The first five tenets of the Savior Self are fairly uncontroversial. They are a distillation of anarcho-communist ideals infused with a mild underpinning… effectively, “Humans should be free to do as they please, but they should reduce harm in order to promote harmonious living.”
The first five tenets are non-proscriptive and are intended to serve as a set of guiding principles upon which each person can develop their own beliefs and ethos. However, the sixth and final tenet of the Savior Self is decidedly more definitive, and it must be accepted as an axiomatic truth to preserve the integrity of the other tenets. Before we discuss the sixth tenet of the Savior Self, it is important to understand why this tenet is so crucial.
In philosophy, egoism is the idea that all actions should enrich the self. In many ways, it is the foundational framework of liberal democracy and libertarian capitalism, in which people are encouraged to “follow their bliss” and prioritize their own personal well-being, and that doing so will then, somehow, benefit the whole of society via open markets and invisible hands.
Of course, we have seen the dehumanizing and destructive results of these beliefs in the “flourishing” liberal democracies around the world, as well as the false veneer of freedom they provide. Egoism is built on two key presuppositions: that humans are special, and that am extra special.
Anthropocentrism is the belief that human beings are exceptional and unique in the universe. This belief can be traced back to Greek philosophy, and it is foundational to Abrahamic religions in the divinity of in God’s image. The belief remains dominant today across religious, spiritual, and populations, perhaps with different justifications but culminating in the same conclusion: there is something cosmically or spiritually distinct about the human species, and we remain the most superior form in the universe.
The “logical” conclusion of human supremacy is that humans are entitled to use (and abuse) the world as we see fit. From biblical proclamations to to various modern environmental conservation arguments, anthropocentrism is foundational to our morality.
In addition to this– or perhaps as a prerequisite for it– our minds perceive ourselves as the most supreme being, at least subjectively. Surely this arises from a survival instinct buried deep in our evolutionary past, a motivation for self-preservation inscribed in our helical genetic blueprint. Our modern social evolution may have required us to conceal and temper this belief in order to foster cooperation, but it is still very much a subconscious conductor of our thoughts and actions. There is certainly some truth to the idea that greed and selfishness are human nature… they are, just as they are in the nature of every creature confronted with resource scarcity.
In stark contrast to this, most Eastern religions and philosophies encourage the suppression of the self in order to recognize the interconnected unity of ourselves with everything and everyone. Ego death is the extreme form of this suppression, wherein one is able to fully dissociate from their own subjective experience and, ostensibly, see past themselves into a more objective reality; practitioners often use psychedelics to help achieve this transcendence. Whatever the method, the goal of enlightenment is to shed the veil of disconnected individualism and to embrace the unified cosmic energy of all living things.
It should be obvious which ideology works better for harmonious coexistence.
Ascribing human life with a fundamental value— and a value that is fundamentally far greater than anything else– restricts our ability to properly evaluate the consequences of our actions. If we were somehow able to cut down every tree on the planet and use them to provide housing for every homeless human, would that loss of habitat for countless billions of other organisms be morally justifiable?
That notion of a fundamental value to human life– no matter the circumstances– also provides the rationality for anti-abortion activists, because every life is sacred even if it is unwanted and results in a life of hardship and perpetual poverty. It is also the basis for capital punishment abolitionists who believe that a life sentence in captivity is somehow more ethical than a death penalty, or that the possibility of a single innocent person being put to death justifies the countless billions in resources that are expended to carry out life sentences for thousands of unrepentant violent offenders.
Thus, the Church rejects the a priori sanctity of human life as a counterproductive belief. This is the sixth tenet of the Savior Self.
Human life is not inherently sacred or special.
Tenet 6 of the Savior Self
This does not mean that human life has no value, nor does it mean that everyone is expected to adopt a materialistic philosophy that negates the existence of a soul or alternate planes of consciousness; however, it does mean that we should reevaluate our conceptions of our value on this plane of existence in a more rational manner. Of course human life should be protected and harm should be reduced to its practical minimum, as stated in the third tenet. Compassion is vital to the tenets of the Church.
But so is truth.
A person that cannot rationally be regarded as equal to one that devotes their life to helping others. Similarly, a person with a degraded quality of life– whether through illness, injury, or circumstance– should not be forced to continue their existence due to some arbitrary moral imperative.
To be sure, these both seem like slippery slopes. Who dictates the value of one life over another? The answer, in most cases, should be the person living the life. The ultimate goal must be a society in which everyone shifts their consciousness to perceive life in this way; if we do not indoctrinate and guilt people into clinging to life at all costs, if we normalize the creation of living wills, and adopt a healthier attitude towards morality– terrifying as it admittedly is, we can restore the freedom of choosing to die to many people.
The situation of capital punishment is more delicate. Incarceration has served many “claimed” purposes: a punishment meant to evoke ; an opportunity for rehabilitation; a punishment for the simple sake of retribution; and as a last resort method of separating dangerous people from society. Recidivism rates indicate that penitence and rehabilitation are hardly effective, generally hovering around 40-60% across North America and and dropping to around 20% in stricter countries such as Singapore.
Incarceration as retributive punishment can be justified when one party is tangibly harmed, although in such cases the decision should be made by the harmed party (and tempered for “fairness” by the community). In an enlightened society, the harmed party may seek restorative justice rather than retribution, but that should be their choice to make.
Finally, incarceration as a matter of public safety seems ineffective for non-life sentences (as supported by the aforementioned recidivism rates) and exceedingly cruel for life sentences. Regardless of the “comfort” of the accommodations, depriving a person of virtually all of their liberty for their entire, natural life seems far more barbaric than making the solemn decision to end their life.
With all that said, criminal justice remains a separate topic for another day. Moreover, the Church believes that crime should not be a common problem in a healthy society, and therefore these sorts of scenarios should be fringe cases that can be handled on an individual basis (as should all transgressions, really).
Accepting that human life is not divinely sacred allows us to make rational decisions to the benefit of everyone and everything which– in a holistic worldview– will be to the benefit of ourselves as well.
