Although the Church of Reality encourages forgiveness and rehabilitation, we do not absolve sinners. Forgiveness is between the parties involved and can not be given out by a third party such as a church or deity. Our view is that absolution from sin is irresponsible and it gives the sinner a false sense that their record is somehow expunged.
Our view is that everything a person does is forever part of their Life Story and the Story of the Universe. What you do becomes what you did and that once it is done then it is part of history and one can not change history. Once a bell is rung it cannot be unrung. This encourages Realists to take responsibility for their actions and to not do bad things in the first place.
Acceptance of Truth is our religious commitment to the Sacred Truth, the real truth, or otherwise know as the Hard Truth. Becoming a Realist is more than just saying that you believe in reality. To be a Realist you have to accept the Sacred Truth and commit to using the Sacred Method to determine what you believe in. Accepting the Truth means that you are willing to give up Bullshit, apply Scrutiny, and change your mind if you are wrong. It means putting Reality First.
In Accepting the Truth you are telling the world that you are all the way in when it comes to Reality. It's saying that we're not going to just pretend we're into reality, we're not going to twist definitions to defend what we want to believe in, and we aren't going to make deceptive arguments to trick people into believing in anything that doesn't stand up to scrutiny. It means that you're ready to feast at the Tree of Knowledge. It means that you are curious and that you want to understand everything. It means that you're ready to contemplate the Sacred Contemplations. It means that your Life Story is going to change and you will become a vessel through which Reality becomes aware of it's own existence.
Religious Identity is about what you believe in. It's the passion that fires the soul. It's about your standards and who you choose to be in the world. It sets the standards for determining what is right and wrong. Religious Identity is about Values and it determines how you envision the Future.
In the Church of Reality we accept the Sacred Truth and we become Realists. We commit ourselves to the Positive Evolution of humanity so that through Intellectual Tithing we can expand the understanding of our existence. Our real existence. The way it really is with all the Bullshit removed. Acceptance of Truth means we will go where ever the Truth leads us.
The Church of Reality has a higher burden of proof than other religions because we are a reality based religion and we can't just make stuff up because we want to believe in it. We have to have a reason to believe what we believe that we can articulate and is subject to the Scrutiny of the world. Because we are Realists we accept the Burden of Proof as our standard to justify what we claim to be true.
When an individual dies, they die. The person as a consciousness ceases to continue. The self awareness and the experience of identity stop. The only thing left of us individually is our Life Story, the sum total of the events of your life and what DNA you leave behind.
A reality based view of the afterlife however is that we are all part of a single organism that started on this planet a billion years ago. All life is evolving together and we are part of that evolution. What we do in our brief existence matters and it has an affect on what we evolve into.
Our individual afterlife can be viewed in the impact that our role in life played to affect the future. We Own Ourselves and we can choose to be a positive force in the evolution of humanity, or we can choose worship a false reality and waste our existence. If we choose to live in Right Relationship with Reality then our individual accomplishments will live on and the meaningfulness of our existence will be remembered. If we choose to shun reality then reality will shun us and we will be forgotten.
Thus, in the Church of Reality the afterlife is the future. It is where our story goes to live after we die.
In the Church of Reality an Angel is a caregiver. Angels are people who give of themselves to take care of people in need. In this church anyone can become an Angel in this lifetime. All that you have to do is go out and do it. Being an Angel is a reflection of our Principle of Compassion.
Anti-realism is a world view that this reality we live is an illusion or unimportant, or an evil world that is not worthy of understanding. Anti-realists are taught to understand through Faith and to actively suppress logic and reason in favor of focusing on a mythical Next World.
In the Church of Reality "Are you saved?" means is the data on your computer backed up on another computer, hard drive, or tape? The Church of Reality reminds you to always back up your data because if you lose your data - it's gone! Never keep only one copy of data that is important. Hard drives eventually fail. Anything that isn't backed up is gone. Remember that the natural state of all machinery is broken.
For the Church of Reality's equivalent of "Being Saved" see Awakened.
Armageddon is the failure of the human race. If Armageddon happens, then the Extinctionists have won. It would represent a failure of Realists to keep humanity off The Path of Destitution and Destruction. To Christians this term means that Jesus is coming back and many of them think that if they destroy the world that it will somehow force Jesus to return to save it. But the sad fact is that Jesus is fiction and if the Christians destroy the world then this planet will be just another lifeless speck of dust in the universe like trillions of other planets.
Actually, it is unlikely that we could destroy all life on Earth - just the humans. It will give the cockroaches a shot at being at the top in a few billion years. We selfish Realists want to keep humans in power.
Awakening is the acceptance of reality. To awaken is the equivalent of "being saved" in the Christian religions. To awaken is to make a personal commitment to reality as it really is and to reject fictional beliefs. Awakening happens in stages and is just a point of beginning, a point on the path of knowledge. The opposite is to be asleep. The metaphor is that a person is asleep and dreaming a fictional world and then wakes up to the real world. It is to go from the imaginary to the world of reality.
A beacon is a Realist who attracts people out of the darkness and slavery of the Cult Mind and helps them see the light of the path of reality. In the Church of Reality we use this term for our ministers and clergy.
The opposite of a beacon is someone who puts out a fake light to lead people into the Cult Mind. We call them Bug Zappers.
Thanks to Brother Steve Doulis for the idea for this term.
Every time that any person wonders about reality or asks the Sacred Question they "Become One with the Tree". At that moment they open their minds and hearts to reality - the way it really is - and they accept the importance of reality in their daily lives. This is not only good for the individual who becomes "One with the Tree" but it is good for the Tree because it inspires the individual to think about the real world. Becoming One with the Tree (hopefully) will cause some people to contribute of themselves though Intellectual Tithing so that something of themselves lives on for future generations.
To Become One with the Tree is to realize that we are all part of the Tree of Knowledge and that the Tree of Knowledge is in us. Our very thoughts are made of words that were handed down through the generations and our knowledge comes from those who taught us. We live in the Sacred Moment processing this knowledge and adding to it so that those who come after us will have more to work with than we had. To be One with the Tree is to give thanks for what we inherited and to add something of ourselves that is worth being passed on to the future.
Being Real in the Sacred Moment means that you are thinking about and asking the Sacred Question - What is Real? The Sacred Moment is where your life is being lived by you in real time. Sometimes you are at work - or planning dinner - or watching television. There are things that are done in the Sacred Moment. But - some of your time is spent wondering what is real. As you read this you are wondering about and thinking about reality in real time. When you are thinking about reality you are Being Real in the Sacred Moment.
Being Real in the Sacred Moment causes everyone - no matter what religion you are - to become a Realist in that moment. A member of the Church of Reality is a person who has made a personal commitment in their heart to pursuing reality the way it really is. However - reality and realism are not the exclusive domain of this church. Reality existed long before this church existed and reality will be around long after the church is gone. No matter how controlled a person is by the Cult Mind - reality is always a part of everyone's soul and in their hearts everyone want's to come home to the real world. The Call of Reality is heard by every living person and no one can ignore it forever.
To be /root is to be a monk of the Church of Reality who is committed to the Path of Knowledge. The concept of being /root is taken from the Unix operating system. Root is the super user who maintains the system. To be root is to be in technical support and to be the person responsible for keeping the system running. In the context of the Church of Reality - /root is to be of service to humanity and to provide technical support to the human race. It also involves a commitment to the service and maintenance of the Tree of Knowledge and to the Operating System of Life.
To be /root is to live a life of service to the human race. You might not be a major contributor to the Tree of Knowledge - but you might be the support person who makes it possible. Steven Hawking is a great physicist who will forever be remembered for his contributions to the understanding of or universe. But there are people who feed him and put him to bed at night and dress him in the morning who make it possible for him to do his work.
To be /root is to make more than an ordinary commitment to supporting the exploration of reality as it really is. To be /root is to dedicate your life to the task of making it happen. To make the sacred direction the central focus of your existence. To endure personal sacrifice for the good of society. To feed the hungry - to give shelter to the homeless - to heal the sick - to give comfort to the dying - to be there when you are needed. In that respect it is the dharma of the Church of Reality to actively support this work and therefore established monks to be known as the Order of Root to do the good works necessary to hold the fabric of society together.
A step towards true knowledge. We recognize that people make mistakes on the path to understanding. Being wrong and moving on is the normal process of discovery. It is OK to be wrong, as long as once you find out you were wrong, you move on to what is right. Being wrong is often part of the process of exploration.
The difference between believing and knowing is that knowledge is truth that us purifies through Scrutiny. When the Sacred Method (the Scientific Method) is applied to a belief and it stands the test of scrutiny it becomes knowledge. It is transformed from something that we believe to something that we actually know to be true.
In the Church of Reality we do not just choose to believe something just because we want to or it's part of our culture. Science has created disciplines that allows us a might higher degree of accuracy to determine if something is actually objectively true. When a belief is subjected to the scientific disciplines and it stands the test of scrutiny then the belief is purified into knowledge.
Even with this level of scrutiny we can still be wrong. Since we are not claiming divine intervention we don't have to meet the criteria of perfection that deities have. In fact we already know that a lot of what we believe today will be superseded by a deeper understanding in the future. Some of what we believe will be proven wrong. However if we use our best practices then what we have determined is still knowledge rather than belief even if some of it turns out not to be perfect.
A believer is a person of blind faith. This is a generic term that references members of all faith-based religions. It includes Christians, Muslims, Jews, all of them. The term Believer refers to people who believe in something without a scientific or logical basis. They accept doctrine in an environment where questioning and scrutiny are either prohibited or discouraged. Someone who accepts information based on faith rather than facts and reason.
Big evolution is like Big History. It's a more comprehensive view of evolution. big evolution includes all of Old Evolution but it adds a lot of detail to the view of evolution. Big evolution includes the software of the species. The evolved behavior, the emotions. How life forms communities and alliances. It includes all life and the history of life back to the very first life forms on earth.
Big Evolution sees life as a single individual that started billions of years ago and continues through today. We are all port of it. And it includes the things life built. It includes the hives, the beaver dams, and the space telescopes. Or technology is part of big evolution. The Tree of Knowledge is part of it. And it includes what we are evolving into.
Big History is a term popularized by The Big History Project that looks at the Story of the Universe as a whole set of interconnected events. Big History represents the creation story of the Church of Reality which is based on our factual understanding of the history of the universe. Not the history we want to believe, or the history we choose to believe, but what actually happened.
Starting over from scratch after losing everything on your computer and having no data backups. (Being Born Again is not a good thing in the Church of Reality)
A Bug Zapper is a person who leads people to the Path of Illusion, into the Cult Mind, causing them to Live the Lie. The metaphor is that a bug zapper is a device for killing insects. Insects are attracted to the light, but when they land they are instantly fried by electricity. A Bug Zapper is a person who uses light like a Lighthouse does but to the peril of the person attracted. Other religions use the term "False Prophet" to mean the same thing.
Cheating in the Church of Reality refers to a dishonest argument or kind of behavior where a person expects a shortcut or pass when none is deserved.Examples of cheating include:
Absolution from Sin - There is no deity that is going to clean up after you and expunge your {ln:Karmic Record).
God did it - The argument that anything that can't yet be explained scientifically is the work of a deity.
God told me to do it - Can't blame your actions on the deity or enhance something that you accomplished by inferring an alliance with a deity.
Definition Twisting - In order to explain away contradictions definitions of words are twisted and switched. An example would be "Maybe God means the universe and the universe exists, therefore God exists.
Credit but not Blame - If God saved someone from the plane crash, then why did he allow the plane to crash in the first place?
We are all the children of Mother Earth. All life on this planet is Earth's offspring. We were all raised here together, evolving into all the species of creatures that exist here today.
A Church of the Mind exists not only in the physical realm but also in the mental realm. The Church of Reality is a Church of the Mind. Besides having members who identify their belief system as Realism, in the Church of Reality we also recognize that all people have moments in their life where they are Real in the Sacred Moment. During these moments when a person is asking the Sacred Question they become a Realist for that short period of time.
Part of the reason to spread the Sacred Message is not just to convert people to Realists but to induce people of different faiths to become Realists if but for a few moments. The transformation of individuals to Realists is not limited to full members. We also include converting people if but for only a few minutes to Realism. One of our goals is to get people to spend more time being Real in the Sacred Moment. Our church spreads in the realm of the mind converting people not just one person at a time - but one minute of your life at a time. We want people to think about Reality all the time - not just a few times a year.
Communion is the gathering of people to talk about and explore reality. Whenever two or more of you are gathered in the name of exploring reality, whether in person or online you are in communion.
In the Church of Reality the word Reality is our Sacred Message. Whenever someone thinks about reality the universe becomes a little smarter. So when people talk about reality then all who listen are thinking about reality together, and to us Realists, that is holy communion.
Group of Explorers on a Mission. To explore reality the way it really is we have to work together to accomplish things. We can't do things like launch telescopes into space by ourselves. In order to accomplish the mission we have to organize into crews and work together as fellow explorers to expand the horizon of knowledge.
Where everyone goes when they die. The term /dev/null is the name of the Unix black hole device where you put data to be redirected into nowhere. It represents the ultimate nothingness. Non-existence. It's the place where all your deleted files and deleted email go. It's where all the windows you closed are. It's where characters go when they scroll off the top of the screen. Unless you are remembered in the Tree of Knowledge - your future is probably /dev/null.
A Developer is a person who is a monk in the Order of Root who is a visionary and who's visions inspire projects in the real world. A developer is a person who comes up with ideas and actually makes them work in the real world. Sometimes it's a visionary with money who funds projects and hires the right people to make it all happen. A developer is a realist who decides that they can make it happen and then goes out and does it.
In the Church of Reality dharma is the doing of doing. Each moment represents a choice that we make that affects the next moment. Your dharma is the course of your life based on these individual choices. One's life is the sum total of one's dharma. One's life is the integer of one's dharma. And one's dharma is the first derivative - (to use a calculus concept) of one's life. Dharma is the act of living. It's what you make of your life.
The dharma of the Church of Reality is the Sacred Missions. It is what we do together as a community.
Being distracted is when you are tricked into focusing on what isn't real at the expense of what is real. If you are Obsessing over a False Truth then you are said to be distracted. One doesn't gain much of an understanding of what is real by obsessing on what isn't real. In the Church of Reality we focus on the Sacred Truth and put Reality First.
An example of being distracted in the Church of Reality is focusing of disproving the existence of God. This is a trap that Atheism has fallen into. Everyone knows that the average Atheist knows the Bible better than the average Christian. But because Atheism focuses on what isn't real there is very little attention paid to what is real. So Atheists are correct that God doesn't exist. But Atheists are distracted because the issue isn't God, it's reality.
A Dogmatists is a person who is stuck in the past relying on ancient knowledge that one is supposed to accept as true without question. Dogmatists are the opposite of Futurist who focus on where we are going rather than where we have been. Dogmatists practice Dogmatism which is a Dogmatistic world view. Many Dogmatists are also Extinctionists who expect the future destruction of the world. We in the Church of Reality distinguish ourselves from other religions by embracing Futurism and rejecting Dogmatism.
