The Church of Reality in 650 Words

The Church of Reality is a religion dedicated to the pursuit of reality and evangelizing the importance of making reality part of one's daily life. The word "reality" is the "Sacred Message" because when you say "reality" it causes people to think about reality, and whenever a person thinks about reality they are being "Real in the Sacred Moment". The religion recognizes what it calls the "Tree of Knowledge" which represents the sum total of all human understanding. They believe that people expand their understanding of reality through growing the Tree of Knowledge which increases their understanding of the universe they live in. The process of growing the Tree of Knowledge is called "Positive Evolution", moving humanity forward in what they call the "Sacred Direction". The Church of Reality is a forward looking religion dedicated to making the future better than the past through making tomorrow better than today. The Church of Reality is an "Open Source Religion" modeled after open source software projects. It has an evolving doctrine. The doctrine, called the "Kernel", is seen as the operating system of the human race. The Church of Reality currently has 21 Sacred Principles embracing concepts like Evolution, Exploration, Honesty, Freedom, Peace, Courage, Environmentalism, Compassion, Communication, Justice, Inclusiveness, Scrutiny, Humility, Reason, Wisdom, Responsibility, no Bullshit, Activism, Privacy, Historical Preservation, and Humor. These principles form the basis for morality, right and wrong, without the reliance on an omnipotent rule maker. The Church of Reality does not worship anything or believe in fictional deities. As to God, the short answer is that they are Atheists. The longer answer is that if God shows up in objective reality then he will be considered real. The Church has however embraced the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Invisible Pink Unicorn as official fictional deities. This being ok because they are known to be fictional. The Church of Reality is a doubt based rather than a faith based religion. Members are "Explorers" rather than followers. People are expected to think for themselves. They believe in "Original Virtue" rather than original sin and recognize that most people are good people trying to do the right thing to be a productive member of a healthy society. The Church of Reality sees themselves as being members of the human race which includes everyone on the planet. They also see themselves as being part of the "Tree of Life" which includes every living organism in the world. The Tree of Life includes the Earth's evolutionary heritage all the way back to the pond scum that all life evolved from and a wonderment as to what we will evolve into in the future. The Church of Reality is the exploration of reality by humans. It's not a religion about science, it's a religion about people. The Church of Reality is humanity exploring the universe, creating the great societies that allow people to explore reality together, and taking control of human evolution allowing humanity to determine what people will become and taking responsibility for our actions. The Church of Reality also gives Realists a religious identity. It challenges other religions on the basis of what is real and causes people to think about reality and compare their beliefs to reality. One of the "Sacred Missions" is to affect the evolution of other religions away from Armageddon towards a more positive future of peace and productivity. The name is the religion and the religion is the name. Reality always was and always will be. Reality is eternal and it isn't going away. Reality doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. The Church of Reality may well be the next stage in the evolution of religion.