It may be a prayer or a sacred text or it may be something entirely different. It only needs to have meaning. With this caveat: Within the words I have written above there is an utterly necessary act which is at the very center of Triadic Philosophy. It is the act of forgiving all. And the act of seeking forgiveness for all the wrongs that you have done. Triadic Philosophy acknowledges the fallibility and the downright evil in the world and the need to confront it. And it is impossible to advance as a human being without being able to forgive and without seeking forgiveness.
The other three segments of my daily half hour are generally given over to what Charles Sanders Peirce called musement. They are meditative periods where the focus is on whatever I choose. Most often it is whatever I am most concerned about. And I can tell you that there is no greater proof of the value of this than the momentous decisions that can emerge. These daily half hours are an action engine.
After reading this you may conclude that I am a religionist in sheep or wolf’s clothing, but you would misunderstand. I have a soft spot for all who give their time and love to religious activities, but my sights are set on the secular world, the oukumene, the whole inhabited earth. We cannot begin to think about a viable future until we center it on the individual and her or his spiritual reality. The individual is porous and eventually part of a community which is greater for being such. But the individual is also the trustee of the most precious gift of life — free choice. Without a choosing individual nothing else matters.
We need a triadic world where there is always a third option, where the tolerance needed for negotiation is alive, where good and evil are understood to exist but also to be within our control.
We are on the track to building such a world, largely via social media and by the demonstrations that social media give birth to.
We will call this emerging world secular, but it will be run by an engine called the spirit of humankind and that engine will be run by forgiveness. Then we will have the true secularism that was intended all along.