In the Church of Reality, doubt is required. Doubt is the basis for the Principle of Self Scrutiny. Realists doubt everything. That's how we continually test ourselves to make sure that what we believe in is really real. Our doubt causes us to reexamine everything all the time to make sure we have it right. Doubt also gives us a deeper understanding of what we know. It helps us prune the Tree of Knowledge removing the dead parts so that the live parts grow stronger.
Interestingly enough, where doubt is required in our church, doubt is prohibited in fiction based churches. In Christianity doubt is the unforgivable sin. The one thing you are absolutely prohibited from doing in the Christian church is to think. Fortunately it is a requirement in our church.
The Dreamers are people who use their minds and their imagination to see the big picture and to come up with new ideas that move humanity forward. Dreamers are people who love coming up with new ideas and figuring our how to make them work. The Dreamers are the ones who come up with the plans for the future. To be a Dreamer is one of the most important things a Realist can be. The Dreamers are the immortals whose ideas live forever in the Tree Of Knowledge. We remember the Dreamers of the past who created the world we have today. To be a Dreamer is to hold a position of honor within the Church of Reality. To be a Dreamer is worthy of being remembered as someone who created something good.
The Dreamers envision the future and bring it into Reality.
The Church of Reality needs more Dreamers. Everyone can Dream. It's something that everyone can learn. it's something that everyone can practice. The more you Dream the better you get at it. To Dream the Sacred Dream is to imagine the future and look forward through time with wonderment. The Dreamers are the creators of the Tree of Knowledge. That's how you start. Then you ask yourself what you can do to make part of that dream happen. You move the world with your mind even if it is a little at a time. If we all move the world a little forward every day we will fulfill our commitment to the Principle of Positive Evolution.
A dumb universe is a universe where no life exists that has evolved to the point where the species has some comprehension that the universe exists. In the beginning the universe was dumb. There was no life. Eventually life evolved. Whenever the first species in the universe evolved to the point where it became aware that the universe existed, then the universe became a Smart Universe.
If there were other species in the universe that evolved before we did then the universe was already a smart universe before we figured it out. If however we are the only advanced life form in the universe then the universe became smart in the last for hundred years. If we are the only advanced life in the universe and we become extinct then the universe goes back to being a dumb universe.
Ego Addiction is when a person becomes addicted to the feeling of self importance. We call it ego addiction because having too much ego becomes a bad habit and a person who has an ego addiction will sacrifice reality for an inflated sense of self importance.
Cults use Ego Addiction to control their members. They give people an inflated sense of self importance. They are told that they were "chosen by God" and that they are part of an elite group of God's warriors who are on some sort of holy mission to fulfill some divine plan. That they are the good and holy people who are "at war" with the "enemy" who is "evil" and under the control of "Satan" or some other demonic powers. You believe that you as an individual are playing an important role in this apocalyptic battle between the forces of good and evil and can only win if you maintain your Faith in what you are told to believe. You are told that if you Doubt then evil wins.
If this describes your situation then you have a problem with ego addiction. Your role in the real world is far less glamorous than you ego-addiction suggests. Consider that life in the universe is probably so sparse that if this planet were to blow up it is likely that nothing out there would even notice, let alone care. So even though our role in the universe isn't nearly as thrilling as your role might be, at least we aren't wasting our existence being someone else's sucker.
The Church of Reality takes the position that if we focus on what is real and continue to evolve then some day we might become something far greater than what we are today. But we can't get there if we allow ourselves to indulge in an inflated sense of self importance. We give up being important so we can get some real work done.
Ego treats are rewards and acknowledgements of things accomplished. Technically Ego Treats do go against the Principle of Humility, but as social beings we do sometimes need some recognition for work accomplished and great accomplishments do deserve recognition. One can accept reward in the spirit that in doing so one is inspiring others to accomplish great things. But one must always keep in mind that this planet is still a speck of dust and not indulge in inflated self importance.
Ego Treats however are very addicting and can lead you towards being controlled by the Cult Mind. They can and are used as a tool to control others and it makes you dependent on your manipulators if you develop an appetite for Masturbating the Ego. So Ego Treats can be compared to eating candy. You can have a little when you are good, but don't get fat on it.
The Church of Reality is an emergent religion. It is part of the evolution of humanity. Humanity has evolved the Sacred Method also known as the scientific method which allows us to move from believing to knowing. We have developed the Internet which allows all of humanity to share knowledge between individuals and everyone else on the planet. We have used our telescopes to look back to the beginning of time and space.
Just as apples grow on apple trees when a life form such as ourselves evolves to this point we want to know why. What is our purpose in the universe? What does it all mean? What am I supposed to do what I wake up in the morning? What is right and wrong and where does right and wrong come from? The world of religion has attempted to answer these questions based on believing in holy books, but these old books are the old maps of reality. Science is the new map of reality. Instead of believing we now actually know how the universe was created and where we come from.
It is therefore natural that our evolutionary path include a merging of our understanding of reality and the purpose of our existence. We need to answer the questions posed here in the context of what actually exists. Thus it is inevitable that a Church of Reality must exist. It is in fact part of our evolutionary destiny. Even if it wasn't created here in this way it would eventually have been created elsewhere by others and it is likely to be very similar to this Church of Reality.
The Church of Reality is Religion 2.0. It is the next step in religious evolution. Now that we have knowing we can no longer rely on merely believing. We humans have to make decisions in order to continue to Stay in the Game. Otherwise we will be Left Behind. Existence vs. Extinction.
The Evidential Reformation (Term coined by Michael Dowd) is a movement based on the idea that the time has come for all of the religious world to replace belief with evidence based knowledge. Humanity has evolved to where reality itself has to be incorporated into religious doctrine and can no longer be shoved aside by faith.
The Evidential Reformation is the transition into Religion 3.0 where we have a world view that is based on the authority of evidence, what actually is real, rather than what one chooses to believe through faith. Religion 1.0 was the Authority of the elders, Religion 2.0 was the authority of scripture. We now know that our existence is driven by evolution and that the universe is about 13.82 billion years old. As young people leave the church in droves Religions that ignore evidence based knowledge will be Left Behind.
A person who forces their religion on vulnerable people. People who intentionally deceive others and take advantage of their personal needs in order to lead them into a society of false beliefs. An illusionist who organizes people by manipulation of vulnerabilities at the exclusion of truth and reality.
An Exploiter can also refer to a person who takes advantage of religious people for political gain.
Members who are committed to understanding reality are "Explorers". This is the counterpart to "Followers" in other religions. Exploring is the process of expanding our understanding of reality the way it really is. Personal exploring is the understanding of ourselves and the process of getting real. But we also explore the reality around us and share our findings with others to grow the Tree of Knowledge. And we contribute knowledge freely through intellectual tithing so that others can build on our knowledge as we have built on the knowledge of others.
A person who envisions the future as the destruction of the world. Armageddon. An Extinctionist is a person who is so blinded by faith and so dedicated to making sure that "their team wins" even if their team is the bad guys. They would destroy the world or move humanity into a society of religious slavery just to be on the winning team. An Extinctionist envisions negative evolution and sees the future as bleaker than today and lives a life that is destructive to the advancement of humanity.
Extinctionism is a very dangerous world view because it leads to irresponsible behavior and decisions. It is based on the idea that there is a next world and that this world is "evil" and deserves to die. Therefore it is OK to pollute the planet, or overpopulate, or to use nuclear weapons, because the omnipotent father figure is going to destroy this world anyhow and take all the good people to a better place.
We in the Church of Reality maintain a Futurist perspective. We see the future as what we decide to build and we take Responsibility for our actions because actions have consequences. We see humanity as not having an omnipotent safety net and that our survival is based on our ability to have good judgment. We therefore commit ourselves to Positive Evolution so that humanity progresses into the future knowing more about reality with each generation.
The belief in something that has no factual, logical, or scientific basis. Faith commonly involves a deliberate decision to ignore reality and to dodge scrutiny. In the realm of the known, faith frequently becomes merely an easy decision to ignore Reality and to choose to believe in something that reality suggests is false or to become completely indifferent to evidence that contradicts that 'faith'. In the realm of the unknown, faith is the choice to lean against the evidence and toward the unproven. Conversely, a hypothesis is a guess that leans toward evidence supported by logic and reason.
Key elements that indicate faith are:
Absolute Loyalty to a Position - Unwillingness to change your mind when you are proven wrong. Faith is a choice to believe something even when reality contradicts the belief. A Realist accepts the position that if one is proven wrong, one is expected to change one's mind.
Avoidance of Scrutiny - Faith-based believers tend to avoid scrutiny of their beliefs. Logic and Reason are declared to be inferior to belief based on emotions and the imagination. Questioning is considered to be either sinful or blasphemy; or that the belief cannot be tested because of achieved salvation through ignorance of reality and loyalty to one's belief first somehow overcomes reality. A believer will sometimes claim that there are "other realities" where the rules of the "physical world" don't apply.
Faith and Reason are held to be mutually exclusive. Things believed through faith can never be proven because if something is proven then faith is no longer necessary. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Once an article of faith has been proven, it then becomes part of the world of reason. The process of proving something means that you have accepted the principles of science and scrutiny. If one tries to prove something then they also have to accept the possibility that it might be disproven. Without the possibility of being disproven, the proof is meaningless.
Anything that you can't question is not real.
Things believed through faith, by definition, are untested. One cannot determine through faith if what one believes is real. Fear that faith tested, might actually prove it to be false, makes faith weak. Two people having faith in opposite things, cannot determine what is real because reason, logic, and scrutiny to make the determination of what is real would expose the opposing faiths to the possibility that one, or both, are false. (See Faith Paradox).
Faith is fundamentally in opposition to the scientific process insofar as it specifically excludes any kind of truth-testing. When one disregards truth and reality, one's denial of reality has determinental consquences to oneself and others.
The Church of Reality is a Doubt Based religion. We reject blind faith. Our position is, any belief that is solely faith-based (in that it rejects scrutiny) is assumed to be not real. Our view is that anything real will stand up to scrutiny and questioning and that we are pursuing real reality as it really is. In order to do that we are required to examine everything to verify our positions. We accept the possibility that things we believe in may prove to be unreal and we are willing to change our minds when we find we have held a belief in an unreality.
Faith should not be confused with trust. Our human minds are limited and as a community we have to choose to trust other people to make determinations for us. When we get on an airplane we trust that those who are in the airline business know how to safely make the plane fly and land. A Realist has a responsibility to question faith and to always issue the Sacred Challenge to ensure that one has not dedicated one's life to a scam.
To us blind faith is a form of idolatry. Blind faith is Worshiping a False Truth. In the Church of Reality blind faith is a Golden Calf. Many religions require blind faith first. Religion expects belief without question. We do not. We embrace Doubt and Scrutiny. We put Reality First. We Accept the Truth. In our world view blind faith is the rejection of Reality.
The Faith Paradox is the contention that nothing believed through faith is provable because if something can be proven then you don't need faith to believe in it. Faith excludes logic and reason and does not accept scrutiny. When one believes by faith then one is expected to stay faithful in spite of any facts, logic, or evidence.
The faith paradox is the contention than if two people believe opposite things that they can not determine who is right and who is wrong through faith and are forced to turn to reality to establish if what they believe is real. But in turning to reality the element of faith is undermined. Thus when one accepts faith one rejects reality.
A person who is so deep into religious mythology and controlled by the cult mind that they would believe the world was flat if they were told to believe it. The term is similar to a sheep but with a more extreme context.
Many sheep organized to follow blindly together. A group mind formed around a concept where reality is excluded from the belief process. A flock could describe members of a cult. People often surrender their good judgment to others in exchange for a sense of community - a sense of purpose - and a sense of self worth. They often surrender to an exploiter who fulfills these emotional needs in exchange for their blind devotion and economic resources.
Followers are people who follow the teachings of others and accept those teachings on Faith and without Scrutiny. We in the Church of Reality are Explorers. We accept scrutiny and we believe in what what can be determined to be real using the Sacred Method. We are a Doubt Based religion.
The Frontier of Knowledge is the very front edge of human exploration and what we know. It is the line between what we just discovered - what we are in the process of discovering - and what we are just about to discover. Knowledge tends to be relational. If the Tree of Knowledge were viewed symbolically as a fractal, the Frontier of Knowledge would be the edge.
A futurist is a person who has a forward looking philosophy. Futurists look in the Sacred Direction and are concerned with the Positive Evolution of the human race. A futurist is the opposite of a Dogmatist which is someone who focuses attention on the past. We in the Church of Reality are Futurists. We are a Futuristic religion that practices Futurism. We are also the opposite of the Extinctionists world view that the world will end in destruction. Our goal is The Star Trek Future.
Making a personal commitment to understanding reality the way it really is. Getting real is to give up your illusions about what you want to be real - or what other people want you to believe is real. Getting real is the process of personal growth in your commitment to reality in the practice of realism. It is to move in a direction away from illusion and distortion into a state of clarity and self discipline. Getting real involves reprogramming one's mind to accept reality as it really is and to move away from mythology and delusion.
A Golden Calf is a metaphor taken from the Jewish Bible referring to the belief in and worship of a false god. In the Church of Reality a Golden Calf refers to holding on to a belief that isn't real. It's when you don't put Reality First and decide to Worship a False Truth instead.
"The guy who invented the wheel" is a metaphor for the beginning of the Tree of Knowledge which is the sum total of human understanding. It envisions a cave man carving a wheel out of stone or wood making a technological breakthrough that allowed humans to survive and thrive in a primitive world. We don't actually know if there was a "guy" or a woman or if the invention started in one place by one person. The wheel is symbolic of an early invention.
The wheel was predated by stone tools such as axes and knives and wasn't as significant of an invention as the bow, lances, and other projectile weapons. But we use it as an expression to represent early discoveries in the early evolution of humanity.
Obviously the Church of Reality doesn't ascribe to the biblical definitions of Heaven and Hell. However there is actually a significantly similar counterpart in the reality based world.
If you look at humanity as a single continuous life form that is part of all life on earth, then we are more like a cell of a greater individual that continues beyond our individual existence. We in fact are the unbroken continuation of some primordial bacteria that started reproducing a billion years ago.
We ask ourselves, "What happened to the dinosaurs? Why are they gone?" The reason the dinosaurs are gone is because they failed to evolve the ability to deflect large asteroids away from the Earth. If we fail to deflect asteroids and do what it takes to survive then we aren't listening to what the dinosaurs are trying to tell us and we will share their fate.
Humanity has evolved to the point with genetic engineering and cybernetics to where we can and will control our own evolution. We have a choice to determine what we will become. If we choose well then we will lie in a future paradise that might be Heaven like if we do really well. However if we make bad choices then our future might be hellish or we become extinct.
So in that sense our Heaven and Hell represents the same idea. Good choices are rewarded and bad choices are punished. The main difference being hat we all go there together rather than individually, and that the Afterlife is the continuation of life after we are gone.
