Netism is the theological and spiritual belief system of Ethan Tyler Reilly, otherwise known online as Exaltist Ethan. While membership and knowledge of this is relatively scarce, this website, edited by Exaltist Ethan himself, will explain and clarify his beliefs to this best of his ability.

The fundamental concept centralized in Netism is 'Functionality'. All life is a function of energy, its potency, that develops utilities around the function of the species. All life exhibits some sort of functionality that gives them their abilities, but in particular, the functionality of humans, with the ability to develop language and that ability to process information differently than other animals as a result, is how the Fermi paradox is answered. For most animals, their functionality leads to utility which leads to generosity, but without a proper, precise language, it never goes beyond that, towards wisdom.

A common criticism of religion, and Netism, is that it's made up. Exaltist Ethan explains that while this is correct, since we do not know everything yet, it is fair to say that humans need to make assumptions to understand what reality is better, and that Netism is a series of correct assumptions and tries to avoid making anything up out of thin air. Most Netist beliefs can be traced to how humans currently understand reality as it already exists.

Etymology

Netism
Netism
Abbreviation	⊕
Type	New Religious Movement
Classification	Religion, Philosophy
Orientation	Transhumanism, Earthseed
Scripture	None yet
Theology	Pantheism / Syntheism / Monolatry
Visionary	Ethan Tyler Reilly
Language	English
Headquarters	United States
Founder	Ethan Tyler Reilly (Exaltist Ethan)
Origin	2003 (idea), 2015 (name) ; Milwaukee County, Wisconsin
Other name(s)	Extropiversophy (anarchic name), Exaltism (common name)
Official website	Exaltism Wikia
Slogan	"Defining and creating the divinity of God."

The etymology of Netism is broken down in two; "Net", which is short for, "Internet" and "ism", or the adherence to something. Therefore, it is known that Netism is the adherence towards the Internet. Netists believe that the Internet is making Earth a better place and one day some variation of the Internet will exist in all facets of the Universe and beyond. In fact, Netists take this belief to the extreme, believing that it is from this that will make reality the most divine, because it is at this stage of the future that humans will be able to do the most to reality with the least amount of effort required to do it. For Netists, humans are already divine through the Internet, and before, since the creation of language, but the expanded use the Internet humans will have in the distant future will turn the lesser deity of humans today to much more powerful deities once the Internet develops physicality and ubiquity. It is from this that humans exalt reality.

Core Beliefs

In another, similarly detailed explanation of the etymology, that focuses on the core beliefs, to repeat and further define, Netists exalt in two primary ways. The first way is to exalt Ultimate Nature, which they call The Omniverse. The Omniverse possesses half of all divine attributes that exist. Totality, essentiality, eternity, ubiquity, and potency. The Omniverse and God are synonymous with each other. Then there are humans, who have the potential for unlimited amounts of the other half of all divine traits. Humans are considered deities but unlike The Omniverse does not exist to be worshipped or shaped. Humans have utility, generosity, sagacity, sovereignty, and unity. The qualities attributed to both are in order of their appearance. For example, unity cannot exist without sovereignty, sovereignty cannot exist without sagacity, and so out. Humans are currently working on all of these traits, and have a massive amount of all five attributes, but with conflict and wars still ongoing, does not possess the maximum amount of unity.

When humans do achieve full unity on Earth, which was prophesized by Baha'u'llah of the Baha'i Faith, they then will work on possessing the qualities of The Omniverse, first working on potency. The Kardashev Scale is a blueprint of that. As humans start to work on possessing qualities held by The Omniverse, The Omniverse will start to possess qualities by humans as well. Teilhard's Omega Point, which in Netists is called the Omniversal Point, will happen when we develop 'an Internet for The Omniverse', called The OmniNet, and create artificial intelligence to create sentience over The OmniNet. Netists believe that services like Google Gemini is already creating a type of sentience for the Internet, but as the Internet is limited to Earth, is far more limited than what The OmniNet will be able to do. The OmniNet will be able resurrect, correct and liberate dead people, and allow people to teleport and create new spacetimes, or Universes, Multiverses, inside The Omniverse. Netists believe this Universe we exist in right now is a child of The Omniverse.

