Yoism
Yoism claims to be the world's first open-source religion. It has around 100 participants world-wide, who call themselves Yoans. According to Yoans, people's beliefs must be consistent with their own experience and with their own sense of what is right. According to Yoism, individual beliefs can be incomplete, mistaken, misguided, or even deluded. Therefore, Yoans believe that only a community, consensus process can provide a viable path toward Truth. Furthermore, this process must be grounded in careful reflection on actual human experience (empirical observation). Thus, Yoan beliefs are not based on fixed, static, received wisdom, such as from long-dead patriarchs. Rather, Yoan beliefs are based on the consensus of the Yoan community that is represented in a continually updated, open-source Book of Yo.Yoan Truth is derived from three sources. First, there is the empirical data of collective human experience. Second, reason and logic must be brought to bear on our experience to create our knowledge of how our experiences relate to one another and can be expected to relate to our future experience. Third, a careful exploration of our deepest feelings, our fundamental values, and our most vital strivings is necessary for us to realize fully what aims (goals, meanings) to pursue. The Open Source Truth of the Book of Yo is our collective understanding of how to utilize valid knowledge in the most effective pursuit of our deepest aims.
Yoans build their communities on an open-source process of consensus, striving to express what everyone in the community finds to comport with their experience, scientific data, and the aspirations of the community. From this consensus on values, meanings (human desires and goals), and empirically validated facts (scientific truths), i.e., Yoism's Open-Source Truth, Yoans strive to improve their world. Yoans state several goals in which they are united: world-wide justice, environmental sanity, and healthier communities. In the pursuit of these goals, Yoans believe that the human species can achieve a stable, sustainable integration with our planet's ecosystem.
Yoism is the community dedicated to the worship and study of Yo, a word that serves as a place-holder, a symbol for that which gives rise to a person's experience of the universe or of reality. Yoans believe that each individual's experience is a miraculous manifestation of Yo.
Yoans use "Yo" to refer to the source of (or the mystery "behind") the universe (including everything within the universe, the trees, bugs, and animals, the rocks and rivers, the stars and galaxies). While this is similar to Spinoza's pantheism, Yoans say that they know that what "Yo" stands for can be proven to exist, even though the human psyche can not know anything about it other than its manifestations as human experience (also see John Locke's notions about the limits of knowledge). Yoans claim that this understanding of Yo gives comfort and strength and can provide a basis for the formation of sane, healthy communities.
The earliest Yoan writing listed on the Yoism website is the October 27, 1998 presentation The Word According to Yo, as Told to Daniel by Dr. Daniel Kriegman. The article implies that in addition to Dr. Kriegman there were other yoans involved in Yoism at the time.
Yoans have been holding regular gatherings since 1998. Starting in June 2003, the Yoan community in Boston began holding gatherings on a weekly basis in a space rented from the First Congregational Church of Somerville, Massachusetts. Average attendance, at that time, was around 30.
Yo Inc. is a non-profit organization set up to promote yoism.Yo
History of Yo