If we choose to live in Right Relationship with Reality then we will figure out who we are, our place in the universe, and choose wisely to get from where we are to where we need to be. But if we turn our back on reality then reality will turn its back on us. The mighty hand of Darwin will reach out and smite us. Our very existence will cease and we shall forever be apart from the real world.
The moment you realize that you've lost everything on your computer after your hard disk crashes and your data wasn't saved. If you are not saved - you might end up in Hell.
The Horizon of Understanding is almost the same thing as Frontier of Knowledge. If knowledge was a line, these two concepts would be "adjacent points" on the line with the Horizon of Understanding the "next point after" the Frontier of Knowledge. The Frontier of Knowledge represents the latest thing that we discovered. The Horizon of Understanding looks forward in the Sacred Direction to the very next thing we are about to discover. Of course - for those of you who are into mathematics - we all know that there is no such thing as adjacent points on a line because between any two points is and infinite number of other points. However - the illustration is accurate in the context for which it is presented. For those of you who are not heavy into math theory - I encourage you to wonder what I'm talking about.
An Imaginary Reality is a description of another reality that isn't actually real. It is a description of reality based in fiction where those who believe in the reality choose to do so without any objective evidence, or in spite of objective evidence, that the reality actually exists. Such realities are often described in sacred religious books where the believer has to assume based on Faith that the book is true.
The term Imaginary Reality is a contradiction but is useful when discussing reality with those who insist on believing in something that isn't real but people insist on believing anyway. It's also a foundation for talking about the Faith Paradox where without reality based scrutiny there's no way to determine if one person's faith based belief is more true than another person's faith based belief.
The difference between Real Reality and imaginary reality is that real reality is observable by non-believers and holds up to Scrutiny. If an imaginary reality is tested and determined to be real then it would switch from the imaginary category to the real category. If, for example, science discovers that Heaven exists then Heaven moves into the reality based world and members of the Church of Reality would believe in it.
What happens to you when you die? What part of you continues to exist beyond the grave? There's a lot we know about that and a lot we don't know. As to what we don't know - it is the role of the Church of Reality to encourage the exploring of that question. As to what we do know - that can be divided up into three categories.
The corpse, if left out in the open is eaten as food by animals and bugs and eventually fertilizes plants and dissipates into the other discarded organic matter of the planet.
If you have children then your genetic makeup is passed on in a form that is 50% diluted with each passing generation. Even genetically your DNA becomes diluted to the point of being barely identifiable as it is mixed generation after generation with the DNA of other people.
Finally - who you were as a person lives on in the Tree of Knowledge; what you accomplished and contributed that is worth remembering. If you do nothing significant and contribute nothing then you will be forgotten. Due to new technology however - using computers - the record that you existed at all might be preserved. But as we go back in time there are people who lived their lives and contributed nothing of any significance that were remembered and are now totally forgotten. There are many societies that lived for a time and totally died out without anything left save for some bones that we are just discovering. Who they were - how they lived their life - what they accomplished - their thoughts - their feelings - who they loved - are all gone.
There are however those who lived long ago who are remembered. They are remembered as being someone who contributed to the Tree of Knowledge. Einstein is remembered for discovering relativity. His contribution was so great that we preserve a lot of information about who he is and what he did. We remember his name and his accomplishments are with us today. This is a form of immortality because he is with us in our minds and in our experience of life. And because of our technology, more of him is stored than of great people of long ago.
For example - we don't know who the person was who first invented the wheel. Or if the wheel was something that was invented in multiple societies and passed on. The wheel is still with us and lives in the Tree of Knowledge. Whoever gave the wheel to the Tree lives on even though we don't know who this person was or what kind of a life he/she had.
In the Church of Reality - to be remembered in the Tree of Knowledge is the best hope for immortality that we know of that really exists. So if you want a shot at living forever in some form - then contributing to the Tree of Knowledge is your best shot. Maybe I will be remembered for starting the Church of Reality. And maybe I won't. If the Extinctionists win - we might all be forgotten.
Intellectual Incest is a situation where too many people in a group all think alike and exclude legitimate diverse viewpoints. Not all points of view are intelligent arguments but sometimes when people become too uniform, they fail to evolve for lack of fresh new ideas. The concept is similar to genetic inbreeding. Realists are encouraged to exchange ideas with people who are not of the same mindset because it gives both individuals the opportunity to learn something new. When people hang out with people who agree on everything then there is less opportunity to learn from a new point of view and it leads to stagnation.
Putting out the effort to make sure that information that you publish or otherwise add to the Tree of Knowledge is accurate and correct. To be truthful and honest. In contrast with being intellectually irresponsible and blatantly dishonest.
Irresponsible Religion is the opposite of Responsible Religion. Irresponsible religions are Cult like in nature. They use dishonesty and trickery to force people to believe their Bullshit.
There are many aspects of modern day religions that are irresponsible. many of these religions support Extinctionism believing that the world is going to end and that their bad behavior doesn't have consequences. Many religions offer Absolution from Sin giving people a false sense that their karmic record has been expunged and absolving them from the responsibility from their actions. This enables criminals to continue a life of crime because they are "forgiven" and that God will make it up to their victims in the next life.
Many religion preach a doctrine of Anti-Realism, that this world is an evil world and that one should not identify as a member of this world, but rather the next world. They argue that this reality isn't worth understanding and that one should ignore this reality in favor of a fictional reality one goes to after death.
A Realist who stands up for reality in the face of adversity or personal risk. Often reality requires bravery in order to stand up to what is right and true. It is often not easy and can be dangerous to expose exploiters and free their flock from a life of mental slavery.
The Language of Peace are words and ideas used to counter the Language of War. War is most often preventable through using Wisdom to produce creative solutions to avert war. The Language of Peace is used to ratchet down the tensions so that Reason can prevail over passions.
The Language of War is the talk and propaganda that is issued to lead up to war. War doesn't happen all of a sudden. War takes coordination and agreement and is preceded by war language to create a narrative to justify and create a reason or excuse for a war. The Language of War is a predictor that war is coming. The Language of War can often be countered with the Language of Peace in order to avert war.
Similar to concepts in other religions, the concept of "left behind" implies a punishment for disobeying religious law. This concept also exists within the Church of Reality but in our religion it is a metaphor for extinction.
The Church of Reality sees two paths for humanity, evolution and extinction. If we do the right things then we get to continue to exist or Stay in the Game. If we aren't smart and we defy the laws of nature and ignore reality then we will become extinct and we'll be left behind. If you reject reality - reality might reject you.
Your Life Story is the record of your life from beginning to end. From the moment you are born till the moment you die. It is the record of your life. It is what you do. While we are alive we are writing our life story. We believe in self ownership and we take control of our lives and determine our own existence. When our life is over and if we accomplished anything worth remembering then our life story is remembered in the Tree of Knowledge and we become part of the sum total of human understanding.
Our life story is very important to us. It is the story of who we are. it is the ideas that we contribute to humanity. It is what we choose to be our role in existence.
Living in Right Relationship with Reality is that we learn to live together as a society so that we can continue to exist and Evolve forward and Stay in the Game. If we don't live in right relationship with reality then we will become extinct or Left behind.
Living in right relationship to reality is a commitment of humanity to stay on the path that got us here in the first place. That path is that we continue to evolve forward so that we continue to exist. To continue to exist is our Root Axiom.
Life is a struggle between evolution and extinction. The reason we exist is because our ancestors lived in right relationship to reality. Most species become extinct. Some evolve into better versions of life. Some species were just dead ends. We are the decedents of those who got it right so far. Those who lived in right relationship with reality.
There is nothing in the universe that guarantees that we will continue to exist. When the next super volcano occurs or a big asteroid hits that we didn't see coming or a local star goes supernova, we could be wiped out. In the long run something like that will happen. Thus if humans are going to be around for the long run we are going to have to move out into space and find other planets to colonize. In order to do that we are going to have to figure out who we are, how we got here, what our purpose for existence is, and how we are going to survive.
We are developing the technology to determine what we are going to evolve into. We will soon be able to modify our genetics and to add mechanical technology to our bodies. We have to start thinking now about what we are going to evolve into and it is definitely not too early to start thinking about it. One thing for sure - what we will become is not what we are now. We will either be vastly superior or we will be gone. It is up to us to bring ourselves in right relationship with reality so that in the future when we look back at what we are doing today that we feel good about having made the right choices.
Living in the Truth means that you have taken control of your Life Story and that you have dedicated yourself to the Realist way of thinking. Living in the Truth is the actual practice of Realist principles. It's more than just "believing in reality" it's fulling embracing doubt, expanding your curiosity about things, experiencing the desire to understand everything.
Living in the Truth means that you really really believe in reality. That you don't have a Golden Calf in your closet that you secretly worship. It means that you no longer throw virgins into volcanoes. It's when your past life is remembering when you believed in past lives.
Living the Lie is to be on the Path of Illusion. It seems to be the same thing as the Path of Illusion but not quite. The Path of Illusion represents your overall direction in life. Living the Lie is your daily activities in the here and now.
When you can no longer live the lie - it's time to unplug from the cult mind and come back to the real world. Sometime this is hard to do because reality isn't always a pretty picture. But - it is real. Because we are committed to moving forward in the Sacred Direction, we make the best of our Realty in the Sacred Moment so that the reality of tomorrow will be better than it is today. You do the best you can with what you have to work with.
A maintainer is a person who is in charge of a project and who takes responsibility to see the project through and keep it working. A Developer might find a Maintainer to be the person who takes the initial concept and resources and makes it their goal in life to maintain the project. The director of a non profit organization would be the maintainer. The developer might sit on the Board of Directors.
Meatspace, a term coined by John Perry Barlow, refers to the physical world inhabited by humans. It refers to the world where people meet in person as opposed to online. Meatspace is actually a subset of reality in that it is the part of reality where people reside. Meatspace does not include cyberspace which is also part of the real world but not the physical world, nor does it include other planets where humans have yet to colonize. It is also meant to be the opposite of the afterlife, the next world, and other references to real or imagined places where people don't go in physical form. Hugging occurs in meatspace.
A Miracle is when a person decides that they are going to change the world, and then goes out and makes it happen. It is the act of one person, or a small group of people, who against the odds achieve greatness. People like Gandhi, a single individual, who was a Dreamer that freed a nation. People like Nelson Mandela who after spending 27 years in prison rose to become president of the nation that oppressed him. People like Bill Clinton, a poor Arkansas country hick, who at the age of 15 shook the hand of President Kennedy and decided in that moment that he would become president and made it happen. Another example of what will be a miracle will be if this church accomplishes its goals, changing the world for the better, and without degenerating into chaos.
In the Church of Reality a Miracle is an accomplishment that is so fantastic that it seems almost supernatural that it occurred.
Miracles in the Church of Reality are not supernatural. There is no magic in our miracles. Miracles are the true stories of heroes where people through hard work, wisdom, adversity, and sacrifice showed courage in the face of danger and took it upon themselves to envision a better world and to make it real. Miracles inspire us and remind us that a single individual can change the world with their mind. Everyone of us, if we choose that path, can be that single individual.
To attempt to accomplish something useful in the real world. In the context of the Church of Reality a mission is a commitment to a course of action calculated to accomplish something specific in the real world. The Church of Reality has The Sacred Missions that include asking the Sacred Question - issuing the Sacred Challenge - Growing the Tree of Knowledge. The Mission is the doing of the dharma of the Church of Reality.
Monorealism is the belief in one reality. That all things that are real are part of reality and that anything that isn't part of reality is not real. In contrast monotheists and polytheists tend to believe in "other realities" which are "outside" of the world of science and are experienced through emotions generated by the imagination. Our "world" includes "everything that is real" and excludes everything that is not real. We may not know what is and isn't real but our position is that whether or not we know it's status, that everything that is real is real and everything that is not real is not real. There are no other states where something is real in "another world" or in a "different reality". Our definition of reality would include all other realities that are actually real. We distinguish ourselves from Polyrealistic religions that are based on the idea that we are one of many realities and that there are separate realities where supernatural beings like deities live.
Monorealism also accepts the Sacred Principle of Scrutiny in that we apply the principles of science to determining what is and isn't real. We might believe something is true that we can't prove because we don't know everything. But if we believe in something it's because we have a reason to believe it's real. it's because we have some evidence, or a theory based on logic, or some mathematical model where at least the math works (string theory).
Monorealism excludes faith in that everything we believe in is subject to scrutiny. We have accepted that if we are proven wrong that we will change our minds. Faith excludes scrutiny and if you accept something based on faith then you are expected to continue to believe it no matter what.
Realists experience the world through understanding. We rely on logic, reason, wisdom, and scrutiny as the foundation of our beliefs. In contrast beliefs that require emotions and the imagination are not considered to be reliable.
Also known as Ego Masturbation - The act of self gratification by participating in activities to make you feel superior because you are a member of a group of the chosen and are therefore better than the un-chosen. The Cult Mind keeps its victims plugged in by offering them ego treats to satisfy their addiction to praise and an artificial sense of self importance. Self importance is addicting much like drugs are and the ego addict will perform acts of moral masturbation to get that "I'm better than you" experience. Moral Masturbation can be something that an individual does for self gratification - or it might be done as part of "Group Moral Masturbation". Group Moral Masturbation might take the form of public prayer where the object of the public prayer is to be seen by the nonbelievers in order to make a public statement that we are the Chosen People who were chosen for an important mission by a deity to do some important work that the omnipotent deity can't accomplish himself.
Judgment is also a common act of Moral Masturbation. The pointing of the finger to declare non cult members as "condemned" and sharing a fantasy that the universe is one big court and that there is a judgment day and that the criteria for judgment is not something that makes sense in the real world - but rather you are judged by your membership in a cult. They believe that your "sins" are forgiven by "faith" which is really the extent that they plug into the Cult Mind and suppress their connection to the real world.
The Sacred Principle of Humility tells us not to perform Moral masturbation on ourselves. As Realists we are tempted to look down upon the victims of cults as "stupid people" and take an ego thrill because we are "smart" and they are "dumb". But this too is Moral Masturbation and it is something that keeps us from evolving forward. Everyone does it to some extent. But we should watch ourselves (Principle of Self Scrutiny) and try not to play with ourselves that way.
The Earth is the mother of all life on this planet. All living being on this planet are the Children of the Earth. This is where life on this planet evolved. We all grew up together here through billions of years of evolution. Life evolved from the elements of this planet that provided the right environment to create the hydrocarbon life forms that exist today. We don't yet know if other planets have life but it is logical to assume that life on other planets would be very different than life on this planet. Our DNA came from the primordial goo (for lack of a better term) that resulted from Mother Earth's unique environment.
Mother Earth is the mother of life on this planet. We grow together through evolution. All living beings here are related to us. Earth is our common home.
We are related to all other life on this planet. We all share common DNA. We are all one big interdependent family dependent on each other for our mutual survival living together on our mother planet. We are all distant cousins of the same parent. Realists are therefore environmentalists because when we take care of our mother we help to ensure our survival.
