An idea for a new religion
Judaism is the religion of the Chosen People, chosen to be the mediators and mercenaries between power and servitude, Christianity on the other hand is the religion of the meek.
If you don't want to be a master over others, or a slave to your master, the following suggestion for a religion may suit you.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Jefferson Bible omits the Old Testament, for a new nation that seeks equal justice the religion of the Chosen People is contradictory.
In order to have a belief that matches our Western values of equality and justice, as well as to make each of us closer to God, I suggest even further simplification, with only two keys, or principals, and a trinity.
The First Key, Free Will
“In nature there is nothing contingent, but all things have been determined from the necessity of the divine nature to exist and produce an effect in a certain way.” Baruch Spinoza
The first key to escaping our absurd existence, is to change our faulty concept of free will. I will not explain why a reasonable person should see reality as deterministic, but if you think you have free will, you can study the neurology and physics which has proven the deterministic nature of reality. If we accept that all actions are causal and deterministic, we can not blame others for their transgressions, and therefore, if we are reasonable, we have no choice but to forgive others when they harm us. This will put an end to sin. and convert the confessional into therapy.
Instead of a sense of vengeance against others who harm us, we can study the causal factors that produced the transgression, then engineer circumstances so that unfortunate acts will not recur, over and over again.
If reality is deterministic can we change what tomorrow will bring?
I think changes in awareness, in the fundamental way we see reality, will change how we attend to future events.
With a spiritual movement that has two radical and fundamental changes to our current Christian belief, and then through an Ekklesia which is a Direct Democracy, society would fundamentally change. This is an economic and political solution that requires a religion which is not based on faith, but on truth.
Repairing the human condition can be done through the ability to forgive, by converting the idea of an "eye for an eye" to one of engineering solutions. If we believe that existence is deterministic, then there is no sin, and we no longer need a priest to forgive our transgressions. The solution for what we had called sinful and evil is to fix the problem, and we are certainly clever enough to do that.
If we see the Soul as our means to comprehend God's intentions, allowing us to align ourselves with God, then consider the Platonic-Christian perspective of a God beyond human understanding, where intelligence is a divine emanation, representing the truth of goodness and the sole path to God. Our capacity to reason is viewed as the means by which we uncover truth, with the development of our Soul contingent on this quest for truth. Through our Soul and the pursuit of truth, we achieve freedom. According to this view, the ideal community described by Christ depends on our ability to nurture our Souls and to know and comprehend God, which the Platonists refer to as intelligence. Religion, in this context, becomes a personal quest to transcend worldly desires, aiming for cognitive and reasoned existence. A society, democracy, or economy cannot be humane or harmonious when its members are seen as mere instinct-driven beings, lacking in soul and engaging in base sexual competition.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body is done with sin. 2 As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. 1 Peter 4
The Second Key, Sexual Competition.
The second key to improving the human condition lies in acknowledging the role of sexual competition in our evolution, and as the nature of our enslavement. As animals, our progress is shaped by the need to compete for reproductive success, driving us to survive and adapt. This struggle for sexual dominance not only motivates our evolution but also shapes the fabric of civilization. Language is one such product of this evolutionary process, with civilizations developing language first, leading to the emergence of more complex concepts, with new words created for them. These concepts are intricately linked to the evolution of language, with words like "computer" only emerging once a civilization has advanced enough to create such technology. Our understanding of existence and reality is deeply intertwined with language, which itself is rooted in the dynamics of sexual competition.
A deterministic reality that is driven by sexual competition clearly points to a history of enslavement to our desire and circumstance. Life is a deterministic chain of events that enslaves us, this must be recognized before we can seek freedom. Human biology will not change, we will remain sexually motivated, what can change is an awareness of the fact, and with that a recognition of the absurdity. This awareness will force us to see love as an "infinite pity" instead of the sexual motivation it is. This will give us a deep concern for the tragic plight of the other, and the impulse to engineer methods to prevent future tragedy.
In order to build a society that is functional, we first need individuals who understand these two key principles, that reality is deterministic, and is driven by sexual motivation. Then with individuals who seek the truth, and are reasonable, it would then be possible to build a political/economic framework that would produce a democracy that is direct and transparent. To achieve this change, we need a religion that incorporates these two principals, and preaches a belief and law based on them.