| What is really important is how we come to know what we know. What
Muckraker said about our consciousness being accumulated knowledge is all important to the concept of democracy.
With religion we are told a God or His angels speak only to a few people, and therefore only these few have the authority of God. These original few people can presumably transmit their authority by teaching another select few what they know of God. Protestantism disrupted this chain of exclusive authority, by saying anyone can read the bible and determine God's truth for self. This makes anyone an authroity of God's truth. However, these people have made their holy book the word of authority, and as is obvious in these forums, not everyone accepts holy books as God's word. Holy books are not the only source of God's truth.
Democracy is not theology, because it makes no claim to God's authority. Our democracy begins with a concept of "the laws of nature and nature's God". Meaning, to know God, we must study nature.
Our accumulated knowledge comes from many sources. We have written records, and also sciences that can exact information from many sources. Democracy depends on this accumulated source of information, rather than one holy book. And each one of us is important to this pool of information. Like Wikipedia, where we all can contribute our knowledge, and efforts are made to provide accurate information.
When we talk with each other, we not only learn from each other, but this learning can increase exponentially. Like the first living cell becoming the great variety of life that has been on earth. When your thought and my though come together, either of us can experience a new thought than has never been thought before. The more we know, the more can learn. Democracy is not religious authority telling people what is so. Democracy is all our minds coming together, learning and processing informatiaon like a super, super computer. Democracy is constantly evolving human consciousness. |