Exaltist Ethan
Bridging the Gap Between Believers and Skeptics
This thread was inspired by this post I wrote last night.
“From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can't explain it."
This is a famous quote I'm sure some of you have heard before. I'm curious as to if most people here view themselves on the inside of a religion or outside of it. When I decided to follow my local UU chapter in Milwaukee I often felt like I was an outsider looking in, because I wasn't involved, and didn't want to involve myself, with most of the activities the church had, like fighting for social and economic justice. I did become a member of that religion, but in many ways I felt like I was part of the outside looking in. A similar thing was happening with the Baha'is, but instead of rejecting the social justice that Baha'is strive for, that I actually believe in, like unity of religion, I rejected their theology instead.
I did some basic research looking into transhumanist religions and discovered a group called Terasem from that. I followed the roots of Terasem until I found what perpetuated it - a series of books called Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents from a science fiction writer named Octavia E Butler, with a fictional religion called Earthseed. I did like Terasem but I often felt outside of that religion too. There are things you are supposed to do in that religion, like meditation, listen to the official radio station, and be apart of the community of likewise religious transhumanists, but it was lacking formal structure since one of the key people of that religion died and it was essentially put on life support. I attended the Second Life community but there was nobody at the digital property.
When I discovered Earthseed I realized that I was one of a few people that believed in the essentially the same things as them, but there wasn't the weight and baggage that came with Terasem. Nobody was telling me to meditate or to pray or worship. I felt like for the first time that I was looking from religion from the inside looking out because I understood the concepts and had a knack of explaining them so well to people. So, up until recently, I saw myself as an outsider of religious belief, someone who couldn't follow a path, someone who was just stuck thinking about his own beliefs and what it meant to him. That's in fact where Exaltism comes into play, but even with Exaltism I was starting to become an outsider to that too, because a lot of the material I published from that faith I no longer held on to or believed anymore.
The thing is, Octavia E Butler is dead. Lauran Olamina is not going to have anymore adventures in the Parable book series, and ironically the concept of Earthseed hasn't changed that drastically since the second book, Parable of the Talents, was published in 1998. But I understand the concepts in full and have adapted a syntheist view of theology since then. It seems like every time I make a post regarding religion I bring up some principle of Earthseed, some concept of how God is change and we are meant to shape that change. For the first time in my life I felt like I wasn't on the outside looking in but rather on the inside looking out. Even more so, I have decided to rename myself Earthseed Ethan where appropriate, and when August 23rd rolls around and it will be one year with Exaltist Ethan and I plan on changing my RF user handle to Earthseed Ethan. I have also redirected my website, exaltism.org to godischange.org as I have realized that I was getting unwanted attention from my website, and honestly, it's easier to explain myself from the Earthseed point of view than it is from the doctrine of Exaltism that I held so closely.
So I am now on the inside looking out, deeply involved and influenced by what most people think is a fictional religion. Earthseed is very real and there's plenty of people who believe its tenets, even if the framework of the religion was written in a fictional, dystopian science fiction novel, it still means a lot to many people. While I understand theology quite well I'm not formally educated on these matters, I pick up the pieces that mean the most to me and I transform those concepts in new ways and apply them in my every day life. I am intuitively Earthseed, it is my de facto religion, more so than any other religion I involved myself in, including but not limited to, Unitarian Universalism, the Baha'i Faith, Exaltism, among others. I am not told what to do, and virtually nobody is expecting me to do something or hold my hand spiritually in the meantime. Butler's words have influenced a generation of believers, and a Mars landing was even named after her.
I find that it is easier to explain myself using concepts introduced in Earthseed than it is using my Exaltist terminology. Simple and to the point the three tenets are - God is Change, Shape God and It is Earthseed's Destiny to Take Root Among the Stars. The way that I translate this is that God is what nature is becoming and that humans are meant to enact the role of God by spreading as much life throughout existence as possible. I use different ways and words to describe it, but it essentially means the same things. Different words for the same concepts. I also value concepts like The Omniverse, Entropy and Extropy dearly to me.
But that's me. I am now a firm believer of Earthseed, someone who is deeply involved in that religion, looking from the inside out, trying my hardest to explain something that means so much to me towards people who are unaware of the religion.
TL;DR - So now I bring it back to you. When it comes to religious and spiritual traditions, are you on the inside looking out or on the outside looking in? Or maybe you are somewhere inbetween both extremes? Let us know how you view religion and which side you are in below.
