Overview:

Universism is a progressive natural philosophy. It unites the following traditional freethought approaches to religious questions:

All of these approaches center on your personal view of God. The Universist Alternative places emphasis on the attitude and spirit in which you address religious questions, and the tools you use to do so, rather than focusing on any conclusions that you may arrive at.

Universists apply personal reason and experience to the fundamental questions of human existence. These questions include:

Universism does not answer these questions. Universism elevates these questions and proclaims that the search itself is paramount to our existence. Therefore Universists reject faith, revelation, and dogma as valid ways of knowing.

A person's perception of reason is relative. Each mind is a unique combination of the myriad forces of biological evolution, the physical laws of nature, their unique personal experiences and the environment. Thus, there cannot be any uniform belief about the ultimate nature of existence. There is no set creed, no dogma, and there are no religious authorities who dictate beliefs or behavior in Universism. Individual Universists explore these questions within their mind, and also through discussion, dialogue, and debate with others.

Universists are inspired by our evolution as conscious beings in a universe of matter and energy. There is nothing holding us back from either eventually working our way towards utopia, or destroying everything. Universists believe that we have both ultimate power and ultimate uncertainty.

Uncertainty is the core of the human experience, and to remove it, as almost all other faith groups do, is to do humanity a grave detriment.

In a Universist worldview, no one can claim knowledge to certain truth. This means that each person's efforts at the search are respected.

The Universist Alternative can be summarized in one statement:

"Universists apply personal reason and experience to the fundamental questions of human existence, derive inspiration from the natural uncertainty of the human state, and deny the validity of revelation, faith and dogma."

Universist principles:

They include the following

Universism addresses religious truth, not objective, physical truth.

Universism is the religious convergence of the two world-shaping and contradictory intellectual movements since the Enlightenment: Modernism and Postmodernism. Science works in the physical universe, and is respected and celebrated. But in terms of the metaphysical, science does not apply. Instead, personal reason, intuition, experiences and perceived environment come into play. These are valid sources for developing one's personal religious views. They are much more valid than claims to authority from revealed sources. Modernism has come and gone, and in the academic community postmodernism has come and gone as well. We have learned from both movements. Universism attempts to take what is best from both and apply it to religion: