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According to the UU website here in Nashville, they welcome people of all beliefs or none. I'm an atheist and likely will never believe in a god. However, I'm pretty isolated after years of alcoholism, and I need to connect to people and this looks like it could be a good option.
How are atheists received in the Unitarian Universalist Church? Am I likely to hear things that I strongly disagree with as an atheist?
Edit: Thanks for the responses. One person gave me a link to a sermon by the woman who is minister here, and I found it intriguing and not at all woo-woo magic and threats like the church I was raised in. I plan to go this Sunday. Looks like they have some stuff during the week, too, like potlucks and such.
If you are a boomer who raised children attending the UU church, what are your children doing now? Or if you ARE an adult who was raised in the church how would you compare and contrast your life as an adult with your parents?
For context, I am not a UU member, but I do move around a lot and over the years Iβve noticed that βmy peopleβ are usually the children of parents who raised them in the UU church.
Iβm not a spiritual orphan looking for a place to land, just trying to satisfy a fleeting curiosity about who I tend to attract and be attracted to.
Is my personal experience of gravitating toward UU βkidsβ (now approaching or in middle age) anecdotal or something I should actually seek out since Iβm preparing to move again this month.
What do you think about human nurture? Is homo sapiens essentially good or bad? When left to their own devices will human beings exalt one another or subjugate and oppress one another?
J.G. Ballardβs novel High-Rise answers this question with a dystopian description of the collapse of civilized behavior.
Plot summary from Gemini AI:
J.G. Ballard's High-Rise chronicles the rapid descent into savagery of the residents of a luxurious, state-of-the-art skyscraper in London. Designed as a self-sufficient vertical city, the tower initially promises an idyllic, insulated existence for its affluent inhabitants. However, minor inconveniences and class tensions between floors quickly escalate into open warfare, with power outages, dog fights, and structural sabotage becoming commonplace. As the building's infrastructure collapses and its residents become increasingly isolated from the outside world, they abandon all societal norms, succumbing to primal urges, violence, and a perverse tribalism, transforming their once-aspirational home into a brutal, self-contained dystopia.
How accurate is Ballardβs view of human nature as depicted in this novel? If you were in this vertical city do you think you would behave in the ways the characters behave? As the social dynamics became more dysfunctional most people didnβt leave but stayed. How do you account for this? Would you have left?
Who should read this book and reflect on its lessons? Probably people with a sociological and philosophical interest and who are mature and somewhat spiritually intelligent. The fundamental question is what is the basic nature of human nature?
(If anyone wants my copy free of charge send your shipping address to davidgmarkham@gmail.com)
Iβve been deeply involved in my Unitarian Universalist congregation over the years β serving on the board, finance committee, Caring Ministry, and Welcoming Group. My wife and I have loved the community and the people, and we didnβt come to this decision lightly. But weβve recently made the choice to step away from our UU church.
While the relationships have been meaningful, weβve increasingly found the spiritual side of the services lacking. The sermons often feel dry and without the kind of depth or guidance I need to carry with me into the week. Maybe that expectation β of a spiritual or transformative core β doesnβt align well with the UU tradition, but Iβve realized that in these challenging times, I need something more.
To be clear, Iβm not looking for evangelical dogma or rigid theology. But I do long for messages that go beyond βTrump is bad,β βthe world is burning,β and what feels like a constant focus on identity politics. Those are real and important issues, but I also want to hear how we can ground ourselves, grow, and take meaningful steps in our daily lives. Present the problem, yes β but offer some tools, some hope, some deeper spiritual reflection too.
The final turning point for me came during a service led by a visiting minister. They made a point to set up a mask display in the lobby, and masks were required for that particular service. Their sermon centered almost entirely around masking as a symbol of radical inclusion. While I respect anyoneβs choice to wear a mask and understand the intent, devoting an entire service to that topic felt, frankly, excessive β especially when so many people are searching for grounding, clarity, and spiritual renewal. To be fair this maybe a congregation related issue, Iβm not sure. There have been other members that have brought up similar concerns only to be rebuffed.