A natural religion is a religion that is based on reality and designed with the nature of humanity in mind. If religion really is the study of why we are here and where we came from then the answer to those questions must be found in the pursuit of reality the way it really is. The Church of Reality is dedicated in both name and mission to that task and is therefore a natural religion.
A natural or reality based religion has the characteristic that if the religion were reinvented from scratch that the new religion would be about the same as the original one. That is because there is a basis in reality or universal truths that create a guiding force to keep the belief system on track. In contrast, a fiction based religion would not be reproducible if reinvented from scratch. However, to different degrees all religions have some natural elements to them, like being against murder. It is no random coincidence that all religions just happen to agree that murder is wrong. That's because it is a concept that comes from reality itself.
One of the missions of the Church of Reality is to issue the Sacred Challenge to other religions to get them to accept self scrutiny. In doing so we are asking them to examine their belief systems to see what elements of their religion are based on natural law. We in the Church of Reality believe that other religions benefit from such challenges in that it helps their religion evolve in a positive direction. Any time we can get another religion to become more natural, the better off the world will be.
New evolution is an engineered evolution. When a species like us comes to a point where we have the technology to start altering our genetics and interface machine and biology then we can choose what we evolve into. Natural selection doesn't entirely go away. If we fail we still can become extinct. But we can build a better form of life and that life will build something even better. That is if we get it right.
We are like a caterpillar that is about to turn into a butterfly. We are about to become something completely different. The process is already beginning.
The "Next World" is the place where people go when they die. it is based on the belief that one has an immortal soul that lives forever in some form. After one dies the soul might go to a world of infinite reward or infinite punishment depending on if the believer met the qualifications in this life.
It might also mean a person's next incarnation, that if you are a good person in this life then the next time you will come back as a better person, or excape the reincarnation cycle altogether.
Belief in the next world is considered to be a Distraction by Realists in that we are focused on this world and this reality that we actually all are part of and that unless science discovers an afterlife the next world is a Waste of Neurons.
The term "not even wrong" means that someone has asserted a position that is either so ridiculous or unsubstantiated that they haven't come up to the level of being wrong. To be wrong about something means that you have made an assertion that is at least reasonable enough to address as being right or wrong. And example of this is someone saying, "You can't proved God doesn't exist." doesn't rise to the level of even bring wrong. Since the term God means something different to everyone then one can't prove the nonexistence of something so undefined.
Obsessing over a False Truth is when you are Distracted into focusing on what isn't real at the expense of what is real. Atheists, for example, are distracted because if you obsess on God then you're not talking about Reality. Obsessing over a False Truth is a bad habit. It is cured by spending time contemplating reality and in Communion.
Old evolution is the traditional view of evolution. It's survival of the fittest. It's phucking and fighting. It's DNA, thorns, teeth, claws, camouflage, and who can run the fastest. It's the basics of our understanding of evolution. It's about survival and extinction. It's about the hardware of an individual. It's Ayn Rand style evolution.
The Church of Reality is an Open Source Religion. The term first used by the religion Yoism, is analogous to open source software projects where people come together as a group to create software and allow everyone access to the source code and giving the opportunity to anyone who wants to become part of the project to participate in it's development. The Kernel which is the doctrine of the Church of Reality is open and evolving. We are the result of minds coming together to form a project to write the Operating System of Life. The project is evolutionary and it never ends. It allows our doctrine to change and evolve in the Sacred Direction. All knowledge of the Church of Reality is freely available for anyone to use under the terms of the GNU General Public License. Any derivative work of the Church of Reality must also be open source.
Being forced to believe in things that are not real. To endure injustice. To be chilled from pursuing reality as it really is. To be denied the understanding of understanding. To be required to behave in a way that lacks ethics and honesty. To be forced to live the lie. Oppression is to be forced to be silent with respect to the truth. To be denied the freedom to practice Realism and to explore reality the way it really is. To be denied the right to express our thoughts and to share them with others. To be cut off from the Tree of Knowledge.
It is oppressive for us to be forced to participate in the rituals of other religions. To be forced to acknowledge deities which don't exist or choose to remain invisible to realists. To endure living in a society that is not religiously neutral - a society that is dominated by another religion. To be forced to endure a morality structure that is based on mythology rather than reality. It is oppressive to be forced into fighting a war that is really between other religions and is a battle for religious dominance. It is oppressive to be dominated by a government which is dominated by a mythology based religion. It is oppressive to have to pay taxes to support the activities of mythology based religions.
Original Virtue is the assumption that people are intrinsically good. It is in opposition to Christianity's original sin - that everyone is so evil that they deserve to be tortured forever in Hell. It amazes me that people actually believe that. It is also in contrast to Objectivism that takes the position that people are intrinsically selfish and that selfishness is good and selflessness is evil.
Realists consider ourselves intrinsically good. Christians consider themselves intrinsically evil. Could we both be right?
The Church of Reality recognizes that humanity evolved higher social functions in order to survive and thrive. Our evolution towards being "good people" allows us to function as a healthy society. We don't lay bullshit mind trips on people to make them artificially feel unworthy and guilty in order to manipulate them. We are good people who respect each other and are helpful good citizens who do as well as we can with what we have to work with. We are not selfish greedy people and we don't need fear of fake deities to scare us into good behavior.
Some people look back and think that humans are inherently evil, pointing out any number of atrocities in history as well as current events. And there is plenty of bad stuff to find. But if you look at all the good stuff and really think about it there are probably at least 100 good acts for every bad one. Much of that is culture driven and if we work to improve the culture then we will raise our children to be even better than we are. We should also look at original virtue as a goal for the future so that as we evolve forward, future generations will be better than today's.
Teaching children shame is fundamentally wrong.
Many religions teach children to be filled with shame and guilt. They are taught that people are evil and that people are bad. This is poisoning the minds of children and is just plain wrong. We urge all people to rethink these sort of myths for themselves and to reconsider if you want to poison your children the way a church poisoned you.
The Path of Illusion refers to someone who has chosen to turn their back to Realism and base their beliefs on Faith rather than putting Reality First. It refers to the lost souls who have chosen not to Accept the Truth and waste their limited existence pursuing the unreal rather than what's real. The Path of Illusion often include Worshiping a False Truth.
The Path of Reality is the path your life takes when you decide to make Realism your Life Story. It is a transformational process where you see the world in terms of reality and you start to rethink the way you think and you take on the Realist identity.
Personal Evolution is about how your life evolves from the moment you are born to the moment you die. Our minds are exposed to many ideas and we are presented with many life choices that affect who we are and what we will become. Some say that you are what you eat and that might be true on a molecular level but in the Church of Reality we think it's more accurate to say that you are what you think. That whatever you decide to spend your time doing and what you think about defines who you are. And the process of moving from what you are today to what you will be tomorrow is called personal evolution.
We are a religion that values our free will. We value our Freedom and we take responsibility for who we are and what we do. Since we are committed to the pursuit of reality, we take control of our personal evolution to determine what we will become. We are our own creators in that we accept our circumstances and do the best we can with what we have to work with. If we don't like what we are we can choose to begin the process of evolving into what we want to be. And by choosing to personally evolve forward, all of humanity personally evolves forward.
Your Personal Evolution is the history of your existence. It is the record of your life. It is the sum total of what you are. It's your past, your present, and your future. It is the vector of your life. Where are you, where have you been, and where are you heading? From the moment you are born your life begins to evolve. You become part of society. Your evolution links into the evolution of the human race to become part of our collective history and to add your uniqueness and original ideas to the Tree of Knowledge.
Your Personal Evolution is the history of your existence. It is the record of your life. It is the sum total of what you are. It's your past, your present, and your future. It is the vector of your life. Where you are, where you have been, and where you are heading. From the moment you are born your life begins to evolve. You become part of society. Your evolution links into the evolution of the human race to become part of our collective history and your uniqueness and original ideas to the Tree of Knowledge.
Just as realists have their personal reality, believers have their personal fiction. Members of fiction based religions don't all believe the same things. Even in the most authoritarian of cults, the individuals often have very different perceptions of what it is they really believe in. Believers often talk about right and wrong as if they had moral certainty about their convictions but in reality they are not experiencing a common belief the way they think they are. In fact what they really have in common is the false idea that they all believe the same thing. But when people express their interpretation of their beliefs individually and freely, if they are allowed to do that, they are not very close at all.
The belief in God is an example of Personal Fiction because since God isn't real, or is at least hiding, the concept of God is created by the imagination of the individual believer. Each believer believes in a different God of their own creation.
Personal fiction is the fact that the believers in fiction based religion all believe a personal version of the fiction that is very different from those in the same cult mind. This is especially true of those who communicate directly with God because God doesn't exist and what people imagine is the word of God is a very different message from person to person. (Side note: If God had a consistent message it would be evidence that he actually existed.) Since personal fiction is fiction based, it varies more than a realist's personal reality. Personal reality is at least tied to objective reality that creates a common reference that ties realists together. Believers are tied together by their mythology and the mythology is a moving target.
Personal Illusion represents the things that a person believes in that aren't real. This includes things believed on the basis of faith or other means that exclude Scrutiny.
Personal reality refers to your personal experience of reality. It is you experiencing reality from your point of view. Personal reality is reality as seen from your eyes and limited to your realm of experience and distorted by your mental flaws and whatever bad information you believe. It also incorporates an emphasis on the issues that the individual is personally involved in or interested in.
Personal reality recognizes that our perception of the universe is limited. We are not omnipotent and our brains can only handle a limited amount of information. We are also using a brain that is far less perfect than a computer and often gets things wrong. Personal reality is distorted by our own personality as well. However, it is what we have to work with and we have to do the best we can with what we have. Our personal reality is our perspective of The One True Reality that we are all part of. The Church of Reality is a Monorealistic religion in that we are all part of the same reality.
Plugged in and Unplugging relate to your connection to the cult mind. Humans organize into groups in order to function. Sometimes it is good and sometimes it is not. People get addicted to cults because the cult gives them a sense of purpose of self worth. It gives them community. But it demands that they give up reality and become a mind slave. But you are dependent on them and they use you. This is what being "plugged in" means. You are plugged into the cult mind.
Unplugging is the process of disconnecting yourself from the cult mind. It is to decide that you can no longer live the lie. In your heart you know that what you are connected to isn't real. You see things going on that offend your sense of fairness and honesty. You feel reality calling you home. You want to come back to the real world and have reality change your life. But to unplug you have to disconnect yourself from the cult mind and the benefits that you have come to depend on. Until you unplug you will stay on the Path of Illusion rather than the Path of Knowledge.
Polyrealism is a word that describes the assertion that there are "multiple realities" often referred to "other world" or "other planes of existence" or "the afterlife". These include views of realities based on faith or personal belief systems that exclude objective reality or put ones personal view of reality ahead of what really exists.
Most religions are polyrealistic religions because they believe in the "supernatural" which are things that are outside of the "natural" world. The Church of Reality is a Monorealistic religion in that we believe that there is one true reality, that reality being the sum total of everything that actually is real.
The term "pond scum" refers to our evolutionary past, to the origin of life on this planet. It is a metaphor for the moment of creation in the evolutionary sense. Although we didn't actually evolve from pond scum it is a common image representing the origin of life.
Pondering the Great Questions otherwise known as the Wondering about Wondering - is one of the things we do to explore reality and as a mental exercise to keep our minds in reality based thinking and to keep us sharp. Some of the Great Questions include:
Why does anything exist? Why is there something rather than nothing?
Does "fate" exist? Is there a "fixed future?" Is every moment the mathematical progression of the previous moment - or - is there randomness on any level? If the "big bang" happened again exactly the same way in a parallel universe - would you still be in that universe 15 billion years later reading this web page? Do we really have any free will or is all of reality predestined on a fixed course that nothing can effect?
Is there life on other planets and is it intelligent life? I think most people believe that other planets at least contain primitive (virus like) life. But how many have had significant evolution? Could this be the only planet with life that has become self aware? Am I the smartest being in the universe? (That's a scary thought!) Are there beings far more advanced than we are?
What is the future of mankind? (Actually - this is the Holy Question - but it is also great) Where are we going? How far can we go? What will life on Earth be like 200 years from now? Or 2 million years from now? What technologies will we develop? What will society look like? Is it a future that will be a good future or will we become something horrible?
How do we know what is real? How do we know that what we believe is real really is real? How do we know that we aren't just fooling ourselves. How do we know that what we believe isn't just a result of being part of the Cult Mind? How do we know any of this is real and that we don't have a chip in our brain that is artificially creating this life experience? How do we know that we are not just living in a simulation?
These questions are examples of the Great Questions that we are Realists ponder and discuss. We are Explorers and we are exploring our tiny piece of the universe with our limited minds and tools. The Great Questions represent the challenge before us and they keep us focused on reality and away from the Cult Mind.
A person who pretends to be into reality who really isn't, but want's others to think he is. The commitment to reality has to be real. If you're faking it then why bother? (Thanks to Anna Wolk for this term)
The phrase "Praise and Blame" used together reflect the dichotomy of reward for success and punishment for failure. These concepts are married together because if you indulge in praise - then you suffer the shame of blame. Both come from the same flaw which is excessive self importance. When we accept the Path of Knowledge we do so in a humble way. The Sacred Discipline demands that we give up our self importance so as to immunize ourselves from the Cult Mind. We don't accept praise and blame nor do we inflict it on others. We are forgiving and our goal is to heal ourselves when we fail rather than to indulge in judgment and condemnation. (Thanks is Steven Gaskin for the idea.)
Purification of Truth is taking a theory that we think is true and putting it to the test of doubt and scrutiny and applying scientific methodology to verify that what we think is true really is true. We do this so that we can catch mistakes and weed out information that isn't true, or to verify that what we believe still is true. Often it gives us a deeper understanding where something still is true, but we know more about it. Often the purification of truth leads us to other truths that we haven't yet discovered. Or it may cause us to find an error in something related to the truth we are purifying.
An Explorer or group of Explorers who goes on a trip or involves themselves in a new activity for the purpose of understanding reality is on a "Quest". A quest is like a mission but more of a short term event where a mission is a bigger longer goal. A Quest would be more like taking a weekend to take your family to a science museum to learn about new things or to go on retreat for self exploration and getting real.
The term Real Reality is somewhat redundant in that reality by definition (at least our definition) is the sum total of everything that actually is real. However there are those who like to do some definition twisting and word games around the word reality so we have created a definition for Imaginary Reality which is by definition a contradiction. This terms are tools for helping to explain to people who insist on believing what they want and calling it real that we in the Church of Reality consider reality something sacred and that definition twisting is not a part of reality based culture. We believe what reality turns out to be, not that reality turn into what we want to believe it is.
Realism is the name of what we believe in. Buddhists believe in Buddhism. Realists believe in Realism. Realism is the practice of believing in reality.
Members of the church of Reality. Realist is the term we give to our religious identity. People who believe in Christ are called "Christians". When asked, "What religion are you?" we reply, "We are Realists."