“From the outside looking in, you can't understand it. And from the inside looking out, you can't explain it."
This is a famous quote I'm sure some of you have heard before. I'm curious as to if most people here view themselves on the inside of a religion or outside of it. When I decided to follow my local UU chapter in Milwaukee I often felt like I was an outsider looking in, because I wasn't involved, and didn't want to involve myself, with most of the activities the church had, like fighting for social and economic justice. I did become a member of that religion, but in many ways I felt like I was part of the outside looking in. A similar thing was happening with the Baha'is, but instead of rejecting the social justice that Baha'is strive for, that I actually believe in, like unity of religion, I rejected their theology instead.
I did some basic research looking into transhumanist religions and discovered a group called Terasem from that. I followed the roots of Terasem until I found what perpetuated it - a series of books called Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents from a science fiction writer named Octavia E Butler, with a fictional religion called Earthseed. I did like Terasem but I often felt outside of that religion too. There are things you are supposed to do in that religion, like meditation, listen to the official radio station, and be apart of the community of likewise religious transhumanists, but it was lacking formal structure since one of the key people of that religion died and it was essentially put on life support. I attended the Second Life community but there was nobody at the digital property.
When I discovered Earthseed I realized that I was one of a few people that believed in the essentially the same things as them, but there wasn't the weight and baggage that came with Terasem. Nobody was telling me to meditate or to pray or worship. I felt like for the first time that I was looking from religion from the inside looking out because I understood the concepts and had a knack of explaining them so well to people. So, up until recently, I saw myself as an outsider of religious belief, someone who couldn't follow a path, someone who was just stuck thinking about his own beliefs and what it meant to him. That's in fact where Exaltism comes into play, but even with Exaltism I was starting to become an outsider to that too, because a lot of the material I published from that faith I no longer held on to or believed anymore.
The thing is, Octavia E Butler is dead. Lauran Olamina is not going to have anymore adventures in the Parable book series, and ironically the concept of Earthseed hasn't changed that drastically since the second book, Parable of the Talents, was published in 1998. But I understand the concepts in full and have adapted a syntheist view of theology since then. It seems like every time I make a post regarding religion I bring up some principle of Earthseed, some concept of how God is change and we are meant to shape that change. For the first time in my life I felt like I wasn't on the outside looking in but rather on the inside looking out. Even more so, I have decided to rename myself Earthseed Ethan where appropriate, and when August 23rd rolls around and it will be one year with Exaltist Ethan and I plan on changing my RF user handle to Earthseed Ethan. I have also redirected my website, exaltism.org to godischange.org as I have realized that I was getting unwanted attention from my website, and honestly, it's easier to explain myself from the Earthseed point of view than it is from the doctrine of Exaltism that I held so closely.
So I am now on the inside looking out, deeply involved and influenced by what most people think is a fictional religion. Earthseed is very real and there's plenty of people who believe its tenets, even if the framework of the religion was written in a fictional, dystopian science fiction novel, it still means a lot to many people. While I understand theology quite well I'm not formally educated on these matters, I pick up the pieces that mean the most to me and I transform those concepts in new ways and apply them in my every day life. I am intuitively Earthseed, it is my de facto religion, more so than any other religion I involved myself in, including but not limited to, Unitarian Universalism, the Baha'i Faith, Exaltism, among others. I am not told what to do, and virtually nobody is expecting me to do something or hold my hand spiritually in the meantime. Butler's words have influenced a generation of believers, and a Mars landing was even named after her.
I find that it is easier to explain myself using concepts introduced in Earthseed than it is using my Exaltist terminology. Simple and to the point the three tenets are - God is Change, Shape God and It is Earthseed's Destiny to Take Root Among the Stars. The way that I translate this is that God is what nature is becoming and that humans are meant to enact the role of God by spreading as much life throughout existence as possible. I use different ways and words to describe it, but it essentially means the same things. Different words for the same concepts. I also value concepts like The Omniverse, Entropy and Extropy dearly to me.
But that's me. I am now a firm believer of Earthseed, someone who is deeply involved in that religion, looking from the inside out, trying my hardest to explain something that means so much to me towards people who are unaware of the religion.
TL;DR - So now I bring it back to you. When it comes to religious and spiritual traditions, are you on the inside looking out or on the outside looking in? Or maybe you are somewhere inbetween both extremes? Let us know how you view religion and which side you are in below.
