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Proof of the Existence of Yo: Part One

Even though “Yo” does not refer to what most people think of, when they use the word “God,” in the early days of Yoism, we did use the words “Yo” and “God” interchangeably.

In order to avoid confusion, however, even then we were careful to redefine “God” and restrict our use of it so that it referred to the same thing as our new word, “Yo.” “Yo,” along with this restricted use of “God,” was similar to some mystic and pantheistic (e.g., see Spinoza’s pantheism), as well as modern scientific ways of referring to God. (For examples of the latter, consider E. O. Wilson’s spiritual world view, or the religious sentiments of Albert Einstein that even Richard Dawkins can embrace!)

“My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their human interests.” (Santayana)
However, in contrast to the use of such words to refer to “All-that-Is,” to the scientist’s “Universe,”, or to Spinoza’s “Pantheistic Universe/God,” we believe that Yo refers to something else that is—not only not the Universe we experience—It is utterly unlike the world of our experience.

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the Mysterious — the knowledge
of the existence of something unfathomable to us (Albert Einstein)

A clarification: What Yo does not mean

Before we demonstrate a proof of the existence of Yo, a language problem needs to be acknowledged. The reactions of intelligent, thoughtful people to our terminology showed us that the word “God” was inextricably laden with problematic connotations that prevented many people from hearing the valid way in which we used it. When we claimed to prove the existence of our redefined, carefully limited, mystical notion of “God,” many people simply could not shake off the associations they had formed from their experience with traditional religions.

Genocidal Stupidity: Yo versus
“The God that is getting people killed”

Despite our disclaimers, many people reacted as if we were were claiming that we could prove the existence of Yahweh of the Old Testament, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost of the Trinity, or Allah of the Qur’an. While others could follow our logic and embrace our use of the G-word, for some an anaphylactic reaction appeared to occur; it was as if we could artificially induce deafness in the people to whom we were talking! As an example, consider the reaction of Richard Dawkins in 1988 when the creation of Yoism was first proposed to him.

[Note that later, Sam Harris — the famous non-believer who, along with Yoism, crusades against belief based on faith — acknowledged to Bill Maher that “There is a core of truth to religion,” and on the page discussing Dawkins’ initial rejection of a precursor to Yoism, you can hear an interview in which he today accepts the essence of Yoism’s religious mysticism.]

Because of this, we now primarily use the word Yo to refer to the unknowable Divine Mystery that manifests as (takes the form of) the known world. And, yes, we can prove that this Yo (or God, for those of you who still prefer to use that word) exists.

However, regardless of the words you choose to use—i.e., the noises you make with your mouth—to refer to the paradoxical marvel whose existence we are about to prove, it is important to re-emphasize that we are not presenting a basis for the belief in the existence of the God of the traditional religions. At the dawn of science, the British Empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) persuasively argued that the only world/reality/truth we know is the world/reality/truth of our experience.
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