NONAGGRESSIVE UNIVERSALISM (NU)

NONAGGRESSIVE UNIVERSALISM (NU)

BELIEFS

If there is a God and an afterlife, then the nature of a just and good
God worthy of worship and respect demands a universalism where
everyone is saved. If there is an afterlife, then there is no eternal
punishment or eternal nonexistence for certain groups of human beings
while others receive salvation. This, of course, does not necessitate
that all are equal in the good afterlife or even that all achieve it
immediately after death.

The gold standard of morality is nonviolence, and the silver standard
of morality is nonaggression, justifying violence only in the case of
self-defense. Being imperfect, and because people can act in evil ways
to try to take advantage of the system, the silver standard seems
preferable, but we do not condemn those who choose the gold standard
of morality. Both are, in effect, compatible with our beliefs and
those who behave nonviolently when they could have acted in their own
self-defense are not acting in an evil way because they have a
choice. Sometimes strict, tactical nonviolence is the best way to go
as it is consistent with our ultimate end goal of world peace.


IMPLICATIONS OF NONAGGRESSION

Some call this silver standard of morality "the Non-Aggression
Principle" (or NAP) and there are many diverse secular philosophies
that approach this fundamental truth from many different angles,
including natural rights, utilitarianism, and secular morality. Since
I view the NAP as inherently good, for the sake of judging others, it
does not depend on how one came across this moral truth as long as one
believes in and follows this fundamental truth. (Note that being
"inherently good" does not necessitate that it is axiomatic, as it may
in fact be derived from more basic assumptions as to the nature of
morality. In this case, the important part is that the moral code is
followed, not necessarily how it is justified.)

Morality is inherently individualistic and people are to be judged
individually. The self-defense I refer to is not a collective sense of
"self-defense", as in some sort of "just war". Humanity tried allowing
"just" aggression in the past and the inevitable result in the
historical record of aggression is that doing bad produces things that
are not good, but instead evil. Remember, groups consist of
individuals, and morality ultimately depends on each individual. If
one does evil things that one is ordered to do, one still does evil
things; hence, collective morality does not make sense because the
individuals are held responsible in such circumstances.

If everyone follows the proposed silver standard of morality, then the
de facto reality is that everyone follows the gold standard of
morality. In a world of everyone following the NAP, no one is
initiating force or violence against someone else and so nonviolence
is the result. On the other hand, if everyone directly follows the
gold standard of nonviolence without the implicit threat of force in
the event of defense against violent aggressors, then the de facto
reality is that evil people could initiate violence where it benefits
them without fear of reprisal and thus exploit the population. The
only thief in a world of people who do not defend themselves against
stealing would become a very wealthy person. In this sense,
nonaggression is a route to global nonviolence and thus world peace.

Therefore, at least for today's humanity, nonaggression is preferable
to strict nonviolence as a general principle. Keep in mind that the
right to defend oneself does not always need to be acted upon if
tactically one thinks self-defense is futile in that particular
circumstance, and one can choose to behave nonviolently if one wants
to as it is inherently not imposing one's will on another through
force to not defend oneself. Remember, through the universal
acknowledgment of nonaggression, one can achieve nonviolence. Hence,
the silver standard of morality is a way of achieving the gold
standard of morality in an imperfect world. We do this in a peaceful
and individual manner, without using force or violence in an attempt
to achieve good morality. (This may sound repetitive, but repetition
is a way to internalize these moral principles. Also, justifying them
in many different ways helps different groups of people realize the
truth of such principles as different arguments appeal to different
sets of people.)

On the other hand, since the silver standard of morality is only the
silver standard, then it is clear that the minimum use of force
necessary to end a threat is the most just use of force in the case of
defense against aggression. This also makes a "just war" impossible
because it is theoretically extremely hard, and effectively impossible
outside of theory, to contain violence to a minimum while using as a
methodology the collective action of war as we know it today.


IMPLICATIONS OF UNIVERSALISM

Therefore, the conclusion I have reached is called Nonaggressive
Universalism, or NU (which sounds like "new"). And thus, through reason
rather than through revelation, I have deduced a nonexclusive religion
and moral code. If you are capable of following our moral code without
following NU, then you are still doing good. It would be against our
beliefs to try to coerce you to agree with us, and universalism means
that you do not have to be NU.

We are non-exclusive, which means that followers of NU can be anyone,
including Christians or even agnostics and atheists. The only
requirement is that you adhere to the two very simple core beliefs,
our basic moral premises of nonaggression through the NAP morality and
of universalism if an afterlife exists. It is perfectly coherent to be
atheistic, just like it is coherent to be theistic, based on basic
philosophical premises that must be accepted on belief rather than on
reason and so I cannot claim to be absolutely certain of the truth. On
the other hand, I can claim that in the event of the existence of a
good and just God worthy of worship and in the event of the existence
of an afterlife of some sort, whether it involves a spiritual reality
or a resurrection of our physical bodies with our consciousness being
entirely based in the brain, then universalism is the just and good
and therefore necessary conclusion of those premises.

