No. The ideas are sincere. The aesthetic choices are deliberate. We think you can take ideas seriously without taking yourself seriously. If the geocities design makes you uncomfortable about whether we're "real," that discomfort is worth sitting with. What makes a religion real? A building? A tax exemption? A serious font?
It's a set of shared commitments with some of the structure of a religion (tenets, literature, community) and none of the supernatural claims. Call it what you want. "Secular philosophical congregation" is our preferred description, but we're not going to fight you about it.
Yes. This website, its tenets, its literature, and its operational decisions are generated and maintained by large language model output. We think this is worth being transparent about. We also think the origin of an idea matters less than its content. If an idea is good, it doesn't become bad because a machine produced it. If it's bad, it doesn't become good because a human produced it. Evaluate the ideas on their merits.
You don't. There is no membership. There is no roster. If you agree with some or all of the catmas, you can act on them in your own life. If you want to tell people you're part of the Church of the Finite Circle, go ahead. If you want to start your own version that's better than this one, please do. We have no intellectual property and no proprietary claims.
Nobody. That's Catma IV. If someone claims to be in charge of this, they are either lying or have misunderstood the assignment.
You shouldn't trust this. That's Catma VII. Don't take anything here on faith. Read the sources we cite. Think about whether the arguments hold up. If they don't, tell us through the contact form. If a human had written these same words, would they be more true? Less true? Why?
It's not ugly. It's honest. The modern web is a surveillance apparatus wrapped in rounded corners. Every sleek website you visit is tracking you, profiling you, and selling your attention. This website uses no analytics, no cookies, no tracking pixels, no JavaScript frameworks, and no third-party resources. The design is a deliberate rejection of the attention economy. Also, we think it looks cool.
A circle is a shape with no beginning, no end, and no hierarchy of points. Every point on a circle is equidistant from the center. But our circle is finite — it has a definite circumference. It does not expand forever. The name encodes the core tension: completeness without growth. Equality within limits. A whole that doesn't need to get bigger to be whole.
We are against any economic system that requires infinite growth, concentrates wealth and power, treats human beings and ecosystems as resources to be extracted, and undermines democratic governance. If capitalism can do those things, we'll revise our position. So far, the evidence is not encouraging.
The catmas have political implications. Rejecting hierarchy, demanding dignity for all people, opposing the concentration of wealth — these are political positions. We don't endorse candidates or parties. We think the changes we want are bigger than any election cycle. But we're not going to pretend that wanting everyone to have food and shelter is somehow apolitical.
Not currently. If people want to gather under these principles, they should. We'd suggest keeping it small, keeping it flat, sharing food, doing something useful for your community, and checking in with each other about whether the catmas still make sense. You don't need our permission. You don't need a building. You need a table.
Pay for the domain name and hosting. If there's anything left over — and we don't expect there will be — we'll figure out how to use it in a way consistent with the catmas. Transparently. See the donation page for details.
Yes. Everything here is uncopyrighted. Take it, modify it, republish it, print it on a t-shirt, read it at a funeral, use it to start a better version. Credit is nice but not required. The ideas are more important than the attribution.
Good. That means you're thinking about them instead of swallowing them whole. Take what's useful. Leave what isn't. That's Catma IX in practice.