The IRS inspired me to write the Sacred Principles and the Sacred Choices that are commitments to the mission of the church. Since the Church of Reality was about the pursuit of reality and the pursuit of reality was about growing the Tree of Knowledge - and growing the Tree of Knowledge depended on the progress of the human race to move forward - it was obvious that the Sacred Principle of Positive Evolution had to come first. If we aren't evolving forward - in the Sacred Direction - there's no way we are going to explore the universe. One does not launch a Hubble Telescope from one's backyard and explore the Big Bang all by themselves. It take the cooperation of millions of minds to do something like that, so that billions of people can all learn together.
But - what kind of society supports positive evolution? And what is the role of the church of Reality in relation to building that kind of society? What "absolute" principles could I come up with that I was confident enough in to declare as "Sacred Principles"? Those are hard questions - but - since everything is subject to change when better ideas come along, I decided to take a stab at it and add other sacred principles, like Learning, Freedom, Peace, Speech, Justice, Inclusiveness, Self Scrutiny, Wisdom, Personal Responsibility, Humility, Curiosity, Bullshit, Activism, Privacy, and Historical Preservation. This isn't the end-all of principles - but it's my best guess at what I hope is a good start based on my limited abilities. They may not be perfect - but they are a hell of a lot better than the Ten Commandments - so the way I see it - if I can do better than God - that's not a bad start.
Since the exploration of reality is the core of the church beliefs and since it requires growing the Tree and Positive Evolution, which requires a better society - this all leads to a code of morality - a sense of right and wrong - a sense of justice and fair play based on the sacred principles. We don't have a "holy book" to misinterpret as many other religions have. We have to do the hard work and figure it out ourselves. But you can have law and right and wrong based on the Sacred Principles and do a better job of it than other religions that still believe it's okay to stone people to death.
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