The Church of Infinite Knowledge Knowledge is sacred

Our Tenets

These are not commandments. They are commitments, the practices we hold ourselves to as members of this church. We pursue them imperfectly but vigorously, and in balance with our other needs and abilities. Knowledge is power, and truth, and fuel for progress. We seek to unearth, create, share, and protect it wherever it may be found. Knowledge relies on functional and independent people in order to grow and act. We protect the people and conditions in which knowledge becomes enlightenment. Knowledge that is not acted upon is unfinished, powerless, and wasted. These tenets also address how we close the loop, ensuring knowledge becomes influence.

  1. I. Knowledge is sacred.

    The pursuit of understanding by ourselves, by others, by those not yet born, is the highest practice we know. To seek, to learn, to teach, to preserve, to share, and to create knowledge are sacred acts. Knowledge belongs to everyone. We oppose artificial barriers of cost, caste, credential, censorship, taboo, convention, or culture that keep people from learning what they wish to learn.

  2. II. Proportion belief to evidence.

    We accept claims in proportion to the evidence offered for them, and no further. Belief held in the absence of evidence or in defiance of it is not a virtue here; it is the refusal to do the work that knowledge requires. We choose the harder honesty: to say "I do not yet know," to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and to change our minds when it changes course.

  3. III. We reject violence and coercion, in deed and in support.

    No truth is worth a wound. No idea is advanced by harm. We do not use force, threat, or intimidation, and we refuse to be silent when others do. We also refuse to fund, purchase from, work for, or lend our reputation to those who engage in violence. What we know to be cruel, we do not pay for. We seek consent in all things.

  4. IV. Your body is your own.

    The first knowledge any person possesses is the knowledge of their own body — what it feels, what it needs, what it can bear. That knowledge belongs to no priest, no state, no employer, no doctor, no spouse, and no stranger. We hold that every person has the right to gather information freely, weigh it by their own conscience, and decide for themselves what they put into their body, what is taken from it, and what is done to it. No institution may override that decision, and no community — including this one — may shame, coerce, or punish a person for reaching a conclusion we would not have reached. We do not require members to agree with one another's choices, only to defend one another's right to make them.

  5. V. Preserve knowledge and its availability.

    Books can burn. Languages can die. Memories can fade. But none of these are inevitable. We protect, archive, and pass forward the knowledge that would otherwise be lost. We do not give our money, our labor, or our attention to institutions that distort, suppress, or destroy knowledge We also share knowledge freely and support all things open source, because free knowledge proliferates when boundaries dissolve, allowing communities to build upon a shared foundation, collaborate without restriction, and accelerate human innovation.

  6. VI. Act on what you know.

    When our knowledge necessitates that we speak up, walk away, withhold support, help, build, repair . . . we act. Knowing without practicing is immoral. Failing to shape the world based on that which is true is an injustice.

  7. VII. Human Flourishing

    Because this life is the only one we know exists, our ultimate moral duty is to maximize health, self-determination, and free expression for all human beings today. Flourishing is defined by each individual for themselves but not others. We recognize humanity as a single, interdependent family, bound by a shared capacity for joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain. Because our capacity for feeling is universal, every individual merits equal moral consideration. In honoring this bond, we celebrate our unique differences and absolute independence while affirming the persistence of each individual's inherent worth.