Reality is what we believe in. The way things really are. Reality is that which doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. It's not our personal reality or our perception of reality or what we want reality to be. Reality is the way it is. It is objective reality. As Realists practicing Realism - we pursue the understanding of Reality.
I didn't invent reality - reality invented me. Although we don't know how we got here or why anything exists - we know that reality created us. First there was this real world and somehow we are here.
Our reality in the Church of Reality is a jealous reality. Thou shall have no realities before the one true reality, the sum of everything that is actually real. We put reality first. Reality comes before faith and it comes before any deities. When you Accept the Truth you do that by putting Reality First.
The instinctual need to be connected to reality and to understand reality is within us all. We are the result of billions of years of evolution and we are descended from those who were best able to make reality a part of their lives. Understanding reality is a survival skill. Staying Real helps tip the odds in your favor so that when you do make a choice based on reality it is more likely to be a good choice than if you ignored reality. Evolution favors the realist and our very souls are ultimately rooted in the real world. No matter how strongly the Cult Mind controls us - we never lose the ability to Become Real in the Sacred Moment.
Reality Positive means something that is positive about reality as opposed to negative about non-reality. The Church of Reality is a reality positive religion because we focus on what we do believe in as opposed to what we don't believe in. In contrast Atheism focuses on what isn't real. Our existence is limited to a small amount of time. If we spend that time focusing on what isn't real then we miss out on what is real. Our motto is, "If it's real, we believe in it.", as opposed to, "If it's not real then we don't believe in it."
Religion 3.0 is the next stage in the evolution of religion. Religion 1.0 was the authority of elders. Religion 2.0 was the authority of scripture. Religion 3.0 is the authority of evidence. Religion 3.0 is characterized by a move to base religious doctrine on evidence rather than belief. Religion 3.0 heralds the Age of Awakening moving from belief to knowledge and understanding who we are and what our purpose is in the context of Big History. That we are the universe contemplating its own existence.
Humanity have evolved to the point where we now understand the Big History of the universe. We now know where we come from and how we got here. Therefore the time has come to leave behind the creation stories of 1.x and 2.x religions that are belief based to knowledge based religions. Religions have to incorporate reality into their doctrine to Stay in the Game or they will be Left Behind.
A person's religious identity is the name of the religion that they identify themselves with. In this society people want to know, "What religion are you?" Generally they expect a one word answer with the name of a religion that expresses their religious identity. A person might say they are a Buddhist - or a Christian - or a Jew - or a Muslim - or a Hindu. These are examples of religious identities.
The Church of Reality provides a religious identity for Realists. The word Atheist for example doesn't describe what you believe in but rather what you don't believe in. The belief in reality isn't new but what this church does is to give a name to the belief in reality. One of the missions of this church is to establish the name Church of Reality and Realism as the practice of the religion so that when someone asks a Realist what religion they are - that they can say it and the listener has heard of it and understands what they mean. To that end the Church of Reality has a duty to realists through the Principle of Self Scrutiny to always preserve the intellectual integrity of this church so that people who truly believe in reality the way it really is can feel comfortable calling themselves Realists.
Responsible religion is a religion that is honest about what they believe in and has a commitment to making the future better than the past. Responsible religion isn't afraid of reality. Responsible religion accepts scrutiny and criticism. Responsible religion allows you to question everything.
Responsible religion denounces torture or murder of people. It doesn't look forward to the end of the world. Responsible religion protects the environment and treats our planet as our home. Responsible religion sees humanity as one big community that includes everybody.
When one embarks on creating a religion with the name Church of Reality one can not rely on arbitrary subjective assumptions that reflect the preference of a single individual. The Church of Reality must - by definition - be based on something that is objective. We have accepted the burden of having to show our work. We can't just arbitrarily declare something to be true. We have to support it. We have to stand up to Scrutiny. In the Church of Reality the Root Axiom is what gives meaning meaning. It's the logical basis to separate right from wrong and form the basis for Morality.
Our Root Axiom is that to Exist it better that to not exist.
Our Root Axiom is that to exist is better than to not exist. By continuing to exist we don't mean as an individual, or as in eternal life. What we mean is that it is better that humanity continues to avoid extinction. That humanity is not Left Behind.
That in itself can be questioned as an arbitrary value judgment. One might ask why it is better for humanity to exist than to become extinct? And that would be a fair question for which we offer this justification.
Our first justification is that the opinion to exist is rigged in favor of existence. Those who exist get to vote. Those who don't exist don't get to vote. We humans are also a creation of evolution. Our ancestors did whatever it took to exist. This who failed to exist were Left Behind. Because of our method of creation we are pre-programmed by evolution to favor existence over nonexistence. Since the Church of Reality is about the understanding of reality by humans we have to incorporate our human nature into the equation.
Some might say that the Earth or the Universe would be better off without us. Maybe if we were gone the cockroaches will evolve into something better than we are. We just don't know. But the Church of Reality was created by humans for humans and in order to accomplish our mission we have to Stay in the Game. Thus for humans to continue to exist is better than humans becoming extinct is true in the context of how the Church of Reality is defined.
Reality is the story of everything that exists. We have to continue to exist to be part of the Story of Reality
Reality itself is about what exists. Without existence there would be no reality. Therefore a Church of Reality must accept existence as a universal positive value over extinction which is looked at as a negative value. Morality and value systems are artificial constructs based on axioms that we accept as true within a specific context. Thus we as Realists accept this root axiom and we have something solid to base our systems of morality - right and wrong - without the need for an omnipotent rule giver.
In order to continue to exist we have to pursue the understanding of reality.
In addition to the Root Axiom, the Church of Reality has the Sacred Axiom - that the pursuit of the understanding of reality has value. The Sacred Axiom used to be our root axiom but our new root axiom is technically better in that it is more primitive and less subjective. Our Sacred Axiom is derived from the root axiom. In order to continue to exist we need to live in Right Relationship with Reality. We have to understand the reality we exist in in order to survive. Thus the Sacred Axiom becomes a method for accomplishing the Root Axiom.
The Sacred Axiom is the fundamental idea that forms the basis of the Church of Reality religion. The Sacred Axiom is that the pursuit of the understanding of reality by humans has value. The name Church of Reality implies that we are a religion that believes in everything that is real and doesn't believe in what isn't real. If we knew everything that was and wasn't real then it would be simple. However since we are in the process of exploring reality then a more accurate description is that we are in the process of pursuing an accurate understanding of reality, and that reality is our standard for determining what to believe and what not to believe.
Our Sacred Axiom is - The Understanding of Reality by Humans has Value
The Sacred Axiom establishes the pursuit of the understanding of reality to be our religious value that forms a basis for our religious identity. It is the root axiom for which our moral and ethical systems are based and it gives us a purpose in the universe. This purpose is a self chosen purpose and is somewhat of an artificial construct that we, as Realists, accept as a religious choice.
The Sacred Axiom used to be the lowest level axiom for the basis of the Church of Reality but we have actually realized an even more primitive axiom that our Sacred Axiom can be derived from. Our new Root Axiom is that to exist is better than to not exist. Our Sacred Axiom, the pursuit of the understanding of reality is actually a method of achieving the root axiom. In order to live in Right Relationship to Reality we have to understand reality. Otherwise we will be Left Behind.
The study of what makes us make wrong choices. The things in our nature that lead us away from reality as it really is. Our brain is a flawed tool. We humans are herd animals and we tend to be persuaded by those around us and we often choose to believe in something because we want to be socially accepted rather than because it is real. The science of delusion is the understanding of the cult mind. It is to understand how people can be deluded by cults and to be able to form the mental disciplines to protect ourselves from the cult mind.
Our ability as the human race to share knowledge is our greatest strength and perhaps our greatest flaw. From the moment we are born we want to learn. We want to understand ourselves and the would that we exist in. We rely on others to teach us. We have a biological need to mentally connect into the herd mind and to become a useful part of society. We desire to be respected and to have the illusion that we are part of some greater purpose doing some greater good. And there are those who would exploit that and lead us down the Path of Illusion. We live in a good society but we are not perfect. There are flaws that are both deliberately exploited or innocently exploited that lead us away from reality. One of the missions of the Church of Reality is to understand this in an effort to be able to determine objectively is why we are on the Path of Reality - or the Path of Illusion.
Cults are everywhere. They are not just limited to extreme cultism - but to religion in general. It incudes political parties, clubs, sports fans, all groups that form a group identity for which an individual might be deluded into group thinking that ignores reality. To ensure that the Church of Reality never degenerates into a cult - we need to take the principle of self scrutiny seriously and study ourselves to develop the science to be able to determine what is real in spite of our flaws. The Science of Delusion is the term we use to study ourselves to determine if we are on the right track and to protect ourselves by understanding how we are exploited.
The understanding of understanding. Knowledge of what knowledge is and how it works. It could be described as reality itself becoming self aware. The processes of the pursuit of reality as it realty is.
The Science of Knowledge is an understanding of our own brains. How the mind works both physically and mentally. The mind is who we are and the tool we use to perceive reality and to connect to other minds through language with which we share our knowledge and understanding. It is the science that allows us to comprehend the Tree of Knowledge itself. How do we know what we know? How do we know it is real? What is knowing? How does the individual interface into the collective mind? What is a collective mind and who controls it? These questions are examples of the realm of the Science of Knowledge.
People who let others do their thinking for them. People who are not in control of what they believe in. People who have not taken personal responsibility to question their faith. People who refuse to ask the Sacred Question - "What is Real?" To be a sheep is to follow blindly a path where reality is excluded from the process.
To introduce chaos or viruses into the Tree of Knowledge. To persecute explorers. To intimidate seekers of reality. To spread false and misleading information. To cause humanity to evolve in a negative direction. To put humanity on the Path of Destitution and Destruction.
A Smart Universe is a universe that contain at least one form of life that has evolved to the point where it is aware the universe exists. Since all life in the universe was created by the universe through an evolutionary process, we are the universe. Therefore because we are the universe and we are aware of the universe, the universe is self aware through us.
We are, along with other advanced life forms in the universe, the universe contemplating itself, learning about itself. Our existence makes the universe a smart universe. If we ceased to exist and there is no other highly evolved life in the universe then the universe would again become a Dumb Universe.
To be clear, (The Atheist Disclaimer), we are not suggesting that the universe has a mind independent of ourselves and is some sort of father/deity figure. We are more like the universe's first brain cells.
Snot Theory is a metaphor for theories that don't stand up to scientific Scrutiny. It's used in a response to the argument, "No one knows the answer so you can't prove my answer isn't right."
Snot Theory is the hypothesis that the Big Bang was caused by a deity sneezing and that the universe was created out of snot. Of course we all know it's snot true. So if someone makes a "God of the Gaps" argument or postulates a theory without any logical support, we would call their idea Snot Theory.
A sock puppet is a cult member. We call them sock puppets because they have surrendered their will to their masters and what they say are the words of the cult. They are completely dominated by the cult mind and are required to believe without question what they are told to believe. To become a sock puppet is to totally surrender your free will and surrender to a life of slavery.
An example of a sock puppet is a Jehovaha's Witness who comes to your door and when you try to have a conversation with them. It's like the person isn't even there. They just parrot a narrative that they are required to believe in order to stay part of the cult. Before a sock puppet can accept reality they have to realize that it will lead to them being thrown out of their cult.
Staying in the game means to continue to exist. To avoid extinction. As long as humanity survives we are in the game. If we become extinct we are out of the game.
In the game and out of the game describes evolution and extinction in more personal terms. Generally one thinks of evolution and extinction as something that happens over a long period of time. Sometimes it can be quite sudden, especially extinction. We are only here because our ancestors stayed in the game. The did what it takes to survive. The term "in the game" also implies that one has to actively work to say in, and if one doesn't do what it takes to stay in the game then you lose, and you are out.
In the religious debate the view of the Church of Reality is that the pursuit of the understanding of reality, the way it really is, has value. This is our Sacred Axiom. It is not our mission to prove what doesn't exist, but to focus on what does exist. Staying on subject is to keep turning the conversation back to reality. If we are spreading the Sacred Message it is important that we make sure that the conversation is about reality. So if we discuss the existence of God then we do so in the context of reality based testing or from a reality based perspective.
We see conversation as a kind of sport. In sports sometimes the game is played on the home field and sometimes it is played away on their home field. There is a concept in sports that one plays better when they have the home field advantage. Reality is our home field. God is their home field. If we are going to have the home field advantage we have to stay on subject.
Staying True - also known as the Sacred Discipline - is the self discipline that we Realists practice to stay on the Path of Knowledge and to become wise. All around we are tempted to join the cult mind and to believe in things that aren't real because we are pressured by our friends and families to plug into the cult mind. We are also pressured to accept a level of dishonesty because everyone is doing it. But as Realists practicing Realism we have a Sacred Duty to the Truth and to ensure that we are not Living The Lie and end up on the Path of Illusion, we have to do what it takes to Stay True.
Staying True is our commitment to the Principle of Self Scrutiny. We always ask ourselves the Sacred Question - What is Real? Are we really on the Path of Knowledge or are we just fooling ourselves? We are aware that those who are on the Path of Illusion are usually very sure they are on the true path. Those who are Staying True however are never sure they are on the true path because we respect the powers of illusion around us. All we can say is that we believe that we are trying to do the best we can under the circumstances and we hope that it is good enough. We realize that no matter how hard we try - that we too can be fooled.
Staying True is to respect the Sacred Principle of Humility. We Realists are a humble religion because we realize how small we are in a vast reality. We avoid the ego because if we desire self worth and recognition we open ourselves to being plugged into the Cult Mind. The Cult Mind can entrap us by giving us a false sense of importance in order to enslave us. There is nothing wrong with feeling good about ourselves if we accomplish something or feeling bad about ourselves if we fail - as long as we do it moderately. We avoid becoming addicted to praise and we refuse to accept shame because we are not self important. We can be ok because we try hard and we are trying hard to stay true.
Using the terminology of the Church of Reality in order to make it part of the human vocabulary resulting in getting people to become interested in the understanding of understanding. Talking the Talk is saying the Sacred Message - talking about reality. It's bringing reality up. It's asking the Sacred Question - Is this Real? What is real here? Talking the Talk introduces the Church terminology into the group mind and causes the listener to think about reality. It helps make the Church of Reality part of the Tree of Knowledge and it affects in a positive way how the human race makes decisions.
Telescope Time (or microscope time) is a metaphor for time spent exploring reality. It is a measure for how well the society we live in is functioning. If we have a good stable community to live in that is safe, has good education, food, transportation, utilities, and happy productive people then we have time left to look through telescopes and explore the universe we live in. We have time to explore reality and grow the Tree of Knowledge. However if we live in a world of high crime, war, injustice, or poverty where we have to work hard just to stay alive then we have less telescope time and can't explore reality.
As members of the Church of Reality the exploration of reality is important to us. We need to explore reality so that humanity can Stay in the Game. Otherwise we will be Left Behind. We therefore require a stable happy community so that we have telescope time so that we can continue to exist.