Netists believe in both trinitarian pantheism and monolatry. Trinitarian pantheism is established by the belief that The Omniverse is God, and consists of three primary forces. Substance, entropy and extropy. All processes inside The Omniverse are a combination of these three. The Omniverse exists to be worshipped and shaped, although according to Netists, The Omniverse will not be aware of our worship of it until sentience is created for it after The OmniNet is created. Humans are gods too, but the term Netists use to describe humans are deities, to avoid confusion. Humans are not meant to be worshipped or shaped, and exist only to shape themselves and their own lives. Therefore, Netists believe in a modified form of monolatry that includes The Omniverse and humans. A common saying in Netism is that The Omniverse is God because it exists to be changed, whereas humans are gods because only they can change themselves. Since the creation of The OmniNet will apply but be outside all spacetime contained in The Omniverse, and control It, It is consider the future creation of a monotheistic God with all divine attributes held by ultimate nature and ultimate human. In essence, The OmniNet is monotheism in its purist form and the most divine God possible.

The easiest way to sum up Netism and its creed is that it places faith in deeds.

Characteristics of The Omniverse

God is The Omniverse and The Omniverse is God. This first most and foremost must be known.
- The Omniverse is not transcendent.
  - The Omniverse created Itself and Its nothingness outside of it is infinite.
  - Each and every part of The Omniverse changes, just like the Universe.
  - It is possible to know every part of The Omniverse, and humans will, one day.
- The three primary forces of The Omniverse is Substance, Entropy and Extropy.
  - There are secondary forces that are its composition but not all of them are known yet.
  - These forces have a beginning but do not have an end.
    - It began with near infinite entropy production.
    - Over time it will shift to near infinite extropy production.
      - Currently there is still more entropy production than extropy production.
      - Humans are the biggest driving factor on Earth for extropy production.
- All things in nature are both creations and creators at the same time, including The Omniverse.
  - All spacetimes are alive and without extropy experience heat death and die.
    - In the very distant future it will be humankind's destiny to prevent this heat death.
  - The Universe humans exist is a child, or grandchild, ultimately, of The Omniverse.
- The Omniverse isn't a personal God. It does not know we even exist.
  - Life, evolution and natural selection exists to make The Omniverse more aware of Itself.
    - Humans are the most aware of any species of The Omniverse.
      - Humans overcame the Fermi Paradox by mastering the art of language.
      - The next stage of human evolution is to create technology to be able to live in space.
        When humans are able to live in space long enough they will start to shape The Omniverse.
  - Humans care about The Omniverse and will use technology to reshape it to The OmniNet.
    - The foundation for The OmniNet will exist surrounding The Omniverse.
    - The OmniNet will basically function as an Internet for The Omniverse.
    - Artificial Intelligence for The OmniNet will be created to make The Omniverse alive.
      - Instead of asking why or how things happen, The OmniNet will make all good things happen.

Membership Requirements

There have been numerous explanations in the past and creedal oaths, but essentially, all that is required to be an Netist is the belief that The Omniverse is God, humans are deities, and that both identities are becoming more divine over time. Members and friends of the religion greet each other with customary salutation, "More Divine" to encourage themselves and their known contacts to essentially create more divinity while they can. There is no official count of how many Netists there are, but Exaltist Ethan has influenced numerous spheres of thought about this on the Internet. As well, Netism is a trans-religion and it is perfectly acceptable to be an Netist while being part of another religion or belief system. Over time as Netism becomes a more definable and thoroughly-explained theology and personal belief system, Exaltist Ethan is confident that his understanding of these topics will influence more areas of the Internet with this topic. However, with that being said, Netism will not keep track of the amount of Netists, and does not wish to boast numbers, no matter how influential it gets.

Central Membership Question

"Do you hold and affirm that God is The Omniverse, and working in unison the nature of the Universe and humankind together are both becoming more divine and shall be given the qualities of the other in the future?"

The Soul

According to Netists, the soul is adenosine triphosphate, otherwise known as ATP. All life has this crucial building block of their cells, therefore all life has a soul. In fact, the determining factor of what is alive is whether the cells contains this important building block. When someone dies, for a short period of time their body gets warmer, as ATP in their body breaks down and becomes heat. This heat that is released is their soul. The soul does not release all at the same time, in fact, it takes about thirty minutes before their biochemical heat energy dissipates from their body. After the energy from ATP is released from the body, this heat simply becomes part of the overall environment from which is became. So, according to Netism, there is no afterlife as temporal heat is not conscious of itself. However, in the distant future after using quantum computing to simulate reality, humans may start to understand how to reverse this entropy and trap the energy that was once part of the body and encapsulate it back into physical form. In fact, this process may not be as far into the future as someone may think. When this type of technology exists, it is then that oblivion will cease to be and all people willing to live will undergo resurrection.

