So i think i want to start a "religion"

[Hotcod]

As absurd as that may sound I've stumbled on to something that seems to make sense to me. A bit to much sense given it's some what fantastical nature, so i thought it best i bring it out for a discussion over it's facts.

Let's start by saying time travel and it's implications fascinate me. I've spent many a happy hour reading and thinking about the ideas and out comes involved in time travel. Now how does that end up with me wanting to found a so called "religion"? Well, I'll get to that in a second, after I change the some what provocative wording from religion to movement since there is simply no god like figure involved. I only used the word in the tread title to hook you guys in, sorry.

If anything the movement can be multi faith but given it's goals it's likely to upset people who are not agnostic or atheist. Personally I've got a firmly agnostic view of the whole thing with the simple cravat that if there is a god, any one worth believing in won't mind you not doing so if you live a "good life". If there is no god then living a "good life" is the only reasonable logical and moral thing to do anyway. "Good life" is of course subjective but i won't get in to that since it has no deep effect on this post. I just wanted to make where I personally stand on the issues clear before proposing an alternative goal set by which we should live our life's.

So, on to the meat of the matter and the core ideas of what I'm suggesting. It started off as a short story I was thinking about doing a while ago about time loops and other such fun things. The basic idea is simple enough, the human race has found a way to travel in time and has developed almost unlimited power sources to sustain them and there use. As they reach a point that no one dies unless they want to a moral question is brought forward. Do they go back and save people? With effectively unlimited time, power, medical knowledge and the ability to go back in to the past then are you not under a moral obligation to go back and give every person in history the choice to die or live on that those born in to the modern society do?

Now, while you're thinking on that question and no doubt realising where this is going when it comes to the idea of a movement, I'll explain how I see it being done in my story. They find that they can only answer yes and so set about ways to do it with out interfering with the time line. Firstly they look for the moment that a person is dead, then a fraction of a second before that happens you swap the person about to die with an almost perfect atomic construct of them. I'm of course presuming a lot on the abilities but if you have unlimited time and power and the ability to move in time then it's not all that much of a reach to expect to be able to do something along these lines. In essence noting in the time line will be changed with these actions. Now if you presume that you can then save the person from dying they are effectively brought in to an after life that is paradise. You could reunite whole families at once. Of course there is then the thorny subject of what to do with evil people and so on but we'll just put that to one side for the moment since it's something that can be talked about later.

Now in the story of course something goes wrong and I have a lot of fun with it but that's clearly not what I've come to talk about. The idea of the movement jumped in to my head before, it clicked as something that could in effect be turned in to the first scientific "religion". A mix of startrek with a Q based after life and "The Truth" from The Algebraist by Ian M Banks (an almost religious movement based on the simulation argument argument that in the book is seen as the first truly post science religion) no doubt helped put the link in to place for me. I'm reading the book and was just watching that episode but I'm some what surprised that the idea hasn't popped up for me before.

If there is a chance that the human race could achieve the understanding and technology to implement the plan (or something along it's lines) out lined above. Then why not full heartily pledge our selfs to try to bring about that out come. We in effect give our self's a goal of building our own afterlife, it is to an extent a much more reasonable and productive way of spending our time as anything else.

Now since you can't go back in time and simply announce that it's all ok if it works then there is no way of knowing if we made it until after we die. Which requires faith but also provides a balancing factor to what could be an extremist reaction to these ideas. If taken to it's logical ends then the world should appoint one government and every one spends there every waking hour working to bring around the goal. Given that the goal is an ever lasting life in an effective paradise then what does this first one matter?

Given that we can't be sure it would work or can even be done we are left with an interesting way of dealing with life that reflects very firmly my agnostic views from before. In essence if we can do it, wonderful, if we can't then the things we have to do to try and bring about the the goal are all utterly positive and practical. A united human race with a goal that needs vast knowledge and technology? But one that understands it might not work and still wants every one to have a good life? is it just me or isn't that a beautiful idea?

Going back to ian m banks, if you know or look up his culture novels something like the culture it's self is what needs to be aimed for first. Since it's only from a platform like that that the goal can be truly aimed at from. Now ending up with a society like that is a wonderful goal in it's self but not one that people what to strive for. The "hook" in this movement is that there is a chance that you your self can reap the rewards of helping, in your own small way, to bring it about. If you don't, well, again, you've helped make the world a better place for your self and others and have followed a goal that is utterly moral.

There is of course by this point a lot of problems with my ideas, i know. There is also one giant ass elephant in the room. That of a God and if there is a true after life that we are just ignoring. Well, we are back to my agnostic ideas on that point. Any god worth believing in can not object to us creating a "heaven" here in the universe and can not object to you making the world a better place if it doesn't work.

So, what do you guys honestly think of the basic idea? i'm not really proposing to start a movement based on these ideas but for me it's a really very interesting thing to think about... just let me try and sum it up

A movement who's goal it is to bring human society and understanding to the point that we can take people away at the point of death and introduce them to an effective paradise. A faith in a scientific afterlife that at worst promotes the betterment of our world through trying to archive useful and practical goals that are needed to set up the possibility of that afterlife.

