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'''Yoism''' claims to be the world's first [[open-source]] [[religion]]. It has around 100 adherents world-wide, who call themselves ''Yoans''. According to the Yoans, people's beliefs must be consistent with their own experience and with their own sense of what is [[right]], and this is the only viable path toward [[Truth]]. Yoan beliefs are not based on received [[wisdom]], such as from long-dead [[patriarch]]s. Rather, Yoan beliefs are based on the consensus of the Yoan community in a continually updated, open-source ''Book of Yo''.

Yoans build their [[community|communities]] on an open-source process of consensus, striving to express what everyone in the community finds to comport with their experience, scientific data, and the aspirations of the community.  From this consensus on scientific and open-source truth, Yoans strive to improve their world. Yoans state several goals in which they are united:  world-wide justice, environmental sanity, and healthier communities.  From these goals, Yoans hope that humanity will achieve a status of sustainability within the worldwide [[ecosystem]].

== Yo ==

Yoism is the community dedicated to the worship and study of ''Yo'', a place-holder, a symbol for a person's experience of divinity, or to god, reality, the universe.

Yoans (that is, followers of Yoism) claim that Yo is a place-holder name that stands for the [[universe]] and everything within the universe, the trees and bugs and animals, the rocks and rivers, the stars and [[galaxies]]. Yoans say that they know that what "Yo" stands for exists, as evidenced in feelings, thoughts, and experience. Yoans claim that the experience of Yo gives comfort and strength.

==History of Yo==
The earliest Yoan writing listed on the Yoism website is the [[October 27]], [[1998]] presentation ''The Word According to Yo, as Told to Daniel'' by Dr. [[Daniel Kriegman]] [http://www.yoism.org/document.php?id=word]. The article implies that in addition to Dr. Kriegman there were other yoans involved in Yoism at the time.

Starting in June 2003 the Yoan community in Boston began holding weekly ''gatherings'' in a space rented from the First Congregational Church of [[Somerville, Massachusetts]]. Average attendance is around 30.

==External links==
* [http://www.yoism.org/ Yoism website]
* [http://corp.sec.state.ma.us/corp/corpsearch/CorpSearchSummary.asp?ReadFromDB=True&UpdateAllowed=&FEIN=000832116 Yo Inc. corporate documents]