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What is your impression of Unitarian Universalist?

I have recently moved from Colorado to the Oregon coast. There are no atheist groups active locally so I have gone to two UU churches in order to meet people and hopefully meet atheist in order to start a local atheist meet up. I am surprised that many attendees are openly atheist yet attend a pseudo church. I have been told by some of the members that people go to the UU churches just for socializing. I've made it clear I'm an atheist and they simply don't care and are very welcoming. I am very much an anti theist and I am feeling much cognitive dissonance associating with even a pseudo religion. What do you think?

DavidLaDeau 8 Apr 20
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31 comments

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8

I think its an attempt to supply a social organization to marginalized non believers. As such,I consider it pretty positive.

8

Well I had look it up.

Unitarian Universalism is a liberal religion characterized by a "free and responsible search for truth and meaning".Unitarian Universalists assert no creed, but instead are unified by their shared search for spiritual growth. As such, their congregations include many atheists, agnostics, and theists within their membership. The roots of Unitarian Universalism lie in liberal Christianity, specifically Unitarianism and Universalism. Unitarian Universalists state that from these traditions comes a deep regard for intellectual freedom and inclusive love. Congregations and members seek inspiration and derive insight from all major world religions.
Wikipedia

Pseudo religion sounds about right.

Another new age invention.

Not for me, thanks. I'll do a bit more reading, but well, you know me. I'm 100% atheist, and I hear spiritual and I'm gone.

Spiritual does the same to me.

Yeah, not a big fan of "woo" at all!

I completely agree, I intend on making the exception briefly to network and start an atheist group. I am actually surprising myself. It interesting to watch their almost hippie "church" service where they read poetry and dance around(not literally) saying well nothing in particular.

@DavidLaDeau you mean starting an atheist subgroup of this community? Might they frown on that? (Heretic?)

@David1955 Definitely not. I have found a few atheist there so I hope that they would like to form an atheist meetup locally. I will work with them for humanitarian causes but I certainly won't wan't to in any way join them. Hocus pocus is hocus pocus afterall.

It's not new age at all .in actuality it's a very old religion.

@Kojaksmom well according to Wiki....

"The Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) was formed in 1961 through the consolidation of the American Unitarian Association, established in 1825, and the Universalist Church of America,[10] established in 1793."

So, this iteration goes back to 1961, and seems to have a new age theme to it, though its antecedents go back.

@David1955 you're referring to the joining of the unitarians with the Universalist that were at one point two different religions

@David1955 according to Wikipedia Charles Darwin had a Unitarian background

I found it to be the place progressive politicians went in order to qualify as religious, when deep down, they weren’t… As political as I could get, that made me ill.. Yup, another straight-up Atheist here 🙂

6

I like UU. It has all the good things about religion -- fellowship and group singing, for example -- without the nonsensical mythology. It is a good transition for people raised in churches who discover that the myths are BS.

That was my impression as well. The services I checked out retained many of the rituals of religious services but without the mythology. I'd probably attend from time to time if the place was easier to get to and I didn't like sleeping in on Sundays so much.

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Unitarian means they do not accept the claim that Jesus was God. And Universalist means everyone gets to heaven no matter what you believe. They do not require you believe heaven is in the afterlife either. So you are covered. 🙂

Sounds like religion to me.

@David1955 I believe atheism is a religion.

@Kojaksmom atheism is a religion in the same way that being bald is a hair style. 🙂

@Kojaksmom then you are wrong, and I wonder why you are here. Anyone who confuses religion with atheism hasn't focused on key definitions. And you think atheism is a religion but this Unitarian thing isn't ? How very odd.

@KojaksmomI believe atheism is a religion.” Then I’d say you’re haunting the wrong place ~

@David1955 I do not consider myself to be a die-hard atheist or religious person. Both sides of the argument have a very firm 100% absolute certainty of something that there is no proof, therefore I consider that to be a matter of faith. I prefer to stand on the agnostic/ ignostic side and say that there is no absolute 100% proof of either position

@Varn it may not be a religion, but when you're really take an honest look it's certainly resembles one

@Kojaksmom atheism is the rejection of all supernatural phenomena, including all gods, in view of a total lack of evidence. No faith required. Provide evidence and the position can be revisited. No one ever provides this. Your proposition that atheism is a kind of religion based on some kind of bizarre faith is the kind of nonsense that we get from religionists who attack atheism usually out of fear or because they think this cheap argument might work for them. It's disappointing to read it in this community frankly.

@Kojaksmom atheism is not a claim, therefore there is no faith needed. Atheism is simply the recognition that there is no unambiguous evidence for the god proposition.

@Kojaksmom what is a "die hard atheist"?

@Kojaksmom please explain how you think atheism resembles a religion.

