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[edit] Overview

The Church of Reality (CoR) is a religion based on believing in everything that is real. Their slogan is, "If it's real, we believe in it!" It is a religious commitment to reality and its practitioners pledge to follow real reality, whereever the path goes.

The question, "What is Real?" is considered the Sacred Question. The Church of Reality proclaims itself to be about the pursuit of reality. Unlike most religions where there is a set of dogmatic rules which the practioners are comanded to follow, instead practitioners of the CoR consider themselves to be Explorers discovering reality for themselves. They identify themselves as Realists practicing Realism. It creates a religious identity for people who believe in reality the way it really is.

Because they believe the exploration of reality is community based the Church of Reality supports good strong healthy communities, education, and anything believed to create a good environment in which to explore reality. That is what creates the CoRs basis for a moral code and their concept of right and wrong in the absence of a deity or holy book.

[edit] Sacred Missions

The Sacred Mission define the purpose of the Church of Reality. They include:

• We believe in reality the way it really is - If it's real - we believe in it. The Church of Reality is a Personal Commitment to the Truth. We believe in real reality, not the way we want reality to be, not our personal reality, but real objective reality the way it really is. We Realists are explorers and we explore the universe together with our minds. We think about thinking. We wonder about wondering. We attempt to understand the Understanding of Understanding. We ponder the Great Questions. We are a curious people and we are bound together in our quest to know the real world that we really live in.

• We spread the Sacred Message - Our mission is to spread the importance of reality everywhere. We raise the awareness of reality and we make reality important. Every time we mention Reality we spread the Sacred Message. We are here to ask the Sacred Question - "What is Real?" We want people to consider reality when making important decisions. By spreading the Sacred Message we cause people to be Real in the Sacred Moment (which is Now). Our mission is to say "Reality" as many times as we can and to get other people to think about reality as often as we can. We want people to be more realistic in their daily lives and to spend more time every day wondering about what is really real.

• We Choose the Sacred Direction - The Sacred Direction is forward - onward and upward. Our Principle of Positive Evolution commits us to envision a future that is better than today. We are one planet and we are all in this together on our little ball in the universe. In order to answer the Sacred Question and explore our reality society must move forward. We take responsibility for our future and we commit to making tomorrow better than today.

• We Honor the Tree of Knowledge - The Tree of Knowledge represents the sum total of all human understanding. It is the shared knowledge of the human race. It is the repository of everything we know. The fact that you can read this comes from having a common language to communicate with. The human race survives and thrives through our shared knowledge. Our understanding of reality and our evolutionary process is through growing the Tree of Knowledge.

• We ask the Sacred Moral Question - The Sacred Moral Question is, "Is this a Good Thing?" What does "good" mean? That too is part of the Sacred Moral Question. Right and Wrong and morality and ethics are all relative to your basic assumptions and goals. We base our morality on reality and it is our duty to make sure that reality is taken into consideration when questions of right and wrong are decided. The commitment to Reality is a commitment to truth, honesty, wisdom, and responsibility. The Church of Reality is committed to getting the moral questions right.

• We Issue the Sacred Challenge - The Sacred Challenge is a challenge to other faiths and religions to ask themselves - "How do we know that what we believe is real?" We in the Church of Reality accept scrutiny and doubt as a way of checking ourselves to make sure that what we believe in is true and correct. Other religions are often required to believe things on blind faith and questioning their beliefs is prohibited. We challenge other religions to test themselves and to be responsible and accountable. Reality is our word and if other religions are going to use our word then anything claimed to be real is subject to reality testing. We believe scrutiny is a good thing and that any religion that refuses to accept scrutiny is admitting by their conduct that what they believe in is fiction.

• We Make it Happen - We are a religion that is an activist religion. We don't just find problems - we solve problems. We are committed to coming up with solutions and to take responsibility to bring the concept into reality. We make sure that the job is done right. We are a community and we do the work to make community work. We go out and learn and we try to understand and we spend a lot of time thinking and we give of ourselves for the common good of all people. In the Spirit of the Tree - our shared knowledge - we support sharing. It is our duty to look around and figure out how to make it all work.

[edit] Notable Features of the Church of Reality

The Church of Reality has a lot of unique and notable beliefs. Realists are required to contribute ideas in a process called Intellectual Tithing. The code of ethics is based on their Sacred Principles. The religion is atheistic unless God shows up physically. They believe in Original Virtue as opposed to Original Sin. No after life is promised, but you get to have all the sex you want while you are here.

The religion sees humanity as evolving and promotes the concept that humanity take control of its evolution and to progress forward towards a better tomorrow. Humanity is evolving through knowledge and technology and Realists believe our ability to share knowledge is what separates us from the animals. The Church of Reality rejects the supernatural. It is a doubt based religion as opposed to a faith based religion.