Religious/Atheist parenting problem + UU church questions

[gturner]

Or you could just try a Presbyterian Church, which is like similar to agnosticism but without the burden of doubts.

 

[Kelso]

Ohappydagger: Great post. Thanks for sharing that.

I love that and I want the shirt.

They have the shirts at MrDeity.com. You should also check out the webseries if you haven't seen it. Great stuff.

 

[Tiberius]

I've been working on an atheist Bible, but I keep getting Writer's Block.

Maybe you could correct the spelling of Atheist. :P

 

[CmdrAJD]

Here's the deal with UU's: it is not a Christian faith. There are people there who probably believe in Jesus, but you can also find Muslims, Jews, Pagans, and even a few atheists who either like being part of some kind of community or who are in my situation. Since there's no real dogma, each church kind of does its own thing. There are seven basic UU principles, though.

Stolen from a UU website:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

As for the sunday school part of it, generally it's a lot of being a good person stuff based on the principles (without the supernatural threat behind it) and also, when the kids get a little older, a bit of a world religions survey. One text I saw included a fairly critical look at each of the major world religions (including mentioning that the gospels were written well after the events they describe) and included Humanism.

So, if you don't have kids whom you want to learn the concepts of being good--which, honestly are not that easy to actually teach at home--why would an adult choose to attend such a...meeting? Service? Get-together?

If one already knows these principles and tries to abide by them, what would be the purpose of attending UU-anything? To gain a deeper understanding or how to follow them more/better in one's life?

Ohappydagger explained it far better than I could. Even non-believers want a sense of community sometimes. Also, at the UU church near us, the minister takes the summers off, and the services instead become more of a guest lecture series with different people coming in and discussing all kinds of topics. I actually find that far more appealing than the regular services where the insist on singing hymns and the like, all of which I find fairly silly. I will give the minister credit, though. After his sermons, if you can really call them that, he opens the floor for discussion, and many times people come right out and disagree with him.

But back to your original question: what's the purpose in going? Err...I'm not the one to ask. I'd rather be spending my Sunday mornings at home with a mug of coffee and watching some Mythbusters. Other people, my wife included, seem to get something out of it.

 

[captcalhoun]

join the church of Thor.

Thor is our God. Unbelievers are smited with a big hammer. Believers are given beer. It is a Good Church.

 

[John Picard]

join the church of Thor.

Thor is our God. Unbelievers are smited with a big hammer. Believers are given beer. It is a Good Church.

I'll drink to that.

 

[Mark de Vries]

Well, it's just a natural function of religious belief. With Christianity, a person is taught that the ideology is absolute truth and everyone else is wrong... and that any doubts you have as to its validity are caused by the devil and should be actively ignored. It is only natural that it leads to tendency to demonize others, anti-intellectualism, and a general lack of critical thought.

(Note: These are my views based on my experiences. The purpose of this thread is not to belittle anyone else's beliefs.)

I bolded the bit I want to emphasise since it is so opposite of my own experience. For the record, I am Catholic, and my faith certainly is not anti-intellectual. Some Catholics may be, but that's their problem.

Ideally, the perfect upbringing for a child would be the best combination between spirituality and intellect, heart and head. I really hope you'll find a place that has that, because it's not easy.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

Here's the deal with UU's: it is not a Christian faith. There are people there who probably believe in Jesus, but you can also find Muslims, Jews, Pagans, and even a few atheists who either like being part of some kind of community or who are in my situation. Since there's no real dogma, each church kind of does its own thing. There are seven basic UU principles, though.

Stolen from a UU website:
The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

As for the sunday school part of it, generally it's a lot of being a good person stuff based on the principles (without the supernatural threat behind it) and also, when the kids get a little older, a bit of a world religions survey. One text I saw included a fairly critical look at each of the major world religions (including mentioning that the gospels were written well after the events they describe) and included Humanism.

So, if you don't have kids whom you want to learn the concepts of being good--which, honestly are not that easy to actually teach at home--why would an adult choose to attend such a...meeting? Service? Get-together?

If one already knows these principles and tries to abide by them, what would be the purpose of attending UU-anything? To gain a deeper understanding or how to follow them more/better in one's life?

Ohappydagger explained it far better than I could. Even non-believers want a sense of community sometimes. Also, at the UU church near us, the minister takes the summers off, and the services instead become more of a guest lecture series with different people coming in and discussing all kinds of topics. I actually find that far more appealing than the regular services where the insist on singing hymns and the like, all of which I find fairly silly. I will give the minister credit, though. After his sermons, if you can really call them that, he opens the floor for discussion, and many times people come right out and disagree with him.

