Church of Integrity

Even More on God

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:14:00 +0000

In our previous posts Does God Exist? and More on God we discussed how believing in God can help some people and how the Church of Integrity embraces both those that believe in him and those that don't. This post will clarify that statement.

When children get scared then it comforts them to have a teddy bear or something of that sort. Adults can also get scared because life is not easy. Adults don't have teddy bears though so instead they seek comfort in an imaginary friend called God. It is indeed a personal god that is generally supposed to be the image of all which is good in this world. We at the Church of Integrity believe that this is something natural and all attempts to somehow outlaw God will be bound to fail.

Instead of viewing this believe in God as being a bad thing then we cant to emphasize the good that comes out of believing in God, given certain conditions. The most important condition is that people must understand that they alone are responsible for their actions. It's no good saying that God told you to do something or you read some book that God supposedly wrote. Unconditional belief is bad in our opinion so it's important that you question the world and make your own decisions.

Another condition is that we believe that when we are having problems or when life seems hard then we should try to talk to other people before falling back on God. It's amazing how people all over the world are experiencing similar problems in life. Talking to someone else and relating with other peoples problems can help tremendously. Vice versa then if you know that someone is having problems then chat with them and try to help them get back to the straight path.

The last condition is that you should not promote your God to other people. Of course you can discuss God and how it helps thinking about him and such but keep in mind that this God is your personal God, he's unique to you and the God that other people have might not be similar to yours.

The most important lesson about God in the Church of Integrity is that we should try to live without God because we alone are responsible for making our decisions. Having a God figure can cloud our judgment. However it is completely natural to fall back on a God idea when things are not going well, just try first to get help from fellow church members or any humans for that matter.

Atheism

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:24:00 +0000

In a previous post we talked about on what religion the Church of Integrity is based. The church is not only inspired by the religions mentioned in that post but also on Atheism. We gave a short hint about this relation whe we added the Atheist Blogroll. In this post we'll go more in depth into how atheism influenced us.

The atheist movement is on a rise. We believe there are many different reasons why people become atheists. Many are frustrated with how religion seems to bash and pervert science as some religious groups have done with the theory of evolution. In the Church of Integrity we of course base our world view on science so you shouldn't end up with any frustrations like that here. Others are frustrated with fundamentalism which we want to avoid at all costs. Yet others have fundamental issues with many religions because they require unconditional belief. We don't require unconditional belief, in fact we encourage people to question the world around them. Yet others are tired of how some religious groups try to mix up religion and politics. We want to separate the two. One can find many more issues that turn people to atheism, like the existence of a supreme being which we addressed in our posts "Does God Exist?" and "More on God". We can't cover everything here but feel free to suggest more reasons and we'll cover them here on the blog.

Now it might seem to you that we are an atheistic movement. Strictly speaking then we are not because after all we claim to be a religion. We claim that the atheistic movement is strong because of these various shortcomings of current religions as mentioned above. We think that many of the people that join the atheistic movement do so out of frustration and that the group that calls themselves atheists is very diverse. For example the Church of Integrity does not share a common path with the atheists that want to get rid of religion. We hope to be a shelter for those that are frustrated with current religions, feel they are somehow against their better knowledge but still want to be part of a bigger community and have some guidance in how to lead their life. Note we say guidance, ultimately people have to make their own decisions on how to lead their lifves.

It's easy to claim that we are a sell out somehow and we are just trying to get people by picking popular subjects. It is hard for us to defend ourselves against such claims but we point out that we have no economic or otherwise benefit of "stealing" people like that. The founders of the church simply went through many of the frustrations as mentioned above but yet didn't feel they shared a common path with the most aggressive atheists. We wanted to build a religion that is more of a way of life like Buddhism. The gain of taking part in such a religion is the community, having someone you can come to when things are not going good. We all need a shoulder to lean on. Sure, friends and family can definitely help so one could argue that religion is not necessary but we claim that we can do an even better job than friends and family and furthermore then not everyone is so lucky to have friends and family to lean on.

Unconditional Belief

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Wed, 09 May 2007 21:12:00 +0000

Many religions promote unconditional belief. You have to belief what the religion says. The Church of Integrity does not impose anything like that on you. On the contrary we encourage people to explore the world and learn.