UUs are good, compassionate people. But in my view, it seems the movement has drifted. Instead of just telling us itβs raining, Iβm looking for a community that hands out umbrellas β or better yet, teaches us how to build our own.
Hi folks, I'm moving to Toronto in a few weeks from my small city in Eastern Canada. I have occasionally gone to my local small UU fellowship though life and a slight aversion to waking up early on sundays (especially if I'm out late the night before) kept me away from going every sunday. Chatting with a UU friend from my fellowship, she noticed that there were about four or five different UU churches/groups in the GTA. For the Torontonians lurking in the group, what're they like?
About me:
I'm in my late 20s moving to Toronto for work reasons. I identify more as an Atheist with good-vibes that are in my heart and mind but not in how I express myself (I'm not very hippie-granola). I haven't determined yet where I'll be living in the GTA but I'd like to go to a UU fellowship/church that leans a bit younger, I find it a bit easier to connect with people around my age.
I did notice that one of them do their services in French, though I got the impression they were online only, is there a francophone UU community in Toronto?
I'm 19 years old and have discovered UU very recently while trying to figure myself out religiously. I feel like it strongly fits me and my worldviews, and I'm interested in trying to get involved with the community and find out if that's really for me or not after all. However, I am not from USA and there's zero possibility of visiting a UU church. I would like to find an online group or something that it's not on Facebook (please). Do you guys have any recommendations?
Whatβs wrong with US society? - One has to wonder about what is immature in American culture that they would elect a convicted felon, civically culpable sex abuser, 6 time bankrupt business man, pathological liar, and narcissistic psychopath to be their chief executive and commander in chief? What is it in American society that would make such a person attractive to the voters?
The belief and thought system operative in dominant American culture values the quick fix and the charismatic leader over purposeful and deliberate management and competence. It is interesting that the typical American voter doesnβt recognize, or if they recognize it, respect competence and expertise enough to choose leaders with it to lead them.
Why is expertise and competence threatening to people and they would rather choose a charismatic bully? Because Americans have been trained in Aristotelian logic, cause and effect. They have been trained to view things from a linear and reductionistic perspective. They have been taught to ask βWhat is the cause for thisβ, and βwho is to blame,β?.
When problems are seen as merely cause and effect, the bias is to look for blame, usually in simplistic terms. However there is another way to view problems and that is through a systems lens. Usually problems are multi-dimensional and are the result of mutliple factors some immediate and easily seen and some remote and outside the level of perception and awareness.
In religious traditions it is often suggested that a person not be judgemental. βJudge not lest ye be judged.β(Matthew 7:1) The biblical injunction might be better phrased βjudge not because the situation is much bigger than you can appreciate and so your understanding will be compromised.β
A systemβs perspective is one of the foundational aspects of wisdom. A systemβs perspective gives one a better understanding of how things really work. When it is said that most Americans are stupid, it simply means that they lack a systems perspective and so donβt have a more comprehensive understanding of how things really work. This blindness leads to bad decisions and negative consequences.
Whatever might be said about the educational ability of Americans, and it is relatively low compared to other countries, one of the primary things wrong with the US society is its lack of wisdom due to a lack of a systems perspective.
How is systems thinking to be taught? It is not merely a matter of βmedia literacyβ or βcritical thinking.β Systems thinking is based on a different epistemology from linear, reductive thinking. Systems thinking contributes to an awareness that βthe whole is greater than the sum of its parts.β
There are many ways to teach systems thinking and the key is to have the student identify the interconnections of things and the repetitive patterns of their behavior. The pathological engagement in systems thinking is conspiracy theories and it is necessary then for the identification of the component parts of a system and their interactions to be scientifically tested with evidence that is valid and reliable.
Wisdom is more than an epistemological activity, it is the first of the four Stoic cardinal virtues. If we considered wisdom as a virtue on a scale of 0 - 10 how wise are you? How wise are some of the people you know? How wise are the people in authority over you that influence our life?
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