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"The Quakers are clearly on to something. At their annual get-together this weekend they are reportedly thinking of dropping God from their “guidance to meetings”. The reason, said one of them, is because the term “makes some Quakers feel uncomfortable”. Atheists, according to a Birmingham University academic, comprise a rising 14% of professed Quakers, while a full 43% felt “unable to profess a belief in God”. They come to meetings for fellowship, rather than for higher guidance...

The Quakers’ lack of ceremony and liturgical clutter gives them a point from which to view the no man’s land between faith and non-faith that is the “new religiosity”. A dwindling 40% of Britons claim to believe in some form of God, while a third say they are atheists. But that leaves over a quarter in a state of vaguely agnostic “spirituality”. Likewise, while well over half of Americans believe in the biblical God, nearly all believe in 'a higher power or spiritual force'."

[theguardian.com]

moNOtheist 7 June 6
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5 comments

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1

THIS is AMAZING to me! Do they still say ''thee'' and ''thou?" Maybe all that silent contemplation led them to reason?

1

The Quakers as the new Unitarians? Did not even suspect but am glad to hear it. Also stated is that religion is well on it's way to losing it's grip on more than a few areas of Europe, would that it was so in America.

When the Unitarians and Universalists merged around 1960, both denominations were already considered heretical by most Christians -- the former because they denied the Trinity, the latter because they believed in Universal Reconciliation (UR) -- the notion that all will eventually be saved, therefore, there is no hell (or at least no eternal hell). The in-joke was that one group thought god was too good to condemn man and the other thought man was too good for god to condemn.

Their post-Christian position now is that they are non-creedal (do not subscribe to the historic Christian creeds), rather, they are "covenantal", meaning they have a general concept of loving and taking care of one another and your fellow man, or as their slogan has it, "standing on the side of love". They accept believers in any religion or unbelievers.

I don't know how far the Quakers have gone in this regard -- probably not quite there yet at least on paper -- but I think if you're really going to reject saying anything specific about god, theology or doctrine, then you have to abandon creedalism and base the community on something else.

Sadly in my experience, the UUs are still cliquish and weird, just around politics rather than theology. Even though I'm pretty liberal, the local congregation has a lot of members doing civil disobedience-level activism, practicing veganism, etc, and pretty much looking down their snoots at those who don't do these things. Many members are less extreme but you know how it is in any organization -- a few people have an outsize impact in terms of emotion and decibel levels and stridency. Mostly I just subscribe to their listserv and I often can't stand to read the interactions on there -- too many ass-kicking contests.

So I wish the Quakers well and hope they can maintain a good sense of community without the unctuous lemmings taking over.

1

There is actually an Atheist Friends sub-sect, I'm given to understand. Looks like atheism is spreading to the rest of the denomination. This is the evolution of religion that I hope will become even more widespread. I don't see it folding up shop, just edging away from magical thinking until it becomes something previous generations would not recognize, theologically speaking.

2

The idea of a godless church sounds fine to me...

0

That's because so many of them have taken LSD or magic mushrooms and felt themselves connect to the energy of the universe.

Or even been hiking alone in the Rocky Mnts. When you connect with nature you feel that one-with-everything loving energy.

I was not aware that Quakers are particularly into drugs or hiking. Is that an actual thing?

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