It's in human nature to learn, to take nothing for granted and try discover the world on your own. Just look at children and see how they explore the world around them. Unconditional belief can be useful though in some sense. If we continue with the children then parents generally put rules that they must follow and often without understanding why. They must have unconditional belief in the rules set by their parents.

In ancient times then religion was very big and important in the power hierarchy. Priests were often the most powerful men around. Using religion to hold people at bay and making them follow certain rules probably worked very well for them. Today we face a different world. Religion is not part of the power structure. The Church of Integrity actually wants to keep religion and the power structure separated. Hence there is no reason for us to impose on you rules that you must follow because if you break important rules then the government or the ruling body will take care of it, not us. Also we don't feel it necessary to treat our followers as children.

Believing is despite all of this a big part in todays world. If we take science as an example then there is no way that some one person can verify all the scientific results that have been set forth. Most of us choose to belief that they are true though because we have faith in the scientific method, the scientists and the fact that peers have accepted the results and the explanations. This sort of belief is different from the unconditional belief that we don't want in the Church of Integrity. The difference lies in that with the scientific results and what we teach at the Church of Integrity then you can choose not to believe it and there are no serious consequences from the church or science. However if you for example don't belief that God created the universe in 7 days then already you have started to undermine the Bible and hence your Christian faith. Can you for example be considered a good Christian if you don't believe that? Will you then go to Hell? We don't claim to know but we hope this highlights the difference. Using logic and reason to observe the world around you and doubting everything is what our current society runs on despite other religions and we encourage that.

Diversity

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Tue, 08 May 2007 18:43:00 +0000

We believe that all humans were created equal. Thus you should treat people with due respect no matter their gender, race, appearance etc. This does not mean that we want a uniform population. People are different and in some sense not created equal. Some people are better at sports than others etc. People also look differently, for example have different skin colour. We should celebrate those differences. We should not be scared when we see someone different, on the contrary, we should be excited because we might learn something new about the world from the person. Discrimination is not the right thing to do.

It is healthy to travel and get to know people from other countries or a different background than yourself. It helps expand your horizon and helps you do the right thing. In the future we hope to set up a forum in connection with the blog. The forum would be a good place for you to chat with people from other countries in a cheap way (much cheaper than actually having to travel!). Don't get me wrong, traveling is great but this would be a great alternative because not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to travel all over the world.

More on God

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Mon, 07 May 2007 20:53:00 +0000

In our post Does God Exist we emphasized on the good aspects of believing in God. We don't even mention a strict God like the one shown in the Old Testament of the Bible. The reason is that we believe that positive thinking can help people. Thus we focus on the good, cheerful aspects of the God notion rather than trying to scare people. Of course there will come a time in every persons life where he or she can't help it but be pessimistic but that's where the community comes in. We want to try help people to be optimistic about life and think positive.

It is amazing how this notion of God or supreme beings comes up in most religions. Maybe science will one day be able to shed light on that. Perhaps our universal truths take that form, that is, maybe it stems from our notion of right and wrong and God can be viewed as some personification of that. An alternative is to interpret the randomness that created Big Bang as God. There are so many possibilities. We find this fascinating.

Enough about God. After reading our last two posts you might think that God is a central figure in our religion but that is far from the truth. As we said in the last post then we don't want to spend too much time on God since we don't know if he exists or not and we would have no way of knowing what he wanted if he existed. We embrace those that not believe in God equally with those that believe in him. If you follow our way of life, which is to do the right thing, then you can proudly call yourself a follower. Remember that it is in human nature to be skeptical so doubting or not believing in the existence of God should not be frowned upon by any religion in our opinion.

Does God exist?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sun, 06 May 2007 20:29:00 +0000

It is very understandable that people needed the notion of God in ancient times. They were not as safe as we are now since there was no police and their whole existence depended on getting enough food from the crops. Today we can get food whenever we want and the government can tap your phone, look at you through countless security cameras so the only real threat you might feel comes from your own government! Thus it's understandable if people do not feel they need a God.