Most of all, for me personally, it removes the need for a guiding parent figure. Religion has always felt to me like a "parent" but after a point you are expected to stand on your own two feet and get on with things your self. To me a movement along the lines of the one outlined above is exactly that. If the parent is there to catch us when we fall then that's amazing but we shouldn't still be counting on.

In other words i'm talking about us taking the main thing religion offers us, meaning and ever lasting life, and aiming to provide it for us our self's. When we do that everything changes and for me it only looks to be for the better.

Anyway it's late and this is rambling but the more i've talked about it the more i've become struck by it. There likely huge gaping holes i've not seen in the ideas i've had and the chances of time travel working and us being able to do something on such a massive scale are nearly no existent... but it's still for me preferable to try for something than just hope.

[carnage11]

Wowzers....that's a post that's just too long for me to read right now in my inebrieated state. I will however read this tomorrow.

[Johan]

I only used the word in the tread title to hook you guys in, sorry.

False advertising. NOW you've got a religion.

[Laughing Penguin]

Firstly they look for the moment that a person is dead, then a fraction of a second before that happens you swap the person about to die with an almost perfect atomic construct of them. I'm of course presuming a lot on the abilities but if you have unlimited time and power and the ability to move in time then it's not all that much of a reach to expect to be able to do something along these lines. In essence noting in the time line will be changed with these actions.

Have you ever read the novel (or seen the fairly crappy film adaptation of) Millenium? It's about humanity in the future going back in time to 'rescue' people who are about to die (usually in larger disasters such as plane crashes), replacing them with copies so it doesn't interfere with the timeline, and bringing the people back to the future time. Their reasons were different than the ones you stated, but otherwise that story came to mind immediately as I skimmed your post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_(novel)

The book was pretty good, as memory serves, but the movie that came out later was pretty awful.

[Hotcod]

No i've not read it, should have said in my post that it wouldn't surprise me if something along these lines has been used before in scifi, since going back and saving people from death is a mainstay of time travel stories. I'll have to try and pick up that novel at some point, would be interesting to see where the basic mechanics of the idea has been taken by some one else.

Originally Posted by Johan

False advertising. NOW you've got a religion.

why thank you but really it's hard to know what to call it, it's about faith and belief but in our self's and an afterlife we create so there are certainty religious aspects to it. Given that crap that makes far less sense like scientology (which does not have worship) can be seen as a religion i have no idea why i couldn't make the same claim. But other than tax benefits there's not much point in doing so since one of the corner stones to the whole thing is being a "post religious faith" to use some poncey language. It's also true that any one willing to think that there religious god would not object to the basic ideas can embrace it as fully as any one who doesn't have any other faiths can.

But ya, how often do you get to start a thread with a title "i want to start my own religion" and be some what truthful about it? hehe

edit:

Talking of scientology i just want to say if something THAT dumb can be taken up as a modern faith by people i have no idea why this couldn't be.

[Chris_D]

The main thing that grabbed me about your post was that implementing the way of rescuing someone and bringing them to a future utopia would be an actual implementation of a heaven (as described in some religions). Of course, minus the judgement part, but maybe you have some ideas about that?

[hunterx280]

Originally Posted by Laughing Penguin

Have you ever read the novel (or seen the fairly crappy film adaptation of) Millenium? It's about humanity in the future going back in time to 'rescue' people who are about to die (usually in larger disasters such as plane crashes), replacing them with copies so it doesn't interfere with the timeline, and bringing the people back to the future time. Their reasons were different than the ones you stated, but otherwise that story came to mind immediately as I skimmed your post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_(novel)

The book was pretty good, as memory serves, but the movie that came out later was pretty awful.

I was thinking of Chrono Trigger but same idea.

[Hotcod]

Originally Posted by Chris_D

The main thing that grabbed me about your post was that implementing the way of rescuing someone and bringing them to a future utopia would be an actual implementation of a heaven (as described in some religions). Of course, minus the judgement part, but maybe you have some ideas about that?

What religions are you talking about? i'd like to read up on them. The question over the judgement of people is a difficult one. There's to much chance of being self serving or imposing a given moral view on other people but what do you do? Personally i think by the time we'd get to the point as a race that we could do something along these lines we'll be in a far better place to talk about the system and maybe even have a way of giving people true rehabilitation. It's a much to complex question to be dealt with until we have to practically deal with it.

In the end I think the basic idea would be to put it in to the hands of the people best placed to do it, which is us in the future. If you live a "good life" then the likelyhood is (if we can do it) we'll come pick you up.

The more i've been thinking about this the more i like it. But liking it means i have to start contomplating starting some sort of group around it. I think the main problem with that is that i'm not a grate intellectual or scientist or any of the number of other things I could wish to be. This needs some heavy thinking done by people better than me to see if it's at all viable.

In the end if it's either believing in a god that may or may no exist, thinking "meh doesn't matter either way" or thinking that time travel may not be imposable and that humans working together could create there own after life... well i know what i'd rather take, even more so when the last one gives you something you can truly labour for that even if it doesn't work out helps make the world a better place.

edit:

By viable i mean there could be maybe a tiny chance that it could work out kinda if we are lucky... so long as there is a slim chance it can work then makes sense, the second it's diffidently proven that time travel can't work then the whole thing falls apart.

But ya i feel really rather silly for even thinking about this in a serious way but i can't help my self