can anyone explain UU to me?

[Cootie Brown]

You didn't answer my question.

Hmmm, let me think about that. My knee jerk reaction would be to say no, of course not butttt....living in the Bible Belt forces me to rethink that. Openly acknowledging that you’re a atheist can have some very nasty consequences from the fundamentalist crowd. They can act like you’ve just admitted to having a contagious disease. They do tend to avoid you like you have the plague. You won’t be on their social list for sure.

There are cases where an admitted atheist has lost their job, or didn’t get a job they were highly qualified for. As an atheists you are definitely a social outcast in the Bible Belt.

After giving this some thought it is almost like you’re coming out of the closet, something similar, but not as severe, as admitting you’re gay. There are identifiable similarities. None of my prior Christian friends, both c of C and otherwise will speak to me now, but that doesn’t bother me because I consider them to be members of a religious cult and therefore totally brainwashed. In other words, I see them as pretty much clueless people with damaged cognitive functions.

I don’t think atheist are a minority, I think we are actually the majority and becoming more so with each passing day. The younger generations are clearly not buying what religion is selling. They are too educated to believe in religious fairytales. The exception is the children of religious parents. Their indoctrination begins in the nursery and continues until they leave home, and go out on their own.

The Bible Belt is the exception because the indoctrination process is more intense and therefore more effective. Sorry if any of you Christians are offended by my posts. I am simply attempting to answer Ivy honestly. I have the somewhat unique experience to have been a devout fundamentalist for 47 years and now an atheist. Spend a little time reading the testimonies posted over at Ex-Christian.net and it may provide you some insight to what’s going on in the world outside the religious realm.

You might be shocked to discover how many ministers are leaving their faith because they can not longer preach what they know isn’t true.

[Cootie Brown]

Wow! That was a whole lot of pot stirring in my reply to Ivy, huh? Sorry about that. I’ll see if I can find a smaller spoon.

[Ivy]

Wow! That was a whole lot of pot stirring in my reply to Ivy, huh? Sorry about that. I’ll see if I can find a smaller spoon.

Sister Ivy has been known to stir a few pots herself, getting her hand appropriately slapped in the process. So I feel ya'.

[Lerk]

"Over the River and Through the Woods" is an atheist song. It's a rare "Thanksgiving song" and totally secular. Lydia Marie Child was an abolitionist and feminist, and in 1855 wrote "The Progress of Religions Idea" wherein she "rejected theology, dogma, doctrines, and talked of 'Providence' as the inward voice of conscience" https://ffrf.org/news/day/dayitems/item ... aria-child. She was an abolitionist and a feminist.

Then there's "Die Gedanken Sind Frei". Pete Seeger's version is good.

James Taylor's "Today, Today, Today" might be considered an atheist song.

The way ahead is clear
My heart is free from fear
I'll plant my flag right here
Today, today, today

And also "Gaia"

Pray for the forest pray for the tree, pray for the fish in the deep blue sea.
Pray for yourself and for God's sake, say one for me, poor wretched unbeliever.

Someone's got to stop us now, save us from us Gaia, no one's gonna stop us now.

"It Ain't Necessarily So" by the Gershwins from Porgy and Bess was pretty bold back in the 1935.

[Flamingfemme]

Ex-Boston Movement Kingdom Kid, here.
For the last 15 years, I've been an active member of my local UU church. There are so many ways to answer this, but I'd like to post something from the link that was posted above, which explains it so much better than I can:

"By far, the most damaging misrepresentation is one that is perpetuated both from outside our faith, as well as from some of our own people. It is said that we are allowed to believe anything we want.

Not so, my friends.

Unitarian Universalism, as a liberal religion, sits in a dynamic tension between our historical roots and traditions, and the freshness and innovation of ongoing revelation. That means we are neither free to completely divorce ourselves from our history, but nor are we to ignore new insights afforded by science, experience or the wisdom of other peoples and traditions. As our very close cousins, the United Church of Christ puts it so eloquently: God is still speaking.

Because of that dynamic tension, and because of our insistence that reason be applied to faith as it is to other things in the world, we are not free to simply make up our own mythology and call it truth. Also, our responsibilities toward justice-making make it impossible to believe certain things. If you were to walk into my congregation and explain to me that your personal concept of the Kingdom of God is that all human beings would be white-skinned, and all women should submit their authority to males, then I would gently explain to you that you probably would be more comfortable elsewhere, since those beliefs run counter to our basic theology and practices.

Unitarian Universalists do have a commonly-held theology that is very broad in scope. It is a practical theology, rather than a doctrinal one. Within that broad theology, individuals flesh out the details for themselves. For example, as a faith, we make no claims about an afterlife other than that there is no hell. Different individuals might believe in various ideas about what happens to humans after death. For us, it doesn't much matter if different pictures of such things (or different names for God, or different primary spiritual practices, etc.) are varied. We value the process of exploration itself, the willingness to change the world and be changed by it, and a constant journey toward greater integrity, compassion and love for both neighbor and enemy.

Because we are non-creedal, the question "What do you believe?" is not really the right question for Unitarian Universalists. Instead, it might be questions of how and why. How do we encounter the holy? How should we live together, we funny, fragile, beautiful humans? Why is it we must bring more love and justice into the world? Whose are we? How am I called to serve?"

[Cootie Brown]

As a non-believer your posts sounds to me like another verse of the same song. Traditions, teaching, beliefs, aka conformity.That sounds like just another manmade religion/church to me. My wife’s cousin is a member of the UU’s and she’s an atheists, but she is involved in the UU’s. So, how do atheists fit into the UU?

Those that believe a supernatural life form exists and created the universe and all life, but aren’t keen on being associated with any version of an apparent manmade religion, might find Pantheism as an acceptable alternative. No rules, traditions, or teaching involved. No churches or religious services, no heaven or hell, just a theory that “something” created life and the universe. Oh yeah, this life form doesn’t need money, so there are no dues or monetary requirements.

Just kidding. If UU works for you, then that’s all that’s necessary. It apparently works for a lot of other people too.

[teresa]

Flamingfemme

Thanks for taking the time to explain the UU.

[agricola]

Thanks, flamingfemme. It is still a bit too looseygoosey for me, but at least I understand it better. I do appreciate that the group does an awful lot of very good things, so I certainly feel quite positive towards UUF.

[Ivy]

Flamingfemme, thank you for that explanation of UU. You have helped to expand my understanding of it. So glad it is working well for you!!

[longdistancerunner]

I went to a UU service and the thing that I noticed was it was really no different than any other church, although they may call things different names. They have hymnal type singing, announcements, praying, a reading, an offering, a sermon, and wrap-up at the end just like any other church I have attended. Most remarkable was a woman said "as a UU I believe....".