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Based on the phenomenal growth of open source software, more generalized applications of the open source concept have begun to appear, e.g., the open source movement and open source culture. Open source religion is based on the extension of the same principles to the areas of religious experience, religious cosmology, and religious systems of belief. These central human phenomena have exerted enormous impact on human history and, today, pose some of the greatest challenges to humanity's future.
In contrast to open source projects, the formation and maintenance of religious phenomena has almost always been closed, authoritarian, and change-resistant. Central to the notion of open source religion is the non-proprietary, decentralized, and user-determined evolving nature of all open source projects. All significant examples of explicit attempts to develop open source religions are Internet based and thus recent phenomena.
- Note: The term "Open Source Religion" is also used to refer to the fervor of practitioners within the open source software movement. While this could be developed into a spiritual/religious practice, thus far this has not occurred and the two usages of the phrase should not be confused.
Another specific advantage claimed for some open source religions (e.g., Yoism, which also claims to be "the world's first open source religion,") is that it breaks the link between "birth location happenstance" and belief. As has often been noted, the vast majority of people believe in the religion they were "born into." While it is not claimed that open source religion would completely mitigate parental impact on the developmental of a child's beliefs, it is claimed that the very nature of an open source system of belief would make local religions more ecumenical and open to ideas from all over the world. The principle espoused is twofold: One, an open source religion taught to a child would, by its open source nature, almost always include ideas that came from outside of the local community. Two, in the act of "indoctrinating" a child into an open source religion, the child would simultaneously be taught that truth is not fixed or beyond improvement with ideas from others.
These ideas are expressed in the writings of Yoism, in which they claim that their version of open source religion
- "endeavors to harness the power of Internet communication to cultivate and develop the most thoughtful, meaningful, and moving religious inspirations that have ever existed. No longer must humanity be chained to the limited beliefs found in the neighborhood of each individual's birth and growth. The Internet enables a spiritual community to form in which the best in human thought and insight can be available to everyone, wherever they live."
Limits of Open Source Religion
As with all open source projects, there are limits to the decentralization of control. Linux and the Wikipedia, two of the most successful open source projects, have "benign dictators" (Linus Torvalds and Jimbo Wales) that can make decisions in times of intractable conflict and who control the general direction and parameters of the project. Another way to think of this control is to accept the necessity that any project have some defining form which is not subject to open source modification. The open source aspect of the project can only occur within the boundaries defined by the open source immune aspects of a project. Examples of such non-modifiable aspects of open source projects are the mediums employed (Linux is software and will never be a narrative text-based project, as compared to Wikipedia) and the defining open source nature of the projects (neither can become closed source, proprietary projects without breaking down).
Just so, some open source religions have overarching contextual themes that are beyond open source modification. For example, a project aimed at creating an open source Judaism has different unmodifiable constraints than one focused on creating an open source theology of the Gospels (see External Links, below).
External links
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