UU was initially described to me in very humanist terms. I was told that all beliefs were accepted and that the shared beliefs were things such as the basic dignity of each person, building of community to support each other, social justice, etc.

I was particularly told that atheists were a large portion of the congregation.

This sounded great to me, so I attended a UU service today. I was a bit surprised to hear nearly every part of service containing religious elements. For example, I heard the following religious elements:

• God
• A divine spirit
• Prayer
• Sins

Given that UU is accepting of all beliefs, I of course expected religion to some degree. I guess I was surprised to hear the extent of it, particularly if Atheists make up a large portion of the congregation.

What I want to know is how other Atheists handle religious elements in service? Do you simply ignore these religious elements? Do you try to adapt the religious elements to your own beliefs? For example, I heard another UU member say to simply replace “God” with “science”, but I would honestly struggle to make that replacement and some concepts like “sins” seems hard to find a replacement for. Or do you relate to these religious elements in some other way?