@Kojaksmom By definition A-theist is one whom does not believe in a god. There is no god, no creed, no dogma, it is the antithesis of religion.

@Kojaksmom, @intrepid65 " what is a die hard atheist?" Maybe me...too much fundamentalism as a child....

5

The UU religion is post-Christian, and is the love child of the two eponyous liberal and semi-heretical denominations that merged around 1960. The Unitarians denied the doctrine of the Trinity and the Universalists believe in Universal Reconciliation (UR) rather than in the standard-issue hell-threat.

UU self-describes as "covenental" rather than creedal. Creedal being, the fact that Christian churches, either explicitly or implicitly, conform to one of the historic Christian creeds, such as the Nicene Creed -- you are, by joining, subscribing to some basic dogma and asserted truth (the divinity of Christ, the need for salvation, the authority of the Bible, etc).

UUs on the other hand accept any creed (belief) so long as you are, as their slogan goes, "standing on the side of love" as they define and apply it.

My experience has been that while they are very accepting of atheists, this varies from one congregation to the next; and they still have a great deal of the unlovely cliquishness and hypocrisy you find in any Christian church -- they have simply substituted political ideology for theology. Even though I'm politically liberal I feel a gravitational pull toward a particular kind of liberal sentiment that I'm neither very comfortable with nor particularly into, sort of an old-fashioned 60's hippie ethos with high levels of political activism. If you're not willing to chain yourself to the entrance gate of the local natural gas storage facility and get yourself arrested, you're sort of a second-class citizen.

I wish the sentiment were more humanistic than politically liberal as such.

Also I have found their Sunday services to be a little silly in their conformity to familiar tropes of Christianity. I've attended a UU congregation in North Carolina and their order of service is very familiar to any garden-variety Baptist of that region, sort of like if a Baptist high on cocaine had designed the liturgy and thrown in some Muslim or Buddhist hymnody. Up here in the NorthEast it looks more like a staid New England liberal service complete with an expensive tracker-action pipe organ. Both styles of service were a bit too kum-by-yah for my taste, but that's just me I suppose.

All of this varies as I said, per congregation. I would advise any atheist interested in a sense of community and at least somewhat common cause, to investigate the local group as a possible source of same. It might or might not be your cup of tea. I would imagine that some groups are less welcoming of atheists than others for example, more or less politically active, and so on. Also you can go to "adult ed" classes and special events and home cell groups and never show up for the formal service on Sunday and generally no one will bat an eyelash. There's none of that nosy / gossipy insincere "we missed you last Sunday" bullshit you get in evangelical churches, at least.

You may be my go to for modern Christianities. I study the origins but you seem very knowledgeable of modern christian groups. How may I ask did you come to know so much about them? Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

@DavidLaDeau Well thanks for the kind words but it's mostly a function of my having investigated a couple of UU congregations and thought about the contrasts with my faith of origin, which I was deeply invested in as a youngster, to the point of having a year of full time formal theological training in it. Also reading up on UU's materials and talking to a couple of UU people, including a minister, on the Internet, and getting their perspective. My wife and I have tried to make a go of our local UU congregation because we want the connection it could in theory provide, but our efforts have kind of stalled out. We're making another run at it because we recognize our tendency to be put off by a few asshats and then missing out on the benefits. We feel we need the community and the social connection more than we need our idealistic (unrealistic) notions validated. It's a work in progress.

Another reason for my interest in liberal and post-Christian thinking is that as a former fundamentalist, it is like an interesting new species of insect to me. I really don't get it. One reason I was a fundamentalist was because it had a sort of crazy clarity to it. I did not consider a nebulous deist-style non-interventionist "sorta-god" to be at all appealing or relevant or interesting. Why do people bother with that? What of value do they draw from it? Inquiring minds want to know. So my wife volunteered with an Episcopal food kitchen, we went to a couple of their services to try to get a sense of it, and we've been doing this UU thing. I suppose it's a weird hobby of ours 😉

5

We raised our children in the UU church so they would have an understanding of religions. But we were clear with them we did not believe in god or anything supernatural but they had to evaluate the evidence and come to their own conclusions.

One has got to 'evaluate the evidence and come to their own conclusions'. It's been a life-long exploration for me. I am scientist by genetics, upbringing, and education. But a lot of that nebulous part of what you believe isn't completely open to scientific examination. At least, in my experience. I know a lot of atheists go that way, but (hee, hee) I have too much Pisces in my horoscope to be completely scientific. I do believe in the wonder of it all. And in Albert Einstein.

5

The one thing that church is good at is the social aspect. Some atheist groups have even started Sunday meetups for just this purpose. I think the religious trappings of UU are unnecessary, but I don't think you should feel guilty for wanting community. I hope you find an atheist group!

4

I'm sorry I don't do impressions

4

New Wave religion is still religion.