Some quote Pascal as proof that we should believe in God for if God doesn't exist then it doesn't matter what we do but if he exists then depending on whether we are "good" or "bad" then we go to Heaven or Hell. This argument is fundamentally flawed. How do you know what "good" behavior is? This God, is he the God of Christians or someone elses God? Even if God existed then you do not know what he expects from you so in case he exists then you are in a similar situation as if he didn't exist. Why should we focus on some God when we can't even know what he wants? In the Church of Integrity we rather want to focus on being good human beings by doing what is right. If God exists then we believe that doing the right thing is your best bet anyways to get into Heaven.

A supreme being is not consistent with our worldview. Indeed it is possible from a scientific standpoint that there exists a supreme being that holds all the strings but it's a bad theory in the sense that we have no way of checking it's validity or finding out with experiments whether it's wrong. Again, why waste time on something you'll never know whether exists?

With all that said then it is clear that the Church of Integrity will not focus on the existence of God. He might or might not exist. Our focus will be on doing the right thing.

We don't object though to you praying to God or believing in him. Despite all the technological advancements then we human beings often feel helpless for example when nature strikes against us, when we lose dear friends or when we get this feeling of being so insignificant in the world that it wouldn't matter if we were around or not. In those situation it can actually psychologically help you to pray to God or talk to him. How can we oppose such a good thing? The bottom line is that God is something very personal and is something you must choose. We'll talk about him once in a while but mainly then he'll be your personal God.

Note that in this post we've only been talking about God in terms of our religion. Since we say that God might or might not exist then we'll not be claiming that the God of Christianity or Islam does not exist. Furthermore we believe that one go too far in both directions, that is in believing in God or denouncing him. We will not pick on other religions because they have supreme beings and we hope they'll show us the same courtasey. People can abuse religion so instead of fighting against the existence of God then we feel people should rather focus on fighting against fundamentalism.

The Purpose of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sat, 05 May 2007 17:36:00 +0000

Questions like, "What is the purpose of life?", "Why are we here" etc are classical. Some claim that man invented religion to try to answer those questions so we feel it is appropriate here at the Church of Integrity that we at least attempt to address them.

Why are we here? We claim it's a result of Big Bang and evolution. That answer is perhaps oversimplified but you can learn more about the development of the Universe from Big Bang by looking up those terms on the internet. Still that answer doesn't fulfill our need for knowledge because it begs the question, "Why did Big Bang happen". To that we have no answer. We hope that science will lead us to an answer. Is it possible that God or some supreme being caused Big Bang. Totally, but it is very hard to put a supreme being into a scientific theory so we will not be endorsing that view. [See more on this in the comments below.]

What is the purpose of life? To help mankind survive. This statement seems rather dull compared to other religions where the goal is to lead a good life, help others and what not. The reason we give this answer is that it seems in nature that survival instincts are very strong. Animals evolve to try survive better etc. We also claim that this statement is much stronger than it seems at first glance. To survive then we need to follow the universal truths that we've talked about before because they are somehow inherent to our evolution and survival. As a consequence of that statement then it falls under our purpose in life to be good, to help others, to treat others like we want them to treat us and all those good things. The main difference between our statement and that of other religion is the motivation, they get their good message directly from some supreme being, we deduce our from the survival instinct (or in some sense from science).

After reading this you might feel that humankind is just a bunch of animals. Well, yes, we might be. We want to emphasize that life is mysterious, even to scientists. We do not understand it completely. Thus life is something we should cherish and perhaps we do that by trying to survive. How did life come to be? We don't know. Again it might be created by some supreme being but there is no conclusive evidence for that. We don't want to rule it out though.

Compassion and Charity

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Fri, 04 May 2007 17:28:00 +0000

It's easy to twist words and ideas. Evolution and natural selection are fundamental theories in science and since we use science to explain the world around us then they are fundamental to us too. One could try twisting our religion by saying that natural selection should lead to the conclusion that we should not help those that are less fortunate, no matter whether it's health wise or money wise. That is not the case. In fact this is a fundamental thing and we'll never associate ourselves with anyone that holds those views.

In all communities of men then it seems a virtue to help others, it seems to be one of those universal truths. When you weigh that against some deduction from scientific principles then we think it is clear that helping others is the way to go, not some natural selection. Note we are not saying that natural selection is wrong as a scientific theory, we are just saying that we humans should not use it as a guiding light for our lives. Hence we highly recommend that our followers help others. People are different and want to help in different ways, some are wealthy and want to donate money, others have a lot of time and can donate time and efforts, some want to help starving children in Africa, others want to help the elderly. The bottom line for us is not exactly what you do but that you tried helping someone. Of course you don't have to help someone to be a follower but you should ask yourself whether not helping is the right thing to do - remember to be true to yourself.

