Jaminism is by no means an easy thing to define. The study of Jaminism (known as Jaminology) has become the life’s work of some Jaminologists, their collected works on the subject spanning several pages. Jaminology itself has also become the subject of study, known as Jaminolowology, but this is a subject for a later paper. This article is merely an introduction to the fascinating and exciting religion of Jaminism. All of the subjects touched upon will be expanded upon at a later date and updated as studies reveal previously unknown elements of the belief system.

Context:

There are many possible ways of looking at the world. Arguably there are as many different worldviews as there are people in the world (see fig i). At present, scientists have categorised 57, 482 unique worldviews. Some scientists theorise that there may in fact be as many as 57, 484 totally unique human perspectives, or even more.

Jaminism is one of these perspectives, or “personal religions” if you will. It is the beliefs, attitudes and philosophies of the prophet Jamin, and has become the state religion of The People’s Republic of Jamin (the PRJ has yet to be recognised by the United Nations as an independent country because of a minor technicality).

Jaminism currently claims only one adherent, yet through highly conversational, low pressure evangelism methods, the prophet expects these numbers to increase over time (see fig ii).

Key Doctrines:

• Journey

Foundational to the Jaminist experience is the mindfulness of Journey. Rather than having a specific final destination or promised land, the Jaminist is focussed on the journey of life and the process of living. The end goal is a long way off so the Jaminist instead focuses on personal growth and moving forward, holding faith in the promise that if you travel far enough, eventually you will arrive somewhere, and during the journey, wherever you travel, there you are (see fig iii).

• Perfection

Jaminism makes the claim that all people, Jaminist and Jaminot alike, are perfectly themselves regardless of what point

of their journey they are currently experiencing. You are exactly the person you are meant to be right now. There is no other person you could have been (see fig iv).

• Argumentation

This is the belief that an open dialogue between opposing belief systems will result in a refinement of both systems. For this reason, Jaminists are encouraged to participate in friendly debate on a variety of issues for the purpose of airing multiple perspectives on a topic and allowing the testing of belief. The goal of these discussions is not to necessarily convince the other party, but rather to improve one’s own understanding of the issues and test the reliability of one’s own beliefs (see fig v). Success in this regard is determined by what one learns from the experience rather than whether or not either individual can be said to have “won”.

• Moral Growth

Rather than placing emphasis on following a set of commandments or rules, Jaminism focuses on personal moral growth. Value is not placed on how moral you are right now or whether you have perfectly fulfilled some impossible standard, but rather on the direction of your moral journey. One does not expect an infant to be able to hold down a full time job and support a family; likewise, a moral infant is not expected to have developed the spiritual maturity to be perfect simply by being given a set of laws to follow. Rather, it is through a process of mindful contemplation of the world and the necessity of human interaction and cooperation that moral ideas develop (see fig vi). Morality is therefore not something to strive for, but rather something which happens naturally as the Jaminist considers the world and his or her place within it.

• Honesty

An important element of spiritual growth is personal honesty and reflection. The Jaminist must develop a habit of

honest personal analysis and self assessment. All compassion and no mercy, the Jaminist learns to see themselves for what they truly are, honestly accepting their strengths and weaknesses in a dispassionate way, and learning to love what they see unconditionally, while also correcting erroneous thinking patterns when they discover them (see fig vii).

A Jaminist response Sire’s basic questions of a religion or worldview:

1. What is the prime or ultimate reality?

While it is acknowledged that an ultimate reality does indeed exist, with the limited tools available to humans it is not currently possible to know with any confidence what that reality is. Rather than making an uneducated guess for the sake of a quick fix, the Jaminist acknowledges the limitations of his or her own knowledge. To claim knowledge of the unknown would be in direct conflict with Jaminism’s Honesty dogma (see fig viii).

2. What is the nature of external reality or the world around us?

The world/universe exists and is made of physical matter interacting through processes which are explained through the science of physics. It is perfectly itself as it is and will continue to be so long after humans become extinct (see fig ix).

3. What is a human being?

A human being is a self replicating arrangement of genetic and experiential information (see fig x).

4. What happens to a person after death?

When a particular person dies, the genetic and experiential information which they are carrying which has not already been passed on to the next generation in the form of either DNA or teaching becomes unaccusable, the biological housing of that information quickly degrades and the information becomes lost. Since a person is information, the information they shared, either through reproduction or through other people’s experience of them, continues to exist in an altered state and lives on within the collective experience and genetic makeup of humanity as a whole, granting a sort of communal immortality.

If a being with sufficient power or technology to retrieve experiential information from a deceased body and place that information in a new body at some later date chooses to do so, then there may be an afterlife of that being’s design. The specific details of such an event are impossible to predict at this time (see fig xi). The Jaminist acknowledges this set of events as a possibility.

5. How do we know what we know?

We have blueprints for an organ called a brain written into our replicatable genetic information. This organ stores experiential information which we receive through our senses and also interprets these sensations into knowledge. The

knowledge can then be transmitted to other brains via a series of electrical impulses from the brain which triggers muscle impulses, leading to speech and other forms of human interaction (see fig xii).

6. How can we know the difference between right and wrong?

We learn the difference between right and wrong through personal experiences of negative or positive consequences to actions and through direct information transfers from other people to ourselves, and by inherited genetic tendencies. These definitions of right and wrong are constantly changing as society grows and as we as individuals grow (see fig xiii).

Hopefully this article has given you some basic understanding of the principles of Jaminism. If you have any questions, feel free to write to the author or comment below.