Justice, compassion and beauty

Justice, compassion and beauty require neither religion nor ideology. Religion and ideology function as control mechanisms that appropriate existing human impulses. Some organizing structures and concepts are obviously beneficial in large complex communities such as contemporary western ones but they are not the source of justice, compassion and beauty and we should be careful not to think so lest we risk societal structures becoming instruments of control and concentrations of power rather than an expression of our commonality and shared circumstances.