The Awakening is a Church of Reality term describing this age where humanity has evolved to the point where we are aware that reality exists. This is the age where we have realized that the universe contemplates itself through us. We have chosen that humanity should continue to exist and to evolve forward so that our understanding of reality increases over time. We have rejected the Path of Extinction and embraced Positive Evolution putting us on the path to the Star Trek Future. Because this is happening now for the first time in human existence this is the age of awakening. Individuals who accept this path and commit to putting the understanding of reality first in their lives are referred to as being Awakened.
The AH-HA moment is the moment that the idea of the Church of Reality really sinks in. You're reading about reality, you think reality is a good idea, you like the idea of realism but you're still wondering, "What is the point of having a Church of Reality?"
Then all of a sudden something inside you yells "YES! Ah-ha! That's it! Reality! Of course! I get it! It's so obvious." It all comes together. It all makes sense. When you say to yourself that "Yes, I am a Realist! I am going to make the pursuit of reality my Life Story." When this happens you have had the ah-ha moment and your ready to put Reality First by Accepting Reality.
We as Realists are not "The Chosen Ones". We are not the chosen people. We make choices to (hopefully) better ourselves and we take responsibility for our choices that we make in a humble manner. But we are not special. We are merely people who serve the common good and try to live our lives in a way that values positive evolution and that we are humble, honest, caring people. We are not chosen because we reject the cult mind.
There are few absolute tests in the world to determine if you are on the Path of Knowledge or the Path of Illusion. But one sure way to tell that you are definitely on the Path of Illusion and plugged into the Cult Mind is if you are one of the "Chosen People". If you believe that you are "Chosen" then you are definitely Living the Lie and you are fully plugged into the Cult Mind. If you are chosen and you want to come back to the real world then one of the first steps is to become un-chosen. If you are someone "special" because God has chosen you - you are living a lie and it's all an illusion. You are deceiving yourself. You are being used. You are being enslaved. The Cult Mind has made you addicted to your ego and your sense of self importance. That is the hook that they draw you in with.
Cults suck you in by making you special and better than "those people". You are the "Chosen Ones" - they are the un-chosen. God has chosen you - and he has rejected them. You are going to spend eternity in paradise - they are going to spend eternity burning in Hell. You are righteous - they are unrighteous. You have been washed in the blood of the lamb - they are filthy sinners. I'm praying for you because I'm "saved" and you are "lost". We are God's chosen people and God gave us this real estate (the holy land) and we must kill the infidels to drive them out of the Holy City. We are good - they are evil. We the good must defeat the evil ones in battle. It is "us" against "them" in a "war" for the soul of humanity. You are either on God's side or you serve Satan. Sound familiar? That is how cults plug you in. And once you have become addicted - then you become unplugged from the real world - Living the Lie - and being enslaved on the Path of Illusion.
This is why the Sacred Principle of Humility is so important. We are all one people living together on this one planet (for now). We are all in this together and we are all going to take care of each other so that we all survive and prosper. We work for the good of the human race so that we can grow the Tree of Knowledge and we all can evolve positively in the Sacred Direction - forward.
This is the difference between the Cult Mind and the Path of Knowledge. Our commitment to reality the way it really is means that we have to give up being "chosen" and accept the humble path and do the hard work. This planet is just a speck of dust in a giant universe and we exist for but a moment in time. We as realists make the Sacred choices to pursue reality the way it really is. And we don't have all the answers - but we do know there are things that are not true - and being chosen by a deity is one of them.
To be not chosen doesn't mean that you are not part of any cult mind - but it's a good start on the road to cult-free living. The Sacred Principle of Humility prohibits people from being "chosen ones" and that kind of ego-based deception has no place in the Church of Reality.
One of our greatest strengths is our ability to organize ourselves into groups and to work together sharing knowledge between us. However this can be a great weakness if we organize around the wrong principles. If we are seduced into being part of a cult then we allow ourselves to be controlled by the cult mind. There is actually little difference between a healthy community and a cult. The main difference is that good heathy communities are based on reality and cults are based on illusion. It is not enough to go through the motions of being a good person. You have to do more than just make your life count. It has to count for something good.
A Realist is on the Path of Knowledge. Cults are on The Path of Illusion. It becomes a life of simulation and it's the difference between fake and real. A realist stays on the Path of Knowledge by putting reality first and always questioning themselves because they realize the importance of the Sacred Principle of Self Scrutiny. A Realist seeks reality - cults fear reality because if you are in a cult and you make a commitment to pursue reality the way it really is - one of the first things you realize is that you are in fact in a cult and you are wasting your life when you could be out there doing something real. But in order to make this kind of revelation you must be willing to unplug yourself and do your own thinking and take responsibility for your choices. If you are emotionally dependent on the cult mind for your sense of community and self worth then you shall remain enslaved and blinded to the real world.
The Church of Reality can also be called the Cult of Reality in that we live in a world of both logic and reason and mental manipulation. The Question is always asked "How do we know that this church won't degenerate into something terrible like so many other religions have?" And - the short answer is - we don't know. After all - if the church of Reality ever became a cult - we would be sure that we were not one.
This church does use mental manipulation the same way many other churches do. People are programmed to think in terms of religion and the terminology used by this church is chosen to fit those same patterns so as to slip into the mind of the listener and cause their mind to respond in a predetermined way. We abuse the word "Sacred" as a marketing tool to get people to think about this church. And - it does raise the "Sacred Moral Question" - is this a good thing?
One could say that the ends justify the means and this is the way the Tree of Knowledge is wired. But there is a difference between what is necessary and what is ideal. This church uses the same mental tricks as cults do to spread what we believe is the truth. And - stating this encourages us to look at ourselves from the perspective of Self Scrutiny. And - there will be people who join the cause of reality - not as fellow explorers - but as followers. And that raises important questions about who we are and how we do what we do.
What is the difference between the universe and reality. Sometimes these words are used interchangeably but there is a significant difference.
The term Universe started with the Big Bang and represents the sum total of everything that came from that event. There may be some greater reality out there that contains our universe and perhaps other universes or structures so great as to be incomprehensible. The distinction is our attempt to be as accurate as we presently can based on our limited understanding of reality. Perhaps in a billion years from now, if we continue to evolve forward we will know a lot more about reality than we do today.
I, Marc Perkel, am the founder of this religion. I therefore call myself "The First One". I am not a deity. I am not even much of a role model. I'm just an ordinary guy with an idea. The Church of Reality is not about me - it's about reality. I'm just someone who is trying to do a good job of getting this started in the right direction so that it is self maintaining and doesn't become corrupted down the line.
The Fruits Test refers to a Bible scripture where Jesus says, "You will know them by their fruits." This was the way that one could tell true believers from those who do not truly believe.
The Church of Reality members are always being challenged by believers who claim that they have a personal relationship with a deity that has changed their life and made them a better person. Many religions claim to have an affiliation with the supernatural claiming that God is on their side and that they are somehow benefited from the relationship in a way that Atheists can't match.
There are those who claim that for some reason God isn't directly observable. But if someone has on some level merged with the spirit of an omnipotent deity, then there should be an observable affect on that person. If a religious group claims an affiliation with an omnipotent deity then that groups behavior should reflect a measurable benefit from that relationship.
The Hard Truth is another name for the Sacred Truth except that it speaks of the effort and willingness to give up on what you want to believe and accepting what really is. Reality isn't what we want it to be, nor is it what other people want us to believe it is. The Hard Truth is reality the way it really is. It is often hard to give up believing the beliefs we are comfortable with and believe instead what really is true as determined by the Sacred Method.
What is our future going to be like 100 years from now? The Holy question makes us aware that our decisions that we make in the Sacred Moment determine if we will evolve in a positive direction or towards extinction. In asking the Holy Question we become aware of our responsibilities in the here and now and about what we are doing and why we are doing it. The Holy Question inspires us to be wise and responsible and to wonder about what we can achieve together. And to acknowledge that it is our responsibility to maintain the dream of a better tomorrow.
The Holy TV show is Star Trek. Star Trek is the Holy TV show because it is a show that envisions a future, The Star Trek Future, where we have evolved in a positive direction towards a future that is better than the one we have today. In Star Trek we have put our race and national differences behind us and we have united together as one planet to reach out into the universe and make peaceful contact with other life forms that we find as we explore the universe. Star Trek inspires our imagination and causes us to become One with the Tree as our minds are led to contemplate the Holy Question - "What will the future of the human race be?" Star Trek honors the Sacred Direction and the Principle of Positive Evolution as well as many other Sacred Principles of the Church of Reality.
The Kernel is the name for our Church Doctrine. It is a concept stolen from computer terminology refering to the Linux operating system kernel which is the core program that makes the system run. The First One is presently the maintainer of the Kernel. Other people who also work on the kernel shall be known as kernel developers.
The Kernel is the operating system of the human race. It is the realization of who we are and why we are here. It tries to put the great questions into context and to form a system for pursuing answers to the great questions of the universe.
Every religion has a "Meaning of Life" that creates a sense of meaning and purpose for existence. We in the Church of Reality are no different and our meaning of life is actually better than other religion's meaning of life because our meaning of life is based in reality itself.
As a reality base religion the Burden of Proof when it comes to grand statements like defining the meaning of life in an atheistic context. So what is our meaning of life? What is our grand purpose? And how to we justify it in the context of reality?
Some might argue that "meaning" itself has no meaning and that the concept of a "meaning of life" itself is an artificial construct. Who are we to artificially give value to what happens in the universe and determine that one outcome is better than another? What is the basis to even say that our existence is better than our extinction?
Another way of looking at the word "meaning" however is to equate it to purpose. Does it cause something to occur? In this case life caused intelligence to occur (humans), and that intelligence was capable of contemplating reality itself. Without life the universe becomes dumb. Life is necessary for the universe to be aware that it exists (universal self awareness). Therefore life has the purpose of creating universal self awareness. One might argue the purpose isn't important, but important or not - it is a purpose.
We are a creation of the universe. We are part of the universe and we represent what the universe evolved into; at least this small piece of the universe represented by our planet. The universe on this planet after 13.7 billion years has evolved life and we are that life. We have evolved to the point where we are aware of reality itself. Thus it can be said that reality itself become self aware through us.
We are the mind of reality contemplating its own existence.
If there is other intelligent life in the universe then they too are reality contemplating itself. So whether we are alone in the universe or we are just one of billions of planets containing intelligent life, we represent the method that the universe becomes self aware.
So if there is such a thing as value and meaning and that some outcome can be considered to be better than another outcome then we in the Church of Reality declare that reality becoming aware of its own existence and evolving to expand its understanding of itself through life constitutes a higher purpose.
Perhaps it is a property of the universe to start out dumb, evolve life, and that the life evolves into intelligent life. At some point the life becomes aware of the universe and reality and life itself becomes the path for the universe to attain self awareness. Thus the self awareness of the universe becomes the meaning of life.
The meaning of life is for the universe itself to attain self awareness through evolution.
Some might say that it is a conceit for humanity, who is just at the very beginning stages of contemplating reality to claim to be the mind of the universe. Such a criticism would be correct. But every species has to start somewhere and our path is just beginning. We might be like early animals on this planet where they just put together enough nerve cells to be called a brain.
Humanity is at that same early stage. We are just beginning to contemplate the idea of reality. We just developed the technology to be aware of what our universe is. We have some idea of its size and age. We have the beginnings of understanding what matter and energy is. That the universe contains start and galaxies. We can peer back into time to within a billion years of creation.
Humanity is like a new born baby when it comes to understanding reality but we have crossed the line of being born. We are aware reality exists and that we are real. We are now just awakening to the idea that we are reality contemplating itself. And we are grappling with the decision that perhaps we should choose to continue to exist and that we should choose to commit our existence to the expansion of the understanding of reality. We are at the moment of The Awakening, where humanity becomes aware of reality.
The One True Reality is the one reality that is the sum total of everything that is real. The Church of Reality is a Monorealistic religion. We believe in one reality that encompasses all other realities that actually are real.
Some people who are Polyrealistic talk about "other realities" but our reality includes what other people might call other realities that are actually real as opposed to imaginary realities which are not real. Anything that actually is real is included and everything that is not real is excluded.
Some people talk about a "personal reality" which is really their viewpoint on reality or a localized subset of reality that applies to their personal experience. Some people confuse this with their personal opinion or Personal Illusion.
Our justice system. Our society. Our rules and laws. It is the current system. Society is the Operating System of Life.
The concept of the Operating System of Life is a comparison to a computer's operating system. The computer runs a program that is the operating system. It doesn't do anything itself but creates the environment for which application software can run in. It is the structure that allows the computer to do useful work.
Similarly, the government and society are our operating system. It creates the infrastructure that we live in and work in. It includes the Internet as well as all forms of communication. It involves food distribution, education, law, justice, roads, energy, the environment, medical care, everything involving the fabric of society. Religion and the Tree of Knowledge are also part of the Operating System of Life.
Our dharma of the Church of Realty includes a commitment to improve the Operating System of Life. We are to be involved in helping to make sure society runs smoothly and is fair and just for all. Because we acknowledge that growing the Tree of Knowledge is central to our exploring reality as it really is - part of our mission is to ensure a better society in order to grow our understanding of understanding. We therefore commit ourselves to supporting the infrastructure of society and the study and support of the Operating System of Life.
The Path of Destitution and Destruction represents the state of a society or culture that has:
turned its back on the real world,
has made so many bad choices that it is in serious trouble, and
is under the control of a Cult Mind.
When the leaders of a society believe that they are going to see the end of the world in their lifetime, we are heading towards or are already on The Path of Destitution and Destruction.
In such a situation it is the job of the realists to ask the Sacred Question, to send the Sacred Message, and try to get people to Become Real in the Sacred Moment. The very core of our religious morality is to uphold the Principle of Positive Evolution. We are committed to move society forward and to protect and defend the Tree of Knowledge and the Golden Router. We therefore must never allow society to go down the Path of Destitution and Destruction.
Also known as "living the Lie". To have committed your life to a religion and a way of life that is based in mythology and has no basis in reality at all. A person who was a member of another religion and was involved in charitable work that is objectively helpful to society would not be in this category. However, someone who dedicated their life merely to the pursuit of a religion that only poisoned the Tree of Knowledge with false information would be on the path of illusion. One of the missions of the Church of Reality is to issue the Sacred Challenge to inspire people to determine if what they are trying to do is of any importance in the real world and examine whether they are in fact just wasting their lives.
One's personal commitment to the pursuit of understanding reality as it really is. A person who commits to believing in reality is said to be on the Path of Knowledge.
The Sacred Challenge is to challenge other religions and other belief systems on the basis of if what they believe is real. It is not necessary to convert the world to Realism but one of the missions of the Church of Reality is to raise the importance of reality in the minds of our neighbors of different faiths. We feel that challenging religions on the basis of reality improves their religions and helps make the world safer and saner for everyone. Religions that get too far away from reality can become a menace to the world. They might think that God wants them to be terrorists - or God wants them to start a war. We believe that faith with eyes open is better than blind faith.