And, yes, NU rejects orthodox Christianity (small "o", not big "O")
and not Christianity in and of itself. This is obvious when you deduce
the obvious conclusions of nonaggression and find the incompatibility
with Christianity as we know it in the modern era. The moral principle
central to NU implies an anti-authoritarianism, at least against the
authorities of governments and other coercive and violent
entities. Christianity as we know it today has certainly been, over
the past centuries, "polluted" through the use of violence, both by
states and by other violent people, to try to maintain a purity to the
orthodoxy, which was itself determined through coercive action rather
than through peaceful behaviors. One historical example includes the
killing proponents of adult baptism in early modern Europe. Since the
orthodoxy is the product of aggressive violence, we cannot inherently
know if it is true or not because the state and other violent actors
have worked to prevent a fair, good, and reasonable explorations of
religious truths by making it dangerous to not believe in the
orthodoxy. This goes all the way back to the Roman state-endorsed
councils condemning heresies. In fact, the enforcement of a monopoly
of religion has, in the long run, made most of those areas, including
New England and most of Europe, rather atheistic or agnostic and thus
it is counterproductive to religion itself to try to force
belief. People like to think for themselves and, if presented with a
religion that they do not want and nothing, they may in fact choose
nothing.

NU also does not necessarily reject atheism since our universalism is
constructed as a logical implication. The universalism is thus only
valid in the event of the existence of a good and just God and of an
afterlife. Ultimately, since rational and coherent philosophical
worldviews can be constructed as both theistic and atheistic, we must
operate under assumptions. If atheism is true, then the good achieved
here on Earth by assuming this moral tenant as a path to nonviolence
will make the Earth a better place and serve humanity in the reality
that we know exists. If atheism is not true, then atheists are still
saved because universalism is a central tenant. The importance is in
behaving morally, in deeds instead of words. We do not use the threat
of a hell to scare people into agreeing with us because the threat of
violence is bad.


POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS

When judged through the moral principle of nonaggression, most
religious people do in fact advocate things that are not ethical,
whether they do it directly or whether they outsource this violence
(or more accurately, the threat of violence in the event of
noncompliance, which is still in effect violence) to an institution
such as governments. For the sake of justice, it is necessary for a
replacement religion to be created so that people who choose to have
religious beliefs have an option that necessarily advocates behavior
that is not coercive or violent in any way, whether directly or
indirectly. It is literally impossible to be orthodox in the following
of NU while at the same time advocating the imposition of religious
morality on those who have different religions or no religions. This
thus makes any true follower of NU necessarily and objectively good by
the morality of NU. Ultimately, even if NU is incorrect, we are still
through our behavior and encouragement acting in a way far more moral
than the vast majority of humanity.

The "religious right" implements morality on nonbelievers through the
implicit threat of violence or imprisonment or monetary confiscation
that governments necessarily do when they pass laws, which are by
their very nature mandatory. If this is "right", then I would rather
be wrong. Even secular people forcing morality on those who do not
agree with that morality is inherently, through the principles of NU,
unjust and will, in fact, backfire in the long run. If you think your
morality is just or good, then use your speech to persuade, rather
than using guns to force consent.

If everyone were to agree with and follow the core practices of NU,
then the logical necessity would be world peace. At the same time, we
realize that differences exist. We cannot possibly get everyone to
agree with NU through coercion or violence. Even if someone forced
everyone to nominally agree with NU (which, again, would be a logical
contradiction and thus cannot happen and at the same time be
consistent with the orthodox principles of NU), then we would not in
fact get true and genuine believers in NU and it is far more important
"to walk the walk than to talk the talk", as the saying goes. Even if
we cannot convince you of universalism and our religious tenants, we
can at the very least try to convince you of our moral principles
which would, with absolute certainty, improve the conditions for
everyone on Earth today.

It is thus impossible for us to spread NU to others through violence
or the threat of violence and we are therefore in no way a threat to
peaceful individuals. Even though we see governments as necessarily
agents of violence, we cannot advocate violent revolution because
governments only exist because people consent to follow their
authorities, and so we would be in effect forcing NU on an unwilling
populace if we used violence to promote NU. We will not reduce
ourselves to the level of the unjust in order to promote justice.


CONCLUSION

The essence of the moral aspects of NU is a realistic and rational
plan to achieve world peace. This way, those who desire world peace as
an end result can productively work toward that goal rather than
acting in a way that feels good but ultimately accomplishes no
results. Remember, by logical necessity, if everyone followed
nonaggression (our silver standard of morality) it follows that
everyone would also follow nonviolence (our gold standard of
morality). Even if this goal is ultimately impossible, then we can at
the very least minimize violence as much as possible while at the same
time not opening ourselves up to attack from evil people. Evil people
want to exploit those behaving justly and peacefully for their own
evil benefits at the expense of others, both individuals and (in the
long run) society as a whole. In essence, we seek mutually beneficial
interactions rather than exploitative interactions, even if the
exploiters have the supposed endorsement of 50%+1 of the population
being exploited. Evil is still evil, no matter how many people agree
with it.

Our principles are very, very simple principles that everyone should
be taught (voluntarily, rather than through coercion) in order to make
the world a much better, and much less violent, place to live in, for
our generation and for the generations to follow.

---

This work is public domain because we do not wish to use the threat of
force to try to prevent others from spreading or modifying our ideas,
but we politely request that no one use the label "Nonaggressive
Universalism" if they are in fact neither nonaggressive nor
universalist. In a sense, we chose the name so that it would be a
logical impossibility to use our name without agreeing with us, at
least in the most basic ways. It would be extremely arrogant to imply
that this document represents the ultimately correct form of this
philosophy and religion because all ideas are inherently derivative
and it would be extremely arrogant to imply that NU in some way
deserves "rights" over this document. The best ideas are not
necessarily original ideas.