I literally envision, someday, Goodness “churches”, with 3 dimensional crosses. My initial thought for the symbol of Goodness was a + sign, where the horizontal axis represented Quantity, which is to say the material components from which form is created, and the vertical line represented Quality, which is the actual form, the information as applied to matter. The Chinese recognized this distinction, which I think was chi and li. No time to look it up at the moment.
Then I realized you have to add change/time to it. What is Good one day can both decay and evolve. A good religion one day, can become a bad one the next, or alternatively it can evolve into a better one. Someone who never changes is on this formulation quite literally two dimensional, a cartoon. One recognizes them by their cartoonish thinking, which is incessant either/or, mine/yours. It is a lack of capacity to interact with people who don’t share your figurative size and shape with anything but force and deception.
In such churches, I imagine people of all creeds coming to together for the purposes of learning Goodness. This entails, in the end, the cultivation of perception. But let us say debate is one tool used. Debate is only as good as the people involved. They have to be able to set aside self importance, and the need to be right. People who can do that, can learn a lot in the process of discussion. People who cannot turn it into a counterproductive agonistic contest, which hardens lines, rather than blurring them.
A religion is a social institution that, in the root of the word, “binds” people together. As a creed without a creed–as the ideological equivalent of Lao Tzu’s empty vessel (you will note that a vessel still has form; I provide mine in the Rejection of Self Pity and cultivation of perseverance)–it can be adopted by Christians, Atheists, Muslims, Communists and anyone else willing to approach life with an open mind, with an openness to evolving as a person and thereby contributing to the evolution of our society.
Starting this is one of my many, many projects for which I never seem to have the time. I do think it’s a good idea, though, and I think there is a hunger for it.
Useful rituals would include shared CrossFit workouts, and maybe adventure racing, both useful in the cultivation of non-whininess, and persistance. People could sit around insulting one another to build tougher emotional armor. Tremendous innovation would be possible.