Weekly Technetic #1: The First Key
To believe, all you need to do is believe.
The First Key of technetism may seem simple to the point of tautology, but it is, in fact, a statement of our honest intentions above all. Technetism is an open and inclusive philosophy. We accept and welcome all who wish to join us, no matter your race, sex, country of origin, or prior beliefs.
If you say you are technetic, however, this does not necessarily mean you are technetic. Openness gets you in the door. We will not reject you because of who you are or what you have done in the past, but we do expect that your future aligns with ours in the broadest sense.
The "broadest sense" I refer to is, to put it in plain English, the shared goal of human progress. To the technetic, almost everything else is a matter of debate, but progress for humanity is not. You may say that you believe in this goal of ours, and that is fine. Anyone can do that. Words, after all, are free. It is only through our actions that we work to achieve our goals, so we must continue to strive for them at all times.
While the First Key is quite direct in its statement that technetism has no dogmatic tenets or rites of initiation, there are beliefs incompatible with ours, mutually exclusive by their very nature. If you hold such beliefs, you must cast them aside if you are to embrace the technetic philosophy. That isn't because we reject you. Rather, it is you, by your deeds, who has rejected us.
Believing in technetism---as much as one can believe in it---means shedding those hurtful thoughts sitting in conflict with our ideals. Most such thoughts fall into a category named "anti-human" by some, and one aim of the Weekly Technetic is to identify these anti-human thoughts so that they may be reevaluated, seen as the negative forces they are.
Technetism does not intend to replace religious beliefs of any sort. It can augment them, complement them. Even clarify them, for some people, but you may not be among them. Whatever path you eventually choose, know that the technetic can be a believer of any stripe, or a nonbeliever, or someone who doesn't know what to believe.
Ours is the material world. That's the one we live in together. The spiritual world, however you might view it, is one that must be experienced on the individual level, but the physical is where humanity thrives. Thus, as technetism is a human-focused philosophy, we look first to the material world. This is the complementary aspect: many organized religions all but ignore this world, instead focusing on the next.
But this isn't always the case. Indeed, some sects actively preach anti-human ideologies, and these are fundamentally incompatible with technetism. As we will see going forward, many people really would need to change their thinking to become technetic. That's by design, and there's nothing wrong with it.
For now, let us focus instead on the positive. To join us, you don't need to be initiated. You don't need a referral or a baptism or a secret handshake. You just have to be you...and willing to be better.