Open Source Religion

Open Source Religion
By John Taylor; 2006 November 09
Three years ago, right around the time that I too was caught up in the
same Zeitgeist; architect Kent Larson coined the term "open source
building." Larson heads MIT's Open Source Building Alliance (OSBA), and
his mission is to bridge the gap between house design and computer
science. His idea is for the housing industry to agree upon standard
interfaces that would resemble the USB port for personal computer
components. The USB port allows any printer or mouse to connect to any
personal computer. This home standard would allow custom design of every
part of a new home using mass produced, standard interchangeable
components. That way a home buyer would be able to do what a purchaser
of, say, a Dell computer can do, custom design every part of the
computer they purchase, and then later on upgrade it for relatively
little expense. This approach differs from modular homes, which are
shipped complete from the factory and do not have the flexibility or
expandability of the OSBA standard.
This cooperative initiative by MIT and building companies is reported on
in "Building Blocks, The House of the Future," by Dawn Stover, in the
November 2006 issue of Popular Science. Larson points out here that most
houses today are knocked together inefficiently not by architects but by
land speculators, and their product is overpriced, poorly built and
custom built by unskilled labor. Larson says,
"Every board cut and every hammer strike is custom -- even if the house
is not an expensive custom home. There is a way to democratize
architecture, to capture the knowledge of good architects and good
engineers in a computational design engine. There are no technical
barriers to doing it. It is just a matter of inertia in the industry."
(p. 81)
My instauration proposals are right down this alley and I wish Larson
well. May he bring housing out of the fossilized muck of the Precambrian
era into the 21st Century. Having read this fascinating article I think
that the big difference between open source housing and my proposals is
that I envision something much broader, what you might call open source
philosophy or open source religion. Think of it like this:
We all have a limited amount of leisure. Some have more free time on
their hands and others less, but it is always finite. Let us say that a
person of stable habits has X number of elective hours in which to relax
and recharge her batteries. To me, the choice of how she spends this
fixed period, the question of how well any given choice will maintain
balance and moderation for that individual, well, that is what religion
and philosophy are there to sift and evaluate.
A thousand interests furiously compete for a place in line, for a
precious chance to occupy a person's disposable leisure time.
Entertainers, advertisers, educators, yes, even philosophers and
religions are all falling over one another, each convinced that theirs
is the best choice. Television and business executives would be happy if
we spent every spare moment on a couch in front of the idiot box.
Religious advocates would have us reading scripture and praying the
whole time.
What I am suggesting as the basis of the instauration is a sort of
standardized USB port to our free time, a system that would mediate
among all of these competing interests. Better, it would allow their
competition to serve the needs of people, not the limited, corrupting
interests of the advocates themselves. Having a standard leisure time
interface would allow people to switch among many alternatives until
they find the most productive stasis holding their lives in balance.
Every aspect of every faith and philosophy would be "modular,"
interchangeable and easily incorporated into a person's daily life.
Here is an example. Let us say that I am a Baha'i with an interest in
Eastern meditation methods. I would punch in my request and each day I
would be served up with a different Buddhist or Hindu devotion to
perform during my X amount of prayer and reflection time. When I hit
upon one I like, one that works, I would save it and continue using it
until something better came along. I am permanently a Baha'i, of course,
but those less committed would be able to do the same shopping around
with what I would consider core beliefs. They might choose to be a
Buddhist on Monday, a Hindu on Tuesday, and so forth, until they either
hit upon a faith they feel ready to commit to first, or they may decide
that they want to be permanent seekers. Call them "Roaming Syncretists."
In any case, what is the measure of "X," the amount of free time in
daily life? There is not even a word for it, but in my study of the
Baha'i Faith I have concluded that for us X is regulated and balanced by
the Badi' calendar. That is our X Box, as it were. We use the Gregorian
calendar in daily life but the Badi' calendar acts as an overlay to
measure the Spirit into our lives as Baha'is. Now, if you look carefully
at the Ruhi' program, it is cleverly designed to offer aspects of the
Badi'-Baha'i system to the world as a kind of "open system" that
believers and non-believers alike can make use of. No pressure is made
to believe in it, we just offer it as a useful tool and let it go at that.
For example, Book One of Ruhi prescribes for "collaborators" that they
share a prayer with someone they have met. This introduces a prayer, one
part of the morning and evening Badi' devotions, to the world as an
"interchangeable component" like a USB compatible printer. The person
who studies the prayer may incorporate in their prayers, or not, as they
find it useful. Some may never have prayed before, and this would be
their first and only prayer to add into their free time devoted to
prayer. Others may be full of prayers from their own faith tradition and
have no room. It does not matter, at least not from an open systems
point of view. Anybody can join in with Ruhi study groups as they
please. That is probably why the House pointed out in their last Ridvan
message that Ruhi has more sustained results than any other institute
program.