Secular

When used in this wiki, secular refers specifically to anything that is not supernatural in origins.

"If you have religious faith, very good, you can add on secular ethics, then religious belief, add on it, very good. But even those people who have no interest about religion, okay, it's not religion, but you can train through education." -Dalai Lama

See Secularism and Secular Humanism

Making the Secular Sacred

Anything that is outside the domain of religion, the spiritual, and the supernatural, is secular.

Objects in the universe are often divided between the secular and the sacred.

metaculture attempts to find secular analogs for all things sacred, so that belief in scriptural literalism can be separated from belief in the transcendent wonder of the universe.

The Wonder Paradox by Jennifer Michael Hecht uses poetry as the basis for creating a connection to spirituality and ritual without referring to scripture with supernatural implications. She describes a perspective she calls "Poetic Realism" that helps us connect to our sense of wonder, community, and tradition with creative, beautiful, and inspirational language.

Poetry as Religion - Jennifer Michael Hecht on The Gray Area

Žižek’s Left-Wing Case for Christian Atheism makes this argument from the perspective of progressive Christianity.

Developing Secular Institutions

Development of secular institutions that serve the roles of religious organizations in society and culture are necessary for humanity to thrive in a future where participation in traditional religion is uncommon.

The Organizations page lists a number of secular communities that attempt to fill this role.

No Secular Gurus

There are a number of authors and podcasters that collectively fall under the category of "secular gurus." This term was coined by the excellent podcast Decoding the Gurus and refers to a phenomenon that has largely evolved from the world of podcast and YouTube content creators, so most of the conversation on this topic takes place in those spaces. The Decoding the Gurus subreddit is full of discussions about these creators and their philosophies that are incredibly influential in the modern culture, especially in the manosphere. Jordan Peterson is the quintessential example, but Elon Musk, Russell Brand, and many others are available to choose from.

Secular Gurus are usually former new atheists who have shifted to a focus on explorations of meaning. This may sound familiar to readers of this wiki. The important distinction is that "secular gurus" have a strong tendency towards intolerant, alt-right ideology, conspiracy theories, and grift. One of their most common attributes is a focus on the out-group and hierarchical divisions of society, which is their core divergence with the inclusive, universalist philosophy of metaculture.

While this wiki strongly advocates the search for meaning in a secular context, it does so without embracing authoritarian ideology, contrarianism, out-groups, religious regression to orthodoxy, or paid "universities" with crappy, misinformed content you can get better versions of for free.

This wiki attempts to avoid citing any of these secular gurus, even though many of their stated goals and methods seem to align with metaculture. This can be taken as evidence that metaculture represents a cultural attractor. Learn about it, but do so from those without ulterior motives.

The rise of secular gurus in an age of conspiracy theories

Ranking the Gurus: A Definitive Tier List of Modern Gurus

How is metaculture Different From Humanism?

As with all religions and philosophies of life, Humanism and metaculture have a significant number of similarities. While humanism certainly helped inspire and inform the metaculture philosophy, it also recognizes that there are many psychological and cultural needs that are not met by humanism alone. A number of these are discussed on the secular institutions page, especially with regards to the community building aspects of religion that humanism has not replicated. This section will focus on the core psychological shortcomings of humanist philosophy.

What is Humanism?

The Ten Commitments

Take the Ten Commitments of Humanism and compare them to their corresponding pages on this wiki. A couple may still need to be created, but you can probably guess the perspective they will take based on the rest of the wiki.

Of course, humanist philosophy has significantly more in its canon than the ten commitments, including these additional ten principles from their 1980 declaration:

All of these are great ideas, but they fall short in a few important ways.

Incomplete Moral Foundations

Moral foundations provides a framework for understanding all of our moral instincts, or the things we have natural moral reactions to. As Haidt points out in his book, The Righteous Mind, progressive philosophies like humanism tend to neglect three of the six foundations--authority, loyalty, and sanctity.

metaculture addresses authority via trust in institutions, processes, and incentives over individuals. It also attempts to provide an authoritative resource, the wiki, that can be used as a trusted guide for multiple generations the way that scripture has served in the past. Many people want to be told the answers from a position of authority, but humanism's exclusive focus on critical inquiry prevents them from doing so.