4

I am a u.u, and I find being a part of the fellowship does satisfy my need to feel connected. There are many free thinkers, atheists ,pagans, Buddhists and a few Christians that attend. the u.u's are very active with social causes ,environmental causes and are a support system for one another. No two Unitarian universalists are identical in their beliefs, so a certain amount of Tolerance is going to be required for you to feel comfortable.

4

I don't see it as a religion at all. I see it as a community and lifestyle. Since none of these people have a deity that they share in common I personally cannot consider it a religion. They're just using the word "church."

I agree with you. There's only so much that an individual could teach themselves. In order to grow we need people, we need community, we need to be challenged. The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship is very much like this site itself.

3

My experience is that UU uses left-wing politics as a substitute for for religious beliefs. I tried it and then dropped out.

3

After retirement I was looking for a place to meet people and since friends are members, I attended UU services for a while. At this site there was no pressure for money or particular religious belief. In fact, they explicitly stated that it didn't matter what you believed -- or didn't believe. My reason for no longer attending was the fact that everyone seemed to completely adhere to what might be considered "tree hugger" beliefs and there was at least a covert pressure to be very socially active. I just don't want anyone telling me what to do or think -- whatever their beliefs.

3

Just as deluded as any other religion or denomination. Just with a bit more hegemony

3

With one of my exes we went to a couple's counselor at the Jewish family center in Miami. I have not attended church since I was 13 (got confirmed just so my mother would think I escaped hell) except for a couple times with another ex who is a black Baptist from Mississippi. I really enjoy black gospel music, even if I do not agree with the lyrics in regard to a deity. The couple's counselor and I got along really well and she suggested that we attend a UU church for fellowship, because I mad it clear I am not a theist. The people were friendly, but I only went about 3 times.

3

I once saw a great concert at a UU, but it was so long ago I forgot who it was. I find them to be much more respectable than these evangelical Christofacists.

3

I attended a local UU briefly. I get that they are very welcoming and tolerant and that's cool.
Ultimately, I couldn't get passed how tied they remain to the Bible and other books which contain such backwards teachings. Now, they can choose to avoid the backwards teachings, "cherry picking" teachings they think are healthy. Fair enough.
But, music is very powerful to me and the day that Amazing Grace was in the repertiore I lossed it. No, I am not a wretch and I don't need grace. I don't think the "gospel" is good news at all.
What I began to focus on, in terms of wanting and needing to socialize, are groups of people doing things I enjoy. Like, hiking groups, discussion over beers groups, that kind of thing.

2

I have gone to a UU church, and above all, I noted the acceptance. It felt more like a philosophy group than a religion. I don't remember the ceremony, if any, but I do remember people were invited to speak. No belief system was treated differently or with more reverence than others. I did not feel uncomfortable, but I didn't attend enough to make any significant connection. I could find myself going again.

2

My experince is the same locally. However I have been to a U.U. in Denver where it was too "christ-ey". Locally, I have been asked about how I see reglion. Some of the people there are curious. They were interested, but nice. As for the cogitive dissonace, open minded churchs and groups serve as a saftey net and can be mentally healthy to join. Why should we miss out on the scocail benefits of belonging to a group that welcomes us. Meet-up groups for atheist/agnositics/freethinkers are needed sorely. If you can stand that only one person comes at first. ....I see the comment.. Kooks that play with crystals... and I have not seen that go on. It seems we also have a big proportion of people that are from the university.

2

I would tend to agree with your opinion on that.

2

I can see your dilemma. It would be much better if there was an atheist group near-by to help supply the same "community". Tho from all I know, UU is fairly, should I say, deist in their outlook, & accepting of all, its still one of the reasons I had a problem w/ AA when I used to go. Depends on you, which do you need/want more?

1

I do it if theres one around havent been to one for years though, last time I was in Brighton about twenty five years ago - its harmless won't change my mind about anything and interesting experience

1

My interactions with them has been positive. The like social gatherings and many have potlucks at the end of the ceremonies. The one thing they do tout is promoting peace. They even say they are more peaceful than Quakers. I never understood how they could be a part of the Christian religion. However, one of the largest churche's is in Dallas, Tx.

1

A word of advice here, don't confuse Unitarian Universalists with Unitarians
Neither will thanks you for it.

Thank you I will have to research it.

@DavidLaDeau [en.wikipedia.org]

1

A 'pseudo church'? I was brought up half Presbyterian and half Freethinker/Unitarian. I'm not sure you can even call UU a church per se. They welcome all without all that BS that comes with religion. So it is for socializing. I'd hope some serious discussions are going on with ideas shared with little to no judgment. There was one of the last Freethinker buildings a block from me years ago. I didn't even know Dad sometimes went to it. (Thanks, Dad.) It seems a logical place for the 'others' that Christians, forgetting Jesus' words, can't stand.

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