Humankind has gained from our nature to help others. In the wild then Stephen Hawking probably wouldn't have lasted long after he got sick. Because we helped him then we've been fortunate enough to enjoy his great mind for years. We find this attribute of humans quite amazing and we hope that our community will take part in helping the world become a better place. Other religions have done a great job of setting up charities and helping organizations. In due time we would like to set up our own.

The bottom line today is that you should treat others like you want them to treat you. Show compassion and help out those that are less fortunate.

Respect and Tolerance

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Thu, 03 May 2007 05:21:00 +0000

The Church of Integrity encourages people to ask questions and think. Thus more than likely we'll have a very diverse group of followers. How is it possible for a diverse group to get along? The only proven way we know of is that people show each other due respect. When you meet someone that is different than you or has different ideas then you should become curious about the persons background, culture and views. We learn by interacting with each other. Refusing to learn or hating on those that are different is not in the spirit of our teachings.

One important form of respect that we want to teach is respect for followers of other religions. Learn about their religion for they are part of our cultural heritage as citizens of planet Earth. Even if it is possible to dig out something bad in the teachings of their religion then remember that people are not inherently evil and that in the end, all that matters is how you interpret your religion and what parts of it you emphasize on.

What about those that break the laws, should you respect them? First we want to state that the laws are very important. Just as with politics and education then we want to have a clear separation between the part of government that makes laws and religion. We encourage our members to take part in the law making process, for example by voting. Laws are a hard category to generalize on. For example when is it right for the people to stand up to their government and disobey their laws? Those are hard questions that have no universal answer. In general then the basic laws tend to follow the same basic universal laws as our religion, for example that you shall not steal and kill. In general we thus teach that you should follow the laws. An example of the difficult questions we face is the issue of filesharing. It is impossible for the church to make any kind of statement on it since there are some very good arguments both for and against it. The only advice we can give you is to due what is right and be true to yourself.

To come back to the question about whether you should respect criminals then in general we want to teach that you should let the laws take care of them, when they have paid for their crimes then if anything then you should help them get back on track. Forgiveness is an important concept in the Church of Integrity. We teach people to do the right thing but the problem is that we are merely humans, we are not infallible. Thus it is important that we realize that mistakes will be made. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. To be able to live in such a world we must try to forgive those that end up not doing what is right. Let the laws take care of those that break them but try to forgive.

One of the reasons that we can not prevent bad things is that our universal truths that we've talked about before are in some sense idealized, that is you rarely face the exact choice they outline in real life. For example we teach you not to kill, yet what is a soldier in a war supposed to do? The universal ethics serve as guiding lights, we try to deduce from them what the right thing to do is in other situations. For example we believe that most people agree that wars are something we should avoid, we deduce that from the universal ethical rule that you should not teach. The world is indeed complex.

Gratitude

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Wed, 02 May 2007 07:44:00 +0000

First we want to thank Famous Blogs for giving this blog the Blog of the Day Award.

We also want to thank all our readers and visitors for the support. Last but not least we want to thank all those that have commented for their input. We are really happy with the great discussions we've had, not only in the comments on this blog but also on other blogs and forums.

To have something good in this post for our readers and to give a bit back to the community then I wanted to point out three blogs.

The Astonishing Adventures of Lord Likely is great entertainment, it's one of the gems out there.

Marilyn's Non-violent Planet sends a great message around the world.

Journey Before Death is the blog of Ernest who has commented quite a few times and been a great supporter of this blog. Thanks Ernest.

Tomorrow we'll continue with thought provoking posts on tolerance.

Atheist Blogroll Added

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Tue, 01 May 2007 07:26:00 +0000

Just wanted to let you know that we added the atheist blogroll to the site. That might seem strange to say the least when the site is obviously about our new religion. However if you read the fine print with the atheist blogroll then it's not only for atheists but also for skeptics and freethinkers. To some extent we share the common trait with many atheists that we don't claim to know whether God exists. God or some other supreme being is not central to our religion.