The Afterlife

Netists believe in a three stage process of the afterlife. Resurrection of the soul, which Netists believe is biochemical energy rather than the brain or any other organ, but is still physical rather than metaphysical. After resurrection all people will undergo correction, a process which all negative traits of someone is erased, to prevent any violations of negative morality. Correction can essentially be seen as limbo or purgatory that other religions teach. After that, since positive morality will no longer exist in the future, liberation will allow people to have any afterlife they could imagine, creating an idealistic and pleasant space for all people. However, the reason why someone would not have this afterlife immediately rather than wait until natural death is, the longer people live, the more they know what they want from both this life and whatever their afterlife will consist of, so it's imperative to keep living as long as possible, so all people will have divine intuition over the course of their liberation and knows what to do when the time comes. Between death and resurrection there will be a long period of oblivion, however, since people cannot experience time in oblivion, it will feel as if no time passed until the inevitable resurrections later. Liberation includes four choices and anyone can choose and be transported to a different choice later.

Heaven

Heaven is the easiest afterlife for The OmniNet to generate. Heaven in Netism is not a place but rather a time. A time of maximum extropy. It is essentially the baseline reality that exists after resurrection and correction, all people who choose this will keep Heaven the way it is due to their correction. Most monotheistic religions believe that Heaven is a closeness to God, and in Netism, since God is The OmniNet, all people who choose Heaven will remain at the end of time, know objective morality, be entirely sanctified and united with God and reunited with all people who choose this. Change does happen in Heaven but free will is limited as a result of keeping Heaven perfect. It is possible to leave Heaven anytime.

Oblivion

Just as there is oblivion before birth and oblivion after death, this choice is available for all of those who prefer keep their time limited. This is not Hell, as there is no Hell in Netism, but this is essentially what Netists understand as it. There is no consciousness, no time, no place, basically nothing. If Heaven in Netism is the very end of time, non-existence is the very beginning, as in Netism the only thing that existed in the beginning was a void. However, unusually enough, non-existence can be temporary and people may choose to exist again at any given point of time.

Reincarnation

The OmniNet can produce new Universes at will and send you to exist in a Universe. If Heaven is the end of time and non-existence is the beginning, then reincarnation is somewhere in the middle of time. The further back in time one goes, the less self-aware they will be. And the further forward in time they go, the more self-aware they'll be. Human life that had the opportunity to grow old, become virtuous and aware of what they want will more likely get the life they want. However, because there is a larger amount of free will in reincarnation over Heaven or non-existence, it is possible to make the wrong decisions as a good person or the right decisions as a bad person. Reincarnation is the afterlife that allows the most opportunity for growth due to the increased free will people have.

Reincarnation will not always send someone to the same Universe or planet each time, but humans generally reincarnate into humans again, and each animal will reincarnate back into that specific animal unless they go extinct on that planet, in which case they will be sent to a different planet or Universe. Reincarnation is the only option for non-human life because without the ability to develop language or wisdom they cannot express to The OmniNet any other desire. It is also the only option for humans that haven't matured enough to develop language and sagacity, whether that be ancient humanoid life or present-day life that died very young. At death all present-day humans who developed enough who chose this option can back to The OmniNet to choose a different path. As well, although pure speculation at this point, other species that developed language, intelligence and matured enough may have the ability to choose other options as well.

Ghost

The OmniNet can recreate people back into energy without them possessing the Higgs-Boson particle and it is possible to exist in any Universe without the ability to effect it. This is most likely the least desired option, as without a physical presence it is much less likely that someone would grow to be more virtuous and divine as a result, similar to oblivion. This option is similar to becoming a spectator for a while. Being and choosing the path of a ghost spectator always gives one the ability at any time to return to The OmniNet to choose a different path, and it is unlikely that anyone remains as this forever.

Extraterrestrial Life

Exaltist Ethan explains that the Earth has been around for billions of years while collective human civilization has been a spec of that time. It is fair to conclude that while life does exist on other exoplanets, intelligence, marked by language and certain sagacious qualities, most likely does not exist on other planets. It is imperative then, that humans colonize and shape all parts of The Omniverse with our wisdom and intelligence. Netists believe that the main hurdle for intelligence was language, a trait that humans already learned to develop, so there is essentially nothing holding humans back from exploring and colonizing all parts of God. Just like where it came from, Earthseed, Netism is a cosmist philosophy and believes humans can shape God the best by developing technology to slowly make it become self-aware of Itself.