The Sacred Challenge comes down to a simple question that this church asks of other religions. The question is - "There are many faiths who all believe that their faith is the true one - and that they are directly inspired by God and other miracles as written in various holy books. Yet these faiths believe different and conflicting things. Clearly some of these religions have to have it wrong - yet their beliefs are as deeply rooted as your own. How do you know that what you believe in is real? How do you know that you are a member of the true religion and that some other religion isn't real and you are just being fooled? How do you know you are the one that is right?"
Of course - as Realists - the Sacred Challenge applies to us more than anyone else. Should this church ever abandoned reality - it should be dissolved. And to that end the Church of Reality has established the Principle of Self Scrutiny as one of its Sacred Principles to always challenge ourselves as to what really is real.
The Sacred Direction is to move forward, to evolve in a positive direction, to go from worse to better. It is to grow - not shrink - the Tree of Knowledge. It is to look forward into the future and not be stuck in the past. We choose to move onward and upward. We seek progress. We shun setbacks.
The Sacred Direction is a religious choice that separates the Church of Reality from pure science. In pure science the universe is stars exploding and rocks in space bumping into each other. This planet is but a speck of dust in a galaxy of billions of stars in a universe of trillions of galaxies. And our short lives are but an instant in time. If this Milky Way galaxy were to explode tomorrow - it would take 2.2 million years before anyone in the next galaxy knew about it - assuming there is an anyone in the next galaxy to know it. In pure science, whether we progress or annihilate ourselves makes no difference. Whatever happens is whatever happens.
It boggles the mind to comprehend how totally insignificant we are in the cosmic scale of things. However - as Realists practicing Realism - we make a choice to evolve in a positive direction. We decide that our existence is significant at least to us and that progressing forward is better than extinction and annihilation. These choices are arbitrary choices we make based on our own (selfish) perspective. And because these choices are arbitrary - they are in fact religious choices.
We as Realists have chosen to separate "right" from "wrong" and to put value in progressing forward. These are the Sacred Choices that we make, and these sacred choices lead to our Sacred Principles, all of which ultimately come down to our decision to move in the Sacred Direction. The sacred direction is our core religious belief that becomes the basis for our moral values. The Sacred Direction is what establishes the Church of Reality as a religion as opposed to a branch of science.
The Sacred Duty is to Grow the Tree of Knowledge and to ask the Sacred Question for the purpose of helping the human race evolve in the Sacred Direction. The Sacred Duty is more than just giving lip service to the idea of reality. We as Realists take the practice of Realism seriously. The Sacred Principles are the core of our being and we dedicate our lives to the nurturing of the Tree of Knowledge. The Sacred Principles define the fabric of our society and the basis for moral structure and the concept of right and wrong. The Sacred Duty is to actually take this seriously and to bring our wisdom into the real world and shape the moral and ethical fabric of society.
The Sacred Gift is the gift of reality. This term is used in "giving the Sacred Gift" or "Receiving the Sacred Gift" meaning to help someone get real or to allow others to help you get real.
A web site named The Archive is storing millions of gigabytes of data of the history of the Internet. Some day in the future this information will be able to be mass processed in a way that will give us insight into the history of the beginning of the web. The Church of Reality therefore declares the Internet Archive to be a sacred historical shrine and that it should be preserved indefinitely for its historical value.
The Church of Reality issues the following Sacred Invitation to all the people of the world: "We ask you today to take a moment and think about Reality the Way it Really is. Let your mind wonder about wondering. Feel your mind thinking about thinking. Look around you and ask "What is really going on here?" How do you know that what you believe is really true? We ask you to allow reality into your life and to spend more time during your day to become Real in the Sacred Moment and let your thoughts become one with the real world. When making important decisions we invite you to consider reality as part of the process. We invite you to ask about everything and join us in the exploration of the world we live in.
When you change your life and become an active realist - committing your life to the Sacred Missions - you are said to be on a the Sacred Journey. The Sacred Journey is a life that is (hopefully) fuller and richer that Living the Lie.
The Sacred Message is the word Reality. It makes reality important. To say the word reality and real sends the sacred message. It causes reality to become more important in the thoughts of the listener. The Sacred Message causes the listener to become Real in the Sacred Moment. It reminds people that reality should be considered in people's daily lives and in their decision making processes. Sending the Sacred Message is to advertise and promote reality. To say the Sacred message is to issue the Sacred Challenge. The Sacred Message should become part of the vocabulary and spoken or written as often as possible. The Sacred Message is to inspire the reader or listener to ask the Sacred Question and to raise the importance of reality in society.
In the Church of Reality our Sacred method is the Scientific Method. The Sacred Method is what we use to determine what we believe in. We have our Principle of Scrutiny which requires that we question everything. Our world view is that truth is purified through doubt. That is why we identify ourselves as a Doubt Based Religion.
The Church of Reality would not be the Church of Reality unless we have a strong commitment to the pursuit of reality as it really is. Although we can and will make mistakes in our pursuit of reality we must not compromise our principles and methods that lead us there. There are disciplines that get us to the truth and allow us to continually reexamine what we believe to make sure that what we believe in actually is real. That is why the Scientific method is sacred to us because without the disciplines it requires we could end up just being Followers rather than Explorers.
The Sacred Missions is the dharma of the Church of Reality. These missions define what we as Realists do. And it is what we do that defines who we are. The Sacred Missions are also an attempt to explain what the Church of Reality is in a short document.
The Sacred Moment is Now. To "be here now" is to be in the sacred moment. This is the moment that decisions are made in. The moment where we experience reality in real time. We learn from the past and we look to the future. But Now is where we live.
The Sacred Moment is the moment of power - the moment of decision. As you are reading these words you become aware of your existence in the now. This is the point where you are making your decisions as to who you are or what you will do next. You can decide right now to stop reading this - or you can choose to read on. Now is the moment that you control and the time in which all choices are ultimately made. Therefore now becomes that Sacred Moment in the Church of Reality.
The Sacred Moral Question is - "Is this a Good Thing?" It cannot be separated from the related question, "What is Good?" It is indispensable in the quest for a fair and just society where people take reality into account in deciding the great moral and ethical questions. Often the rules of society are based on other things than what is in the best interest of the people. There are issues for which it is genuinely difficult to determine a system that takes all factors into account. To this end the Church of Reality poses the Sacred Moral Question in the hope that it reminds us to include in our decision making process the question "Is this a good thing that we are doing based on reality--and can we do better than this?" Goodness and Reality should always be considered in any process to determine a moral issue or an issue of law.
The Sacred Network is the Internet. Also known as the "Golden Router" or "Sacred Router". It is the technology where we communicate - exchange ideas - store our history - and make information available so that we as a race can grow together and explore reality as it really is.
The Internet is sacred to the Church of Reality because it is a tool that allows our minds to work together to explore reality the way it really is. We establish the Principle of Freedom to, in part, protect the Internet for those who would suppress free thought for their own personal agenda. It is absolutely necessary for us to practice our religion that the Internet be a forum of free thought and the free exchange of ideas. It allows us to form a group mind and to coordinate our efforts to explore, to grow, and to evolve in the Sacred Direction.
The Internet represents a significant step in the evolution of the human race. Our evolution moved from the physical to the mental as we developed the ability to communicate. We developed language - then written language - then the printing press - then radio - television - and now the Internet. The Internet is the birthplace of the Church of Reality and we as a church would not exist except for the Internet and the free expression for which it stands. And to that end we respect this accomplishment and give it the credit which is due and raise the status of the Internet to the level of being the Sacred Network.
The Sacred Personal Question is, "What do you want to be remembered for in the Tree of Knowledge? When you are gone - what of your life are you going to leave behind?" The Sacred Personal Question makes one aware of our own existence and what our place in the world will be. Will we be remembered for accomplishing something great? Will we be remembered for doing something terrible? Or - will we do nothing of any significance and be forgotten in the Tree of Knowledge? The only form of immortality that we know about for sure is how we will be remembered. We ask therefore that you consider whether how you will be remembered is important to you.
"What is Real?" (Also known as The First Question) Variations of the Sacred Question include, "Is this Real?" and - to a lesser extent - any question that tests any assertion on the basis of reality. The Sacred Question embodies the very reason for the existence of the Church of Reality.
A common misconception about the Church of Reality is the idea that the Church of Reality has all the answers. The Church of Reality is not here to answer the question "What is Real?" but rather to make a religious commitment to asking the question and making Reality the standard. We put Reality First.
It is up to science and exploration to answer the question of what is real using the Sacred Method commonly known as the Scientific Method. The Church of Reality is about the asking of the question. We are Explorers not Followers. We don't believe based on Faith. When one is Living in the Truth one asks the Sacred Question.
We as Realists have made a personal commitment to the pursuit of reality the way it really is. This choice is a religious choice. Other religions have made the religious choice to dedicate their lives to fiction and mythological beliefs, what we call Worshiping a False Truth. The Sacred Question defines who we are as a religion and is the core concept of our Religious Identity. The question sends the Sacred Message that we believe that reality is important and that we want to elevate the status of reality in the collective group mind. We ask the Sacred Question as an expression of our core beliefs and to express our moral conviction that the pursuit of reality the way it really is is better than the Path of Illusion or Worshiping a False Truth. To ask the question gives importance to pursuing the answer.
The Sacred Responsibility is to be the custodians of the future. It is up to us to look forward and see what challenges are in front of us and to look at them in a realistic manner so as to make better decisions. The Principle of Positive Evolution demands that we ensure that tomorrow is better than today and that we move forward into a better future. In order to do that we have to be wise and smart and we need to see opportunities and to avoid pitfalls. We are to see things coming and to think it through so that we don't have to deal with problems when it's too late.
As Realists, it is up to us to accept this Sacred Responsibility to be the people who step forward and say, "We will do this thing. We will make the world a better place." We accept that our evolution is in our hands and that our choices matter, and we will do what it takes to make sure our choices are the best possible choices under the circumstances. We are successful when we make sure that the Christians never see Armageddon.
The Sacred Slogan is - "If it's real - we believe in it." This slogan is our commitment to the truth. It means that once we have determined that something is real, then we are obligated to believe it. Conversely, if we determine that something is bullshit, then we are obligated to not believe in it.
The Church of Reality is about reality and not about what we want to believe in - or if we could attract more members if we compromised a little. It's not about attracting the masses. The Sacred Slogan helps keep us on the Path of Knowledge.
The Sacred Symbol of the Church of Reality is the capitol letter "R" with a Halo over it. The letter "R" stands for Reality and the Halo represents that Reality is holy to us. This symbol is to us what the Cross is to Christians. It identifies our church and our belief system. It is also a trademark of the Church of Reality.
This symbol was the idea of Paul Gaskin who also created this art work. Paul will be remembered in the Tree of Knowledge as the person who manifested the Sacred Symbol. Paul also created the Church of Reality logo.
We call it the Sacred Truth because Truth is holy to us. The Sacred Truth is the ultimate truth. It's the truth that you get when you stop playing with the definition of "truth" and accept that Truth means that which is actually true in reality. Truth to us is like mathematical truth. It's Truth that is purified by Scrutiny and Doubt. It is Truth that is determined to be true using the Sacred Method by those who have accepted reality by putting Reality First.
The Sacred Truth is a jealous truth and it demands that there are no other truth's before it. We do not Worship a False Truth. The Church of Reality is a MonoRealistic religion in that we believe there is one reality that encompasses all other realities that are actually real.
The Sacred Truth requires Acceptance of Truth which is the commitment that we Realist make to the pursuit of the understanding of reality as it really is.
The Sacred Vision is our collective and individual vision of the future. It is what we see as our idea of where we should be going. It's imagining humanity progressing into a harmonious society where we are traveling space and exploring the reality of the universe. The Sacred Vision is to dream the dream of the perfect tomorrow.
The Sacred Wonderment is - "are we alone in the universe?" We are here - on this planet - and we wonder - are there any other planets out there that also have life? Or - is this the only planet in the universe with life on it? If there is life - what kind of life is it? Are they as advanced as we are? Are they more advanced? When will we meet them - and what will happen when we do? If so - will we be able to get along with them - work with them? What would we do if a spaceship showed up tomorrow and made first contact with us? What would we want them to know about humanity? Would we be proud of who we are?
Different religions see the future differently. Many religions see the future from an Extinctionist point of view where the world is destroyed either by humanity itself or by and angry deity. The Church of Reality is a Futurist religion and our goal is the Star Trek Future.
The television series Star Trek which we call the Holy TV Show, created by Gene Roddenberry in the 1960s, is a fictional depiction of the future of humanity where humans have developed space craft that can travel faster than the speed of light to go out and explore the universe. In this future humanity has evolved beyond war and poverty, cured diseases, and we are all Explorers on a quest for knowledge.
Although in the real future we are not likely to break the speed of light barrier and find planets full of humanoid life, sexy green skinned women, all who speak perfect English, and form a Federation of Planets, the series makes many important points about a new view of the future that we in the Church of Reality aspire to create.
We see a future that when we look back at history from their point of view that we are proud of what humanity has accomplished and have a continued sense that we are on the right track. That we have become explorers, to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before. It is this vision that fires the souls of Realists and we as a culture are committed to making the Star Trek Future actually happen.
The Story of Humanity is the sum total everything that has happened to anyone since the beginning of humanity. Your Life Story becomes part of the Story of Humanity. The Story of Humainity is part of the Story of Life, the Story of the Earth, and the Story of the Universe.
The Story of Life actually refers to the story of life on Earth. The story of life is the entire history of life on this planet since life formed on this planet. It is the history of the Tree of Life. Your personal Life Story is part of the Story of Life. The Story of Life is part of the Story of the Earth and the Story of the Universe.
The Story of Reality is very similar to the Story of the Universe except that it contemplates the possibility that our universe, which started at what we call the Big Bang, is part of a larger structure - a larger reality - that our universe is part of. The Story of Reality includes everything and is the super set that includes all other subsets of reality and all other stories. It is the story that includes everything that is real.
The story of the Earth is the sum total of everything that happened on this planet since the Earth was formed. It includes the Story of Life and the Story of Humanity as well as the stories of all other species in the planet that exist and have ever existed.
The Story of the Universe is the sum total of everything that happened everywhere in the universe from the beginning of time. It is the Life Story of the cosmos. Everything you do from the moment you are born to the moment you dies is part of the Story of the Universe. What happens becomes what happened and what you do becomes what you did.
A popular name for the Story of the Universe is Big History. It's big because it includes everything that actually happened. Big History and the Story of the Universe are almost but not quite the Story of Reality. The Story of Reality contemplates that our universe might be part of some larger structure that we are not yet aware of.
The Tree of Knowledge is the collection of all things known to the human race. The species knowledge of humanity. Our collective knowledge. It is the sum total of all human knowledge.
The Tree of Knowledge is what separates us from the animals. We are able to communicate and share information and it is this collection of information that defines who we are as a species. What is the difference between humanity today and humanity 500 years ago? It's our Tree of Knowledge. Because of the Tree of Knowledge we know how to fly - how to use electricity - know how to build computers - and know how to cure diseases. If we as a species adhere to the Principle of Positive Evolution then in the future our Tree of Knowledge will be bigger than it is today and we will all live in a better world. We will be able to do things that we can't do today. The Tree of Knowledge is central to the Church of Reality and we as Realists dedicate our existence to the service of the Tree.