Another reason we joined the list is that we believe many people jumped on the atheist bandwagon because they were frustrated with religious groups attacking science and trying to squeeze themselves into politics. The Church of Integrity might appeal to many of those people since we have in some sense outsourced our world view to science and we as a religion want to stay as much out of politics as possible (though we encourage our members to be active on their own terms).

In other news then there have been posts floating around in the blogosphere that the One Day Blog Silence might me misused so to prevent that the Church of Integrity helps with any abuse then we've removed our links to the project in the last post since the event is over.

One Day Blog Silence

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 02:23:00 +0000

The blogosphere is uniting in remembering the victims of the Virginia Tech shootings and in general all the victims of our worlds. The Church of Integrity will be participating so our silence starts now. This is a good time to reflect on all the evilness in the world and how we can help get rid of it. Violence is not an answer. Tuesday, May 1st, we'll resume back to normal schedule.

Fundamentalism

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 07:08:00 +0000

When other religions were established then I'm not sure they anticipated the movement we call fundamentalists today. No matter how big the Church of Integrity becomes then we hope that our followers will not become fundamentalists. Never ever shall you read through our teachings and try to twist them and turn into something bad and then point to our teachings as some sort of proof. Everything we teach requires you to use your best judgment and it requires you to think. Never ever follow someone blindly. Our fundamental teaching, "Do what is right", forces you to think independently and that is what we want to teach you, think for yourself and question the world around you. Never think that the religion is merely based on what we write here on the blog, different interpretations are good for discussion but should never divide our followers. Those that interpret our statements differently than you are not bad and should not be persecuted for thinking on their own. We hope that the community will stay strong and help members stay away from the pitfalls of fundamentalism.

Culture: Book of the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:37:00 +0000

As we have stated before then the cultural heritage of humankind is very important to us here at the Church of Integrity. Culture makes you think. It raises important moral questions and contains lessons about ethics. Culture is something we want to cherish and educate people about. Thus we've decided to start a Book of the Week section on the blog. We'll point your attention to some books that we enjoyed. By no means does this imply that you must read them to be a follower, absolutely not. We just want to share those books with you and hopefully you'll not be disappointed if you read them. Culture is much more than books though. We plan on making posts about other aspects of culture but there is limited space on the blog and we simply want to start of with the books because they are a rather inexpensive and universal way of enjoying culture (as opposed to art galleries that are rather local for example). This first column and suggestion might be up for a bit more than a week, simply because we still have a lot to tell you about the foundations of the religion so this first Book of the Week should perhaps rather be called the Book of the Month!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7) is our first Book of the Week. Yes, it's not out yet but we are so excited about it. The Harry Potter phenomenon is incredible. We are no kids but we still thoroughly enjoy the books, don't miss out on them just because you think they are kid books. The books contain some excellent moral values, for example that you should treat those that are different than you well and the books talk about the importance of your friends. Most importantly then the books are exciting and a great read, we highly recommend them.

Let us know if the above Text Link Ads annoyed you, we just felt it was appropriate to have a link to somewhere you could get the book. Note that if you follow the buying links then you are pre-ordering the book.

So what is the right thing to do?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 04:13:00 +0000

"Do what is right" begs the above question. Here at the Church of Integrity we really appreciate this aspect of our basic statement. It forces you to think. Already we've been asked quite a few times how people are supposed to decide what the right thing to do is. The answer to those questions were perhaps a bit hidden in the original foundational post so in this post we'll focus exclusively on the answer to those questions.

First of all then the world is not simple and a simple answer like "Do what is right" obviously can not answer all your questions. One of the reasons we use it is that it forces the question in the title of this post. It makes you think and immediately engages you. We feel religion should reach out to the people and this is our way to reach out to the people and engage them in important ethical questions.

As we use it then the phrase "Do what is right" refers first of all to ethical rules that we consider universal in some sense. For example most people agree that you should not kill another human being or that you should treat others like you want them to treat you. We claim that these universal truths are a result of evolution, they are unwritten rules wired into us to help humankind survive. Our aim in the Church of Integrity is to teach those universal truths. You can consider it as teaching ethics or even teaching the best from many religions, for example there are many good things that we'll teach from Christianity.