Loyalty is society's loyalty to its citizens, ensuring they will never suffer from extreme poverty or lack of healthcare. People need to know that someone has their back, and in a modern society only government can create a social safety net that can truly have everyone's back. While this is a position that most humanists would support, it is not usually framed within the context of loyalty. The focus on critical thinking can undermine the sense of loyalty, since it is often perceived as supporting in-group bias over evidence. Loyalty to the truth is also a thing, and metaculture emphasizes that as well.

Sanctity is the sense of the sacred, which humanism specifically rejects. This is the biggest thing you miss out on when you lose religion but don't create a substitute for the god concept. You can promote the virtue of love, but it's not the same as having a metanarrative that weaves love into the fabric of the universe. This is a key ingredient to religion's secret sauce. Using rituals to focus attention and appreciation on things that have emotional significance for us is another aspect of sanctity that humanism fails to address.

By incorporating all six moral foundations into its foundational philosophy, metaculture creates a more complete ethical system that leverages more of our built-in motivations and preferences in its rhetoric than humanism.

Lack of Emphasis on Meaning

Humanism advocates a lot of ideas and life choices that help you lead a meaningful life, but it strays away from meaning-making metanarratives really help people understand the universe holistically, their identity, place, and purpose within it.

Complexity and Neuroscience

Humanist philosophy gets less specific about how it conveys the nature of reality, and tends to lean towards the "random product of random processes" explanation of creation instead of one that infuses the universe with meaning and purpose. The principle of "inevitable cosmic complexification" is much more powerful than simple evolution in this regard, which is why metaculture makes it a central part of its metanarrative of everything.

There is also the more in-depth study of neuroscience, emotions, and the subjective experience of consciousness that is neglected by humanism. While many humanists enjoy exploring theories of consciousness and ethics, in practice you will find that humanists tends to look outward more than inward, which is the opposite of most spiritual traditions.

While many humanists are very into the subjects of neuroscience and complexity, humanist philosophy does not identify these as necessary concepts required for a deep level of understanding about why humanist principles are the way they are. metaculture is very specific about the fact that you need to understand a number of core concepts before a rational belief system can emerge.

It's About Being Happy

Humanist philosophy includes a lot about how to live a good and virtuous life full of happiness and well-being, and utilitarian ethics are practiced by most humanists. However, the humanist metanarrative is more about seeking objective truth than subjective happiness, which misses the point when it comes to spirituality. As a result, humanists are less likely to practice rituals in their daily life to intentionally reinforce values or stimulate positivity, since they see them as undermining critical thinking. The pursuit of objectivity undermines the pursuit of happiness. Ironically, they could use rituals to make critical thinking a habit and improve their objectivity and happiness both as a result, but the emotional association of ritual with religion and dogma prevents them from taking advantage of this powerful psychological tool.

Association with Atheism

Too many spiritual people associate humanism with atheism and have a contrarian rejection to it as a result. It needs a rebranding to avoid this association. Humanism is not atheism and it never was--it originated from the universalist movements of the late 1800s. But beyond that, it needs to be infused with a sense of optimistic wonder that can speak to people's spiritual inclinations if it hopes to be more than a niche philosophy.

The God Concept

Humanism specifically denies the concept of god, which means that one of the most powerful tools for giving people inspiration, positivity, and holistic understanding is not available to humanists. By finding a way to provide the psychological function of god with a concept that is compatible with materialism, metaculture is able to maintain the same commitment to critical thinking and objective truth as humanism without giving up one of the most powerful psychological tools ever created.

All This God Talk is Turning Me Off

Please keep in mind that metaculture is meant to meet people where they are and explain concepts in a way that is meant to build bridges between science and religion. As such, the language and metaphors of religion are employed to show how their understanding can be enhanced with pantheism.

If it helps, every time god is mentioned just think about the universe or the fractal and don't let it bother you.

You may just be disenchanted.

Charles Taylor Lecture: Disenchantment and Secularity

Secular Music

The kind your fundamentalist parents forbid!