The Tree of Life is our genetic heritage through time. Like the Tree of Knowledge which represents the sum total of human understanding, the Tree of Life is also a mathematical tree rather than a plant. The Tree of Life represents all the genetic material on the planet that exists now and in the past and everything about the DNA and the life evolution process. Evolution is the growth of the Tree of Life. As we evolve forward in the Sacred Direction we grow the Tree of Life.
The Tree of Life is our evolutionary history. It's our ancestry all the way back to the very first organic molecules that formed on this planet that lead to life. It is how we are all biologically connected to each other. How we share common ancestors with all forms of life. We are all related to each other, and interdependent on each other. In a sense we are all part of a single living organism that includes all life on Earth. It's where we fit in the food chain. We are all part of the Story of Life on this planet. If you go back 55 million years the squirrel and I share a common ancestor. He is my cousin. I think we look alike.
Christians aren't the only religion with a holy trinity. The Church of Reality has a Holy Trinity too, but our trinity is reality based. Our Trinity is:
The Past - (Father)
The Present - (Son)
The Future - (Holy Spirit)
What's interesting is that it is remarkably similar to The Catechism of the Catholic Church which states "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds." It's almost scary how this all fits together.
The Past
In the Church of Reality The Past is the some total of all events that has happened in the universe since the Big Bang. All of the events of the past led up to our creation. (The Father) The past generated the present. (The Son) We are the result of the sum total if all past event. (Begotten) From the perspective of Calculus the present is the integral of the past. The Past can not be changed. What we do becomes what we have done.
The Present is what we call the Sacred Moment. It is where we live. It is the latest page of Our Story. It is where our free will lives. It is what we choose our destiny. It is the think line that separates The Past from The Future. In The Present we move through time. Every new moment adds to The Past. Every choice we make affects The Future. In calculus, The Present is the derivative. The Present is the transition from where we have been to where we are going.
The Future
The Future is what proceeds. It is the great mystery of what will come. It contains all of our possibilities. The Future is what we create. It is what we are building. Those who came before us created us. Likewise those who come after us will be created by us.
There are two views of the how The Future works. If we live in a deterministic universe where we are the mathematical progression of all the events of the present then we are like a movie that has already been written. Choice is only an illusion. However if we live in a non-deterministic universe where the universe is some kind of nonlinear equation with fractal properties that are randomized at the quantum level then what we choose matters.
If we make the right choices we might evolve into something we consider paradise. (Heaven) If we make the wrong choices then our future will be bleak. (Hell) Or we might even become extinct. Forever separated from Reality.
Since our choices control The Future and we have to live with the results of those choices then The Future takes on a special religious significance to Realists. That's why we call The Future the Sacred Direction and that we commit ourselves to the Principle of Positive Evolution. Our commitment to positive evolution would be analogous to the "Holy Spirit" who proceeds.
Contributing new and useful information to the Tree of Knowledge. Intellectual Tithing is giving freely to the Tree of Knowledge. Giving back to the public domain. Almost everything we know today came from other people who are either living today or knowledge that was handed down. The reason you can read my words here is because we are using a public domain language that allows us to communicate thoughts and ideas. The Tree of Knowledge is the glue that hold society together and allows us to communicate and share new ideas.
But - as we receive so shall we give back. Because our ideas are based almost entirely on the ideas of others, we give back to the tree so that we can contribute to that for which we draw from. Our very thoughts - our awareness - our soul - is made of the thoughts of others. When we think we are thinking in a language that was invented by other people. The words we hear in our mind and the meaning of those words were invented by other people. And when we give back to the Tree of Knowledge through Intellectual Tithing - then who we are and what we have to contribute is passed back into the collective mind and we achieve a level of immortality. Every time we think of the work "wheel" or drive a car with wheels on it - the person who invented the wheel lives on. If we have something to contribute then we will live on too. People like Einstein, Newton, Tesla, and Darwin are all preserved in part in the Tree of Knowledge and are part of who we are today. If we give back then who we are lives on. We pass on ourselves biologically through having children. but we pass on our soul through Intellectual Tithing.
An example of Intellectual Tithing is putting up a free web site that contains information useful to other people. Writing software that other people can use freely is Intellectual Tithing. The Linux penguin symbolically represents Intellectual Tithing because it is an operating system that is an intellectual contribution freely available to humanity that has significantly enhanced our ability to explore reality.
The sum total, or any subset of the sum total, of all that is real. There are things that are real and there are things that are not real. The Truth refers to what is real. Bullshit refers to what is not real.
Ultimate Reality refers to the sum total of everything that is real in all contexts. It is the container that contains everything that is real and for which there is nothing that is real that is not part of the Ultimate Reality.
Human language is often imprecise. Some might say that the Universe is all of reality. But our universe might be a subset of some greater structure out there. Some people talk about "other realities" which is often nonsense but could refer to other contexts that actually exist but for which we have no contact. It would not however include references to worlds that do not exist.
If looked at in the context of set theory, the Ultimate Reality would be the largest reality set containing all realities and for which there is no bigger set that contain more things that are real. The only things outside of this set is that which is not real. The Church of Reality is a MonoRealistic religion, and the one reality we believe in is the ultimate Reality.
A false belief system that obscures reality and oppresses the understanding of understanding. A bad or corrupt judicial decision that becomes precedent. It is a piece of bullshit that infects the Tree of Knowledge and fools people into believing in things that are not real. A virus is more than just bad information. It is bad information that spreads throughout the Tree of Knowledge and acts like an infection causing people to come to the wrong conclusion based on bad information.
The concept of a Virus goes beyond mere mistake. It generally involves the deliberate dissemination of false information in order to deliberately obscure reality and cause society to make decisions that favor the selfish interests of the virus spreader rather than the good of society as a whole. This kind of activity is a sin against the Tree of Knowledge. We live in a society where some individuals who put their own interests ahead of the common good use viruses to steal at the expense of truth and honesty.
The Church of Reality - through its research into the Science of Deception and the raising of the importance of reality in society has, as one of its goals, to be able to immunizes the Tree of Knowledge from these viruses of the mind and to identify bullshit and to label it as bullshit. The Church of Reality commits itself to the task of being an anti-virus and using its resources to counter the efforts of those who use lies and deception. We fight misunderstanding with understanding in order to move in the Sacred Direction.
Peace begins with a commitment to resolve problems rather that trying to solve differences through killing. The Vocabulary of Peace are words and concepts that people use to bring people together and unite people and to humanize people as individuals. It is a vocabulary that gives respect to individuals and recognizes the intrinsic value of the individual. The Vocabulary of Peace forms the basis of a culture of peace.
The Vocabulary of Peace is a use of words and phrases that describe humanity as a single community that everyone in the world is a member of. It recognizes that we have subcultures of people with different and often conflicting ideas and values that lead to tensions between groups, but that these differences can be resolved by setting an example of mutual respect and putting out the effort to understand the other side enough to find a way to get along. The Vocabulary of Peace is the vocabulary that asks what we have in common and how we can build on that. It is a language that describes others as people who are like us and speaks of our commonality as fellow members of our planet.
The Vocabulary of Reality is the Terminology that we have developed to explain the new concepts of the Church of Reality. Our religion has broken new ground and developed new concepts in religious philosophy. In order to describe our world view we have had to develop new words to describe our new concepts.
The Church of Reality has concepts found in no other religion. Many of the concepts are complex and it requires new words to describe these concepts. Once you Accept the Truth there is a learning curve to understand the Kernel. Our vocabulary isn't that difficult but it is worth the time to read through it and learn it.
The Vocabulary of War is language that is used in order to prepare people to go to war. Wars do not happen on their own. People have to have dialogue that leads up to war. The vocabulary of war is the dialogue that is used to create the kind of agreement necessary to create war. Without the necessary agreement a war isn't possible.
In order for a war to occur you have to dehumanize the enemy. You have to define an "us" and a "them" where "we" are justified through some noble characteristic and "they" are subhuman and therefore "deserve to die". The enemy has to be seen not as individual people but as members of some evil group who's destruction is necessary. The vocabulary of war is used to demonize people as vermin who are to be exterminated.
Performing the dharma of the Church of Reality. It's when you quit just talking and go out and make it happen. Sometimes talking is enough. Sometimes talking helps. But sometimes you just have to be the one who gets up out of their chair and makes it happen in the real world. There comes a point sometimes where if you don't do it - it doesn't get done. Walking the walk is the act of making it happen.
The term "Waste of Neurons" is a recognition that there is only so much room in the brain and that one's mental resources are valuable and should be used to store important information. It is similar to not downloading junk files on your computer that take up space and prevent you from storing useful information.
Obsessive Atheism, for example can become a waste of neurons in that if one spends all their time thinking about what isn't real then the brain becomes full of trivia and there isn't room for what is real. The Church of Reality considers memorizing the sacred text of other religions to be a waste of neurons that could better be used to understand the reality we live in. One of our disciplines is Staying on Subject which means to bring the debate back to reality.
The term wasted refers to a person who has chosen to turn their back on reality. They have chosen to believe something that they don't care if it is true or not. Often they believe in an afterlife that is superior to "this world" and that this imaginary afterlife matters and that reality does not.
As a Realist we value our existence here in reality and we respect the fact that our individual existence is both precious and limited. If someone turns their back on reality and puts other beliefs ahead of reality that is equivalent to worshiping a false reality or idolatry. Their Life Story will become meaningless and they will be forgotten.
For a Realist the only thing that's worth believing in is what is real. If we choose to believe something through faith then we reject the Principle of Scrutiny. It is as if we are saying that we just don't care about what really is true. Those who don't care about this life and their life story are wasting their precious existence on nothing. They are wasted.
Having a firm grasp of the obvious. Wisdom is the ability to see the big picture. It often involves responsibility and a willingness to make the hard choices rather than taking the easy way out. It is often easy to fool one's self into believing what you want to believe rather than what you know is real. It is easy to try to take a shortcut when you know it's the wrong thing to do. It is easy to just go along with the crowd even when you know what the crowd is doing is wrong. Wisdom involves personal strength and integrity and a firm commitment to reality the way it really is.
Wisdom is the result of being a realist and making choices and observations based on reality. Can a wise person be out of touch with reality? Can wisdom flow from a religion that is based on mythology? Only to the extent that the mythology doesn't interfere with reality. After all - isn't reality the measure for which wisdom is tested? Therefore - to be wise is really a matter of perfecting one's personal relationship with the real world and one's personal commitment to the disciplines of realism.
As the name implies, your worldview is your view of the world. It is the sum total of everything you believe in. It's everything you believe to be true, whether or not it is actually true. Your Worldview also includes your mental processes for evaluating reality. It includes the axioms or basic assumptions that you rely upon to process new information and integrate it into your personal reality or personal fiction.
In the Church of Reality our worldview is based on Reason. Our religion defines the fundamental axioms for which we experience reality. Our worldview is based on our choice to see reality the way it really is.
When someone puts Faith or a deity before the Sacred Truth we call that worshiping a false truth. A False Truth is the belief in something that isn't true or isn't real. It's when you have turned your back on reality and chosen a Golden Calf instead. It when you have rejected Scrutiny and accepted Bullshit.
In the Church of Reality we Accept the Truth by putting Reality First. We believe that the Sacred Truth is purified through Scrutiny and that anything that doesn't stand up to Doubt is considered not true. Realists do not worship false truths.
Also known as Praying to the Tree is to take a moment to reflect on reality - the way it really is - and to not only wonder what is real - but to reflect on the importance of Reality in our daily lives. We give thanks to those in our society who do the hard work to make sure that reality is considered in making decisions that affect our lives. When we reflect on the Tree of Knowledge - the sum total of human understanding - as we look around us in humble amazement and thankfulness of those who came before us and whose thoughts and discoveries are part of who we are today. Who we are and how we live has been given to us through the Tree. We put our energy back into the Tree by being Real in the Sacred Moment.
"Yes we can!" is our statement of determination to succeed. There are those who say that the Church of Reality isn't a real religion. Many believe that we will digress into corruption and become another money grubbing religious scam. Some say that our moral values will never rise to the level of other religions. Many believe that we'll never amount to anything, that we are just a fad, and that we'll soon be forgotten. They say that humanity is too corrupt and doesn't deserve to survive. That human nature is inherently evil or that we are unworthy. They say that the end of the world is inevitable. To those who doubt if we can make it happen our reply is, "Yes we can!"
Anything you can do we can do better. We can do anything better than you. Yes we can, yes we can!
The universe isn't fair or compassionate. Unless a deity shows up and becomes an omnipotent father figure, we have to assume that we are alone and that we are responsible for our own survival. Very few planets can sustain life let alone intelligent life. There is no other planet in the universe that has people like us. We exist because we survive and if we fail to continue to survive, then we will no longer exist. If we, as a species, fail to make good choices, we will end up on the Path of Extinction.
"Yes we can" is like the Principle of Positive Evolution. It's not a belief that we can base on nothing, or hope, or Faith. It is a statement of determination that we commit ourselves to making it happen. We commit to getting the job done. We are going to defy the odds. We are going to succeed. We are going to survive and prosper. We will make tomorrow better than today and to those who think we can't do it, Yes we can!
Your Story is a reference to your Life Story. It's the sum total of everything you have done in your life up to the present. The term "Your Story" is more often used to refer to what you are presently doing, or what you are involved in. Someone might ask, "What's your story?" as a way of asking you what your life is about and what values you stand for.
Newsflash
The IRS has approved the 501(C)3 tax exempt status of the Church of Reality.
Please link to us, discuss us in online forums, and blog about us. Every time anyone thinks about reality the world becomes a little smarter.
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Terminology 
Meatspace, a term coined by John Perry Barlow, refers to the physical world inhabited by humans. It refers to the world where people meet in person as opposed to online. Meatspace is actually a subset of reality in that it is the part of reality where people reside. Meatspace does not include cyberspace which is also part of the real world but not the physical world, nor does it include other planets where humans have yet to colonize. It is also meant to be the opposite of the afterlife, the next world, and other references to real or imagined places where people don't go in physical form. Hugging occurs in meatspace. 
The Earth is the mother of all life on this planet. All living being on this planet are the 
A sock puppet is a cult member. We call them sock puppets because they have surrendered their will to their masters and what they say are the words of the cult. They are completely dominated by the cult mind and are required to believe without question what they are told to believe. To become a sock puppet is to totally surrender your free will and surrender to a life of slavery. ![](/cor-logo3.gif"){kind=logo}
The Sacred Symbol of the Church of Reality is the capitol letter "R" with a Halo over it. The letter "R" stands for Reality and the Halo represents that Reality is holy to us. This symbol is to us what the Cross is to Christians. It identifies our church and our belief system. It is also a trademark of the Church of Reality.