The world is not black and white. These universal truths that I mentioned don't cover all situations. What is the right thing to do in a situation not covered by those basic ethics? We claim not to know the answer. Thinking about those situations is though the first step. The next step that we strongly recommend is to talk to others, that's why the community is so important to us. Such discussions can often lead to common ground and results that we can consider universal, sometimes they wont. In the borderline cases then people have to trust their own judgment because in the end then no one can be responsible for your choices but yourself, just make the decision that you feel conforms best to "Do what is right" and history will judge your decision. But what if you have to make an immediate decision? You don't have the time to discuss it or anything. Well first of all then learning the basic teachings of the universal truths might guide you in the right direction, we often deduce on our own results from them without even thinking about it. Also take part in discussions in the community, perhaps you'll not ever have thought about the exact decision that you face but you might be able to relate it to a problem that someone else had. This is why we emphasize that it's very good and important for our followers to take part in the discussion and help others with their problems for you can learn much from it.

We hope this clarified the foundations of the religion a bit but please comment if you have more questions on this.

On what religion is the Church of Integrity based?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:46:00 +0000

No, the Church of Integrity is not based on Christianity. However we are proud to say that many of our teachings come from Christianity and other religions. In this post we'll look into what religions influence the Church of Integrity.

First we want to make it absolutely clear that the Church of Integrity is a new religion. The founders however were raised up as Christians and thus the Church of Integrity contains a lot of teachings from Christianity, simply because Christianity contains ethical teachings that are considered universal truth. Examples are that you should not kill a man and you should treat others like you want them to treat you. The ethical teachings from the church are still being announced on this blog and in fact then they are always being revised and new teachings being added because a church needs to stay up to date and specifically talk about what concerns people at that time. Thus we'll start with many good examples from Christianity and we hope to expand our horizon to other religions and sources.

It is easy to compare the Church of Integrity with many religions because we share a common foundation in our ethical teachings. However the church is very different in the sense that we do not claim that God or some divine being is a fundamental part of our world view. God might exist but there is nothing that directly points to his existence. Another thing that distinguishes us from other religions is that we want to use science to explain the world. This does not mean that science in itself is part of the church. Science is a separate entity governed by it's own rules. It makes for a good relationship though in our opinion since we can give moral observations on what science does without being too attached or having to resort to quoting some divine being which generally just makes scientists angry. Buddhism is close to the Church of Integrity in the sense that they don't either focus on some supreme being. Both religions focus on being a way of life for their followers. There the similarities end though. Buddhism has ancient myths and teachings and their world view is not based on science etc.

Christianity, Islam and other religions are part of our cultural heritage. In the Church of Integrity we want to take the cultural heritage of the world and learn from it. We want to extract the moral lessons that we can call universal truth and we want to be challenged and think about moral cases that are not as obvious. Thus we claim that the Church is in some sense based on all previous and future religions.

When the church was founded then the main influence was as claimed above Christianity. The word church in our name simply refers to the community part of our religion which we consider to be very important. After the founding and the founding statement we've found an officially recognized religion that shares many similar traits with the church. We will post about this religion soon and explain how those two are similar and how they are different.

Is religion a good idea?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 04:14:00 +0000

No, this is not a post on whether religion is good or not. I had something entirely different in mind. The movie Dogma said that religion was just a good idea. We agree with that philosophy here at the Church of Integrity.

Religion is just a good idea in the sense that religion is an idea that guides you in life but it's only a good idea in the sense that it's eventually you that make the decisions and it's eventually you that is responsible for your life, not some dogma.

Furthermore then religion is just a good idea in the sense that we all take religion a bit differently. Just look at all the forks in Christianity. Thus we think that religion is a very personal thing. Thus in the Church of Integrity we don't want to force people too much to do certain things. For example we won't tell you that you'll go to Hell if you don't pray. If you don't feel like praying then don't pray. Same goes with going to church, thinking about the religion etc. We all approach these things in different ways and we want to cherish that diversity.

If you lead your life based on: "Do what is right" then you can indeed call yourself a member of the Church of Integrity. You don't have to officially sign yourself up anywhere, you don't have to pay anyone anything etc. As long as you lead your life based on that then you are doing good. With that all said then we'll still recommend that you think about the religion, that you help others etc. Just do it in your own way.

