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Are we really just Humanists? |
Sometimes people ask, "Isn't the Church of Reality just Humanism?" No - but there is a lot of overlap between Secular Humanism and the Church of Reality.
Humanism - as I understand it is a search for a natural social order without an omnipotent father figure creating the rules. If we were to create what we conceive as a healthy society, on what basis do we determine if we are on track?
The Church of Reality is about the exploration of reality the way it really is. In order to do that, we need to explore it as a community. We rely on the information passed down to us through the Tree of Knowledge, which is the some total of all human understanding. We explore reality by growing the Tree. In order to do that, society has to move forward in what we call, "The Sacred Direction" based on the Principle of Positive Evolution which states that we choose that we will make tomorrow better than today. Out of this we derive the Sacred Principles, which form the basis of our moral code.
When you look at the Sacred Principles, The Sacred Choices, and the Sacred Missions of the Church of Reality you will see that they create a basis for a society that would lead to Secular Humanism. The practice of Realism is the foundation that creates the reason why for Humanism to exist.
Why is freedom preferable to slavery? Does right and wrong exist? After all - this planet is just a speck of dust in the universe and reality itself doesn't care what happens. It is because we choose to explore reality and that our progression is important to us that we have arbitrarily chosen to move to progress and to avoid extinction. We have chosen evolution over extinction. Other religions have made the opposite choice.
We see Humanism as the natural lifestyle that would be the logical extension of the Sacred Principles put into practice in society. In that regard Humanism and the Church of Reality overlap. But Humanism is not a religion and is limited in scope to a natural social order based on reality.
Although most Atheists are Humanists, not all Humanists are Atheists. Humanism doesn't exclude religion per se. It does however tend to exclude religion and/or holy texts as the basis for social structure. Many religions, including this one, have many of the same social principles. They come to the same conclusions in part because they have enbraced reality as the common element. And we in the Church of Reality support reality based thinking.
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