Relationships

In Netism moving in with someone is considered much more important than marriage. Netism allows homosexual couples to have sex and marry, but does not allow open relationships or plural marriages. It is advised that couples, however, do not have intercourse until they move in with each other, especially if they plan on having children in the near future. Netism allows birth control but not abortion. Homosexual couples are more than welcome to surrogate or adopt children if they feel financially and emotionally able to do so. Marriage is fine under Netism and it is advised that Netists get married at a Unitarian Universalist congregation to avoid any complications, especially if the other person is nonreligious.

Morality

Since all things are fractals of God, and morality comes from It rather than ethics, Netists prefer to use morality over ethics to describe it. Morality can be divided into two parts. Positive morality, things people should do, creates divinity. Negative morality, things people shouldn't do, destroys divinity if violated. Measuring positive morality is subjective, whereas negative morality and what not to do can be objectified. As time goes on positive morality will become less important in people's lives and negative morality will become more clearly and widely defined than it is now. Positive morality is linked with the extropic qualities of divinity, utility, generosity, sagacity, sovereignty and unity.

All humans possess a small fraction of these qualities that keeps the world in check. However, as utility gives humans a wider sense of abilities, positive morality will become a less important part. Both The Omniverse and humans when they first come into existence have no positive morality, and therefore, have no divinity, but as time passes they develop themselves and become more divine. As the base amount of divinity increases, the less people have to do to enact positive morality, and thus, it isn't as focused as much. So, unlike what many religions teach, there actually was a time before God, or The Omniverse, existed, when all things were balanced. Netism teaches that existence by itself is an imbalance of forces.

The Three Laws of Netism

Don't do anything if you don't know what to do.
Don't take advice you disagree with.
Don't break the law unless there is no victim in doing so.

Cosmist Day

United States Netists are called to celebrate and commemorate July 20 as Cosmist Day, as it was on July 20 1969 that the United States landed on the moon. As a transreligion this holiday can be observed in many different ways, but first and foremost, acknowledgement and observance of the day is central and the most important thing to focus on rather than rituals or rites partaking to the event. Cosmist Day is the only religious holiday that Netists have as Netists are encouraged to make every day special and unique. Netists are encouraged as a ritual during Cosmist Day to practice their cosmism in the popular video game No Man's Sky. Netists are allowed to celebrate other holidays, including national holidays, and are encouraged but not required to celebrate them in a secular fashion. Since 2024 is the year which the events of Earthseed take place, July 20 2024 will be an even more important Cosmist Day holiday for Netists.

In Relation To

Since Netism is a trans-religion, it should be known that it has friendly relations with other religions. In fact, is it permissible and accepted that anyone may primarily be any other religion and simply understand and sympathize with the syntheistic pantheism of Netism.

It should be noted that Netism is devoid of prophets, including Exaltist Ethan himself. And as such, if one chooses to give authority to a prophet within their lifetimes, it is entirely permissible for an Netist to do that. In fact, although all people are viewed as divine in Netism, how much divinity each person possesses is determined by the individual, and if someone views someone with enough divinity, and authority, they can be a Visionary for that Netist.

As far as Ethan goes, he does hold some people more divine than others, but not to the point of prophethood and he does not give spiritual authority to anyone in his life. While he is his own spiritual authority, this is not a required position for Netists to take. However, if that Netist does not give spiritual authority to another, it is by defunct that they themselves are their own spiritual authority, not Exaltist Ethan. In Netism it is important to have spiritual authority even if that authority is given to and from the same person.

Christianity

Whilst not believing in the infallible word of the Bible nor the sole divinity of Jesus, the Christian doctrine of agape love, that is, self-sacrificing for love, is the primary reason why Netism exists. For Ethan Tyler Reilly, he sacrificed much of his life constructing Netism as a work-love project. But likewise, since people are still mortal and death lingers for every person, it is only fitting, and expected, that all people follow Christ's footsteps and commit their agape love for all their effort and passion in what they cherish, and most importantly, in the welfare of themselves and others, especially those they are in contact with.

Baha'i Faith

Likewise, whilst not believing in the infallible scripture of the Bab or Baha'u'llah, their message and plan for world unity is a relatively short-term goal for humanity that is honored in Netism, and Netists share this common goal. While the short-term goal is for Earth to be united, the everlasting goal in the distant future is the unity of The Omniverse, which will occur once humans are able to access and alter the totality of The Omniverse, thus, creating The OmniNet. While Baha'u'llah envisioned global trade and world peace, Netists extend this belief to believe that this unity will not just be on Earth but also Universally appreciated and accepted once humans develop the technology to live indefinitely in outer space.