Why does this blog have advertisements?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 17:30:00 +0000

The story of when Jesus cleared out the merchants is one that we agree with here at the Church of Integrity. We just don't feel it works out that we try to get our message out there and then have someone else try to steal your attention (the advertiser). So in general then you should not view the fact that we have an advertisement as some indication that the religion will be littered with advertisements.

The reason we have the advertisement here is that we want to make money to be able to spread the religion even further. So we have these conflicting opinions, on the one hand we need the money but on the other hand we prefer not to mix up the religion with advertisements. We hope the solution we chose is the right thing to do. The advertisement is safely kept to the side and clearly labeled as an advertisement. I hope it wont distract you dear readers from the points we try to make.

So what do we want to do with the money? First we'd like to buy a domain, both to secure it and it will also help us with page ranks and make it easier for people to spread the word. After that we'd love to move to a dedicated host so that we could set up a proper forum where our community could prosper. Remember that the community is a very important entity in the religion.

Sadly we are not even close to those goals at the moment. It will take quite some time to reach them. Later on we'll perhaps add donation buttons but at the moment we are focusing on telling you about the foundation so that you can make up your mind if this religion is anything for you.

Does Hell exist?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:08:00 +0000

It is a natural question to ask what happens if you do not do the right thing. Why shouldn't you just go out there and kill someone? Our answer is that because of evolution we have these basic notions of what is right and what is wrong. If you go against them then you and those who follow you will probably end up extinct. We say probably because it is impossible to tell how evolution will happen but the fact that humans have had wars, killed and done many wrong things and yet we still cherish these fundamental values shows that going against them is heading for a slippery slope.

Hence the Church of Integrity cherishes universal values like repenting and asking for forgiveness. Additionally then some of us claim that you feel better when you do the right thing, but that is not substantiated with any scientific experiments.

Believing in God can be a good thing, it can help people that feel bad. Hence we suggest that as an alternative. Hell on the other hand is something we don't care for. We claim it was used throughout the ages to scare people to do the right thing and we don't believe in ruling with fear, especially when there is scientific evidence that doing the right thing is much better for you in the long run.

Why follow your teachings?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 06:15:00 +0000

Other religions base their commandments or teachings on the word of God. We in the Church of Integrity say that the reason we should do the right thing is because that will help us survive. It is somehow wired into us that we should try survive. The survival instincts in humans just as animals are quite amazing. So why should we do the right thing, treat others like we want to be treated ourselves etc? It is because during all these years of evolution then it has emerged as common wisdom to do those things. They can help you survive and can help the human race in general. When we help each other and work together then we can accomplish amazing feats like the open source movement has shown. You can go to very primitive examples of what happens if you start killing others or if you treat others badly but in general then you'll get punished for it or feel bad about it. Of course there will exist examples that might in some way disprove this general rule but they are few and far between. Hence we should all follow these general rules.

Setting up those general rules and citing that they are the result of evolution is though in some way avoiding the question. Why should we follow the rules even though they are a result of human evolution or our general experience? We claim not to know the answer. Perhaps evolution and this need for survival is somehow connected with God or perhaps there is some deeper scientific explanation. We claim though that it is a good motivation to do those things that it is something that has come from the whole evolution process and has been passed on from one generation to another and those that have tried to break out of it have failed.

Virginia Tech

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 18:53:00 +0000

We at the Church of Integrity send our condolences to the victims and their families. The families probably don't know what to do now, let alone knowing what the right thing to do is! They need our help. No matter which religion you come from then I hope you pray for or send good thoughts to the survivors and the families. Better yet, if you know someone connected to the tragedy then talk to them. They need the support of those that can think somewhat clearly at the moment.

Is the church a house?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 05:43:00 +0000

No, like in Christianity then the Church of Integrity views the church as being the people. We put a big emphasis on the community. Let's look at two examples that highlight how important the community is.

Most of the time then luckily things go well. Many people tend to forget their faith during that time. In the Church of Integrity we emphasize that people help others when they are themselves doing good. There are many ways to help. You can donate money to charity, you can help your neighbors and many other things. One thing we specifically point out is that we all have to deal with problems or we don't know what the right thing to do is. When we feel that way then it's great to be able to talk to someone. Offer to help by listening and talking about such things. It is love thy neighbor in pratice. Thus the community is here to help and that is very important.

