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Making Reality Personal in your Life |
So you might be wondering what it's like to be a Realist. What are our moral values? What do we do when we wake up in the morning? How do we live our lives?
The Church of Reality puts a high value on self determination. We have a concept called writing your Life Story and being in control of one's own life. A person's life story is everything you do from the time you are born until the time you die. When you are gone all that's left of you is the story of what you did. While you are living you are writing your story. We as Realists try to think about our story. Who am I? What is my life going to be about? What do I want to accomplish in the short time that I am here? What do I want people to remember me for?
If it wasn't for Reality I wouldn't be here!
Because we value our own lives and because we are writing our life stories we have a concept of Self Ownership that says that it's my life, my choices, my mistakes to make. We aren't Followers that take orders from omnipotent beings and we recognize that people are often different and that we allow ourselves to explore those differences and only impose rules to prevent people from harming each other or society as a whole.
In order for humanity to progress in its quest for the understanding of reality we need new ideas. We need to be the kind of people who think "outside the box". If we are all alike then who is going to be innovative? We aren't looking for people who agree on everything. We are looking for people who are strange and unusual who look at how things are and dream about how things might be. In order to get that we encourage a higher level of individualism and individual awareness. We respect people who are different from us. They give us something to think about. Even if we do something wrong there is at least a learning opportunity as to what not to do.
The Church of Reality doesn't promise you happiness. There is the possibility for eternal life if we invest in the technology to make it happen. But there's no "next life" to look forward to. Our sense of immortality comes from what we contribute to the Tree of Knowledge. Will we be remembered after we are gone and all the people who knew us are also gone? Will they keep our web site online? Will they remember our life stories? Do our lives at least have some meaning in the story of humanity?
We don't promise you "spiritual experiences". This is not a religion based on creating emotional sensations. We aren't fighting a glorious battle against evil for the glory of the mighty deity. However we offer a sense of real accomplishment. Ancient religious texts talked about the miracles of prophets riding flaming chariots into the heavens. Through science we have done that. We have tasted the water on Mars and we have peered back in time to almost the moment of the creation of the universe. We dream of the day when we can travel the universe and we wonder what is out there. We wonder what we will become in the next billion years. Is this the only universe out there? How vast is reality? We are the fulfillment of the dreams of Galileo and if Humanity continues on the path of Positive Evolution then some day our descendents will fulfill our dreams -- that reality itself will become self aware and that we might know the nature of what existence is.
Our vision of the future is different than many other religions. We call the future the Sacred Direction. That's because we see ourselves as the caretakers of tomorrow. Our future depends on good sound reality based judgment and, if we take responsibility for our actions and make our decisions based on reality, then we are more likely to have a better future than if we turn our backs on reality.
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We live a life that embraces honesty. We see ourselves as Scientists and Explorers. Science and exploration require honesty because in science when you manipulate the results then science stops. You can only make progress if you are 100% honest about your test results. The Church of Reality is a science based religion and we can only make progress as long as we stick with reality. People often suggest that we might get more members if we loosen up on the deity issue, but our response is, "Trot your deity out into the open where it is observable by nonbelievers and we'll all worship it." If the Church of Reality doesn't stay true to reality then we are nothing. Reality is the soul of our religion. Reality is what defines who we are.
A Realist is a humble person. We have found that an excessive sense of self importance becomes a huge distraction to reality and an expensive habit to maintain. We look at ego like giving candy to children. You can have a little if you are good but too much will make you hyperactive and rot your teeth.
Realists are environmentalists. We exist because of the Tree of Life which sustains us. It is our evolutionary history and our present day ecology. We are all part of one giant living organism that includes all life on Earth. We must maintain ecological balance so as to keep this planet habitable for our species rather than facing extinction. We must ensure that we don't destroy ourselves through overpopulation or environmental damage.
For more information about who we are as a people read the section on Realist Culture.
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Getting started as a Realist 