But back to your original question: what's the purpose in going? Err...I'm not the one to ask. I'd rather be spending my Sunday mornings at home with a mug of coffee and watching some Mythbusters. Other people, my wife included, seem to get something out of it.

Why go? Because UUs are awesome.

I was raised as an athiest in the middle of the Bible belt and by the age of 19 I was a neo-pagan taoist pantheist. I lived in a world where people had a whole set of social ties and community support that I lacked, not being of a traditional frame of mind. Then we found the UUs.

At the UU church in Memphis we were able to go each Sunday morning, look out upon the mighty Mississippi and, with likeminded (i.e. open-minded) intelligent folks, contemplate the deeper wisdoms of human experience. I continued with a UU congregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I attended religious education classes, all discussion based, such as The Nature of Consciousness, Meditation Techniques, and Feminine Spirituality (I actually ran that group for a long while). The kids did Sunday school on comparative religion (a favorite subject of mine) and, upon reaching the age of 12, participated at their will in the OWL program: Our Whole Lives - a spiritual approach to exploring one's emerging sexuality and sexual identity. There was also an adult version of this class. There was a weekly forum and a weekly book group. The forum took on concepts from Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Humanism, Enlightenment Thinkers, Modern Theologians, etc. The book group read really heavy stuff, a section per week 'cause so much of it was so dense.

The UUs are also tremendously socially active - in fact that is a primary function of many congregations. UUs organize activism and volunteerism out of their churches for everything from environmental to social justice causes. It's a great way to become active in your community for liberal causes and to teach your kids the importance of such actions.

Like any church group, they also provided support to their members - organizing fund-raisers and cooking circles for those undergoing health issues and/ or deaths in the family. They had summer camping trips, dances and other fun social events. They were a great network for finding about other neat stuff going on in the area as well. UUs have also been proudly providing religious marriages for gay people anywhere in this country, since the 1960s. We had two or three during the time I was there, and of course, a few hetero people got married in the church too.

The great thing about a UU congregation in the South is that it catches all of the free-thinkers of every persuasion, who still have a spiritual hunger. I keep trying to find a UU church out here in LA, but there are too many other options for the religiously non-traditional. Everyone's all split up here. It's definitely more fun when everyone is thrown together.

 

[Kelso]

^ Great post! Thanks.

Do UUs take a position on scientific matters, like evolution or climate change, that many traditional churches (at least down here) dismiss?

 

[Lapis Exilis]

One of the seven principles of Unitarian Universalism is:
Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Which is pretty strongly based in a clear-eyed biological/ ecological view of nature. Many UUs (such as myself) embue nature with a sacred aspect, but this is in harmony with the scientific understanding of the universe. There are generally lots of scientific pantheists in any UU congregation. You will find folks in any UU congregation who are of the Wiccan persuasion and so believe in nature in a deified aspect (the Great Goddess and Horned God are essentially nature personified) - but since they aren't coming out of the Biblical tradition there's no creationist belief.

That is, people hold a wide variety of beliefs about nature, but none of them are in conflict with an understanding of evolution and science in general. Since UUs are usually very, very politically liberal, I don't know a one who wouldn't be aghast at the idea of anything other than evolution being taught in a science classroom. As for climate change, UUs are usually big time environmentalists actively organizing to lobby for environmentally friendly legislation and participating in a variety of activities to help slow down the causes of climate change.

Check out the UNitarian Universalist Association of Congregations http://www.uua.org/index.shtml and the Greater Atlanta UU page http://gauu.org/ which has all the churches in your area.

 

[CmdrAJD]

At the UU church in Memphis we were able to go each Sunday morning, look out upon the mighty Mississippi and, with likeminded (i.e. open-minded) intelligent folks, contemplate the deeper wisdoms of human experience.

That's the same UU church my family went to during my only two years of church growing up. We were there from 1984-86. The place did indeed have a great view of the river.

After that, we moved to a small town in Maryland that only had a UU fellowship. My mother checked it out, called it "a bunch of old ladies looking at flowers," and that was the end of church for me until my wife developed an interest.

 

[TheBrew]

join the church of Thor.

Thor is our God. Unbelievers are smited with a big hammer. Believers are given beer. It is a Good Church.

I'll drink to that.

I'm thinking of worshiping Vosltagg instead. More drinking and less hammer throwing.



(Yes, I know that he is in fact not a real God, but a Marvel creation)