Mark Whitaker on the Three Salvations

Source

Draft 'creed and testament' (v11) from Mark Whitaker, environmental sociologist based in Seoul, South Korea. Tonghak refers to a Korean religious movement.

Discussion

Mark Whitaker:

"Creed and Testament, v11, By Mark D. Whitaker

“I don’t want to build socialization on the web, I want to build socialization in the physical world, worldwide off the web, using the web or whatever means are required.”

‘my religion or testament or creed’

“I don’t belong to a particular established religion though am establishing one. [that is, in a phrase: both inverted Buddhism and inverted Baha’ism, which basically is inverted Sabbateanism basically, meaning that there is a good in all religions and in good attachments and that it requires doing public good acts of material and class/cultural compromises being done in public instead of in secret; somewhat like Tonghak as well in its three salvations: personal, political, and ecumenical that the salvations are different for different people though all the same.]"

* Original quote:

"There were three salvations. There was a collective salvation via political action to improve one’s social and material context. All believers’ salvation depended upon action for improvement of material conditions and removal of political impediments, to make the heavenly paradise on earth. Second, there was an individual salvation to improve one’s ‘animal’ consciousness into a divine moral being, similar to a Buddhist bodhisattva motivated by compassion to work for removing suffering in the world after self-enlightenment toward the enlightenment of all beings instead of withdrawing from suffering. Since all humans have the same god-energy infused in them, all humans are equal. “All men are equal” was the secret password to get into Tonghak meetings after they were proscribed. The leadership though hierarchical was elected democratically from material contributors to the meeting. Tonghak became an individualistic, humanistic, democratic, collective, and socialistic religious movement. Third, in the context of foreign invasions and occupation, it developed a third level of salvation: the national salvation requires removing alien domination, worldwide. In this ecumenical and pantheistic way, Tonghak accepts that different nations have different nationalist salvations. Tonghak, Choi argued, was the Korean way.

* Adapted quote:

There were three salvations. There was a collective salvation via political action to improve one’s social and material context for sustainability. All believers’ salvation depended upon action for improvement of material conditions and removal of political impediments, to make the heavenly paradise on earth. Second, there was an individual salvation to improve one’s ‘animal’ consciousness from material attachments to unsustainably and suffering toward attachments of sustainable materials closer to a seamless interaction with the environmental world as a form of divine moral being, motivated similarly to a Buddhist bodhisattva motivated by compassion to construct materially and politically a sustainable world for removing suffering in the world after self-enlightenment toward the enlightenment of all beings instead of withdrawing from suffering. Since all humans have the potential to be sustainable in their lives and choices, all humans are equal -- as well as ranked, based on how sustainable they were in their choices with religious and laity frameworks around particular universities particularly similar to the monasteries contexts as well, with different acceptable connections to sustainability and the arrangement of its communities with priests of complete sustainability and different levels outside for those that accept some sustainable materials and feel unable to accept others. “All men are equal” was a sign of political equality in the movement. The leadership though hierarchical was elected democratically from material contributors to the meeting. Tonghak became an individualistic, humanistic, democratic, collective, and socialistic religious movement. Third, in the context of foreign invasions and occupation, it developed a third level of salvation: the national salvation requires removing alien domination, worldwide. In this ecumenical and pantheistic way, this accepts that different regions have different nationalist salvations based on what religious and ethical systems they already have that can be adapted to environmental ethical extension.

Thus polytopia as more manageable in this way in this middle way of religious/ethical inverted Buddhism and inverted Baha’ism, and in political philosophy and political program: ‘trialecticists’ and ‘bioregional statist’ and ‘polytopian'."