During services then preaching is a good way to get a message across. We firmly believe though that the church should offer a variety of ways for people to enjoy the services. Some might prefer more classical services, others might enjoy services that are more like shows and where they can sing along and what not. We even plan on some even more ground breaking services. We do not see that as being somehow of a lower form than services within other religions. We feel that religion should reach out to the people, it should be enjoyable for people to listen to the message of the day and reflect on their religion. A very important part in our services is to give members a chance after the service to interact with each other. Chat about what bothers them. That is a prime venue to help those that don't know what the right thing to do is. Also the community is here for you to have fun. Man is the joy of man.

Politics and Religion

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:07:00 +0000

Just like with education then we believe that the church and politics should be seperated. The church will strive to stay away from political discussion but we recommend that our people take part in the discussion and help shape the society they live in.

So far we've established that the Church of Integrity wants to keep some distance between the religion on the one hand and education and politics on the other hand. Of course life isn't that simple. We preach for a certain way of living. One of the foundations of our world view is science. Of course if let's say other religions would attack science in our public schools then the Church of Integrity might be forced to either create our own schools and/or fight for science in the public schools. Similarly if other religions try to take over in politics and lets say ban our religion then we might have to get involved in politics.

The idea is though that the church as an institution distances itself from those matters. Whatever happens then the church will always preach peace and the Church of Integrity will never fight with violence.

Ancient Myths?

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:10:00 +0000

Most religions have ancient myths or stories that relate to their prophets, creation of the universe etc. In the Church of Integrity we claim we got one of the best stories in some sense. Since following the scientific method is central to our world view then our ancient story is that of the universe, from Big Bang until today. We are constantly adding to the story and finding out more about our past. There study of the universe is very important because it answers questions that we all want answers to like how was the world created and studying history, for example mistakes like wars, helps us stay away from those mistakes in the future and do the right thing.

As seen above then science and history are very important to us but does this mean that we ignore the ancient myths of the other religions? Not at all. Cultural in general, whether it is recent novels or sagas of old can tell us a lot about people. Culture can challenge us. Always challenging your view of the universe is important because it helps you double check that you are doing the right thing. Hence we encourage people to get to know other religions, read books and in general absorb as much culture as possible. Note that this does not mean that you must read some classical books, current popular culture like movies, music etc are great too. You consume the culture that fits you, just try to keep an open mind.

Education is the most important thing we can give our children. Teaching them science, history, arts, languages and about religion in general is very important. The religion behind the Church of Integrity is unobtrusive in the sense that what we want to teach our children is what might be considered general knowledge, something that can be in common for children of all religions. Keeping this distinction between religion and education is very important. Giving our children a free choice of what religion to eventually choose is the right thing to do.

Frequently Asked Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Reformer) — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 07:57:00 +0000

This post will attempt to summarize the various questions you might have about the religion. The post will be updated as more information is posted on the blog.

Q: What is the foundation of the religion?
A: The foundation of the religion has been posted and is in a simplified version that you should always do what is right. See more details in the the foundation post that we link to in this answer.

Q: So what is the right thing to do?
A: There is no easy answer to that but click this link to see a detailed discussion on the answer.

Q: Why does this blog have advertisements?
A: In short to help us make money to spread further the word about the Church of Integrity.

Q: Why do you have Book of the Week?
A: Culture is very important to us so we want to share some good books with our followers.

Q: What is you stance on praying?
A: Praying is good.

Q: How should we educate our children?
A: There should be some distance between education and religion.

Q: Is the Church of Integrity a political power?
A: No, we claim that the church as an institution should distance it from politics.

Q: Is the church just a house?
A: No, the church is made from the people. Our community is at the core of the religion.

Q: Why should we follow these basic principles, like do the right thing and treat others like you want them to treat you?
A: Because they are a result of evolution. Some common wisdom that has prevailed. But why does that mean we should follow it? We don't claim we know the answer to that.

Q: Does Hell exist?
A: No.

Q: What do you mean when you say that religion is a good idea?
A: We mean that religion is a very individual thing and thus we build a lot of freedom into the Church of Integrity. As long as you follow: "Do what is right" then you can call yourself a follower.

Q: What religion is the Church of Integrity based on?
A: None. However we are influenced by most religions, ethical teachings and basically all culture that humankind has seen.