response 1 of 35:

Jan 28 17:44 UTC 2000

It seems to me that there is no *strict* defintion of "religion*, so
everyone can make their own. Usually it involves a belief in some kinds of
supernatural beings that are involved in human concerns. Can everyone
accept that definition for the purposes of this discussion? 

response 3 of 35:

Jan 28 19:47 UTC 2000

A religious merger?  Cool.  I wonder how often in history *that* has 
happened...  :)

response 5 of 35:

Jan 28 21:43 UTC 2000

re 3: It has happened fairly often.  For example, the Congregationalists and
the Christian church (I forget what adjectives they used to describe their
kind of christianity) merged.  The Evangelical and the Reformed churches
merged.  Eventually, the two merged churches merged to form what is known
today as the United Church of Christ.  

re: 4 The Unitarian Unversalist Church certainly sees itself as a religious
organization; it calls its groups "churches".  However, by your
definition, a group that includes atheists would not seem to be a
"religion".  

response 7 of 35:

Jan 28 22:32 UTC 2000

Leslie and I were married by a minister of the First Unitarian Church
of Philadelphia, which is her mom's church.  I guess as much as we have 
a home church ourselves, that's it.   We go to church services and 
events a few times each year when we are in Philadelphia.
 
This church has a web site at http://www.firstuu-philly.org
which has a page about "What is Unitarian Universalism?"

response 9 of 35:

Jan 29 03:33 UTC 2000

Former Michigan governor James Blanchard is a Unitarian, and he 
once got in some hot water with his more conservative constituents
for telling the following joke:

    "When I was growing up in the Unitarian Church, the only time 
     anyone mentioned Jesus Christ was when the janitor tripped
     over the mop bucket."

response 11 of 35:

Jan 29 05:35 UTC 2000

I've tried digging around a bit to answer some of the questions nephi posed
in #0, and I don't think there are any real solid answers.  There is a 
series of historical traditions to the Unitarians & Universalists, but 
they aren't talked about much.  Tonight I'm thinking that the UUs, both
historical and modern, are defined more by what they are *not* -- 
"standard" Christians -- than by what they believe about the spiritual
realm.  First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia announces itself as 
"an intentionally diverse religious community."

Structurally, Unitarians may resemble more a political party than a 
dogmatically-defined church such as the Catholic Church or most of the 
Protestant denominations.  

response 13 of 35:

Jan 29 06:58 UTC 2000

Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web, is of UU.

<http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/UU.html>

response 15 of 35:

Jan 29 22:58 UTC 2000

Re #14: "supernatural beings" certainly are not Western. Almost all
Eastern religions invoke supernatural beings, as do all 'primitive'
religions (animistic, etc), worldwide.

response 17 of 35:

Jan 30 01:38 UTC 2000

Regarding #13, that Berners-Lee link was quite good.  I wonder who else 
considers themselves to be Unitarian Universalist . . . It seems as 
though lately I've been discovering that many of the poeple I respect 
most consider themselves to be UU.  I wonder how many Grexxer's consider 
themselves to be UU . . . 

Regarding #14, Those principles are part of why I find this "religous 
study group" so interesting.  At http://www.uua.org/principles.html, I 
also found this:

The Purposes of the Unitarian Universalist Association 

     The Unitarian Universalist Association shall devote its resources
     to and exercise its corporate powers for religious, educational
     and humanitarian purposes. The primary purpose of the Association
     is to serve the needs of its member congregations, organize new
     congregations, extend and strengthen Unitarian Universalist
     Institutions and implement its principles. 

     The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility,
     and that of its member societies and organizations, to promote the
     full participation of persons in all of its and their activities 
     and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, 
     color, sex, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, or 
     national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular 
     interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or 
     creed. 

     Nothing herein shall be deemed to infringe upon the individual 
     freedom of belief which is inherent in the Universalist and 
     Unitarian heritages or to conflict with any statement of purpose, 
     covenant, or bond of union used by any society unless such is used 
     as a creedal test.

I found a UU church here in San Francisco.  It's a half mile down the 
street from my apartment here.  I plan to attend a service tomorrow 
morning.  

response 19 of 35:

Jan 30 23:12 UTC 2000

Hmm?  Are you saying that the "quark soup made up of strings" should be
considered a god / supernatural being?  I'm not sure I quite caught the point
of #18.

response 21 of 35:

Feb 1 08:02 UTC 2000

I'm surprised nobody mentioned the question mark yet.

At one point, someone was doing a survey to see if Unitarians were still
"christian".  I wish I could remember the exact question they asked, but
I think it may have been something like "do you believe Jesus was
{supernatural/divine/part of god/necessary to believe in to be saved/?},
and not just another regular, if extrordinary person, with some possibly
interesting ideas?"  Apparently, the number had been slowly falling, and
finally dipped below 49%.  So, I suppose that means by some definitions
at least, Unitarians are no longer Christian.

I recently visited Boston, and had occasion to wander around town.  To
the extent UU's have a central organization, it's based in Boston.  I
wandered around Beacon St a bit (the U-U association is housed at 25
Beacon St.) and I think I found it -- there's a bunch of really old tiny
2-story townhouses squeezed together lining a steep brick paved street
with gas lights -- very antique looking -- and if I did find it, then
there are plenty of lawyer's offices that are larger and more
impressive.  In any event, it was after hours, and nothing was open, so
I didn't learn anything further.  So far as I know, the UUA mainly does
3 things: publish books, run retreats, and send some sort of newsletter
out.  I suppose those don't actually require that much office space.  I
also found the local UU church, and that was more interesting.  It was
housed in a big old church, that had burned down, and then been rebuilt.
The only part of the old church left was 2 walls and a bit of the tower.
So, from the right angle outside, you might *think* it was the old
church.  Walking inside, though, and it was a totally different story -
it became clear the rest of the building was thoroughly modern, and
there really wasn't any obvious sign there ever had been an old church
on the site.  This is perhaps as good a metaphor as any for modern
unitarianism.  I think I walked in on a weekday night, but there was
actually quite a bit going on -- meetings and classes and I think
something involving music (a rehersal?) going on.  I never actually
found anyone to talk to - the few people I saw in the halls were in a
hurry to get somewhere and I was feeling much to shy to interrupt
anything, but I do remember reading the bulletin board.  Unfortunately,
I no longer remember what I saw there, other than it seemed to be the
typical stuff one would find in any UU church.  That probably means it
had the usual announcements concerning scheduling events, sunday school,
church activities, perhaps a pile of old sermons, and most likely stuff
about one or more church "projects" for some worthy cause or another -
recycling, helping people in Bosnia or Nicaragua, or some such.

UU doesn't preach that everyone need walk one way, and there's certainly
room for many diverse opinions on things.  Even so, there's quite a bit
of self-selection happening for people who end up spending time around
UU; and that means there is not always quite as much diversity as one
might expect.  The diversity that's there is also not always easy to
spot.  I once visited a UU church with a friend who happens to be a
pagan, and learned something that my parents, who had been attending the
church for years, had never known, and that was there were a sigificant
# of pagans in that UU congregation.  One of the things that's true of
nearly all UU's is that they don't believe there's any necessity to
inflict one's beliefs on anyone else.  So you won't find unitarians out
trying to "Save" anyone, and the idea of a unitarian "missionary" is
practically a contradiction in terms.  Since unitarians were
historically white anglo-saxon protestants, hispanics and blacks are
probably still under-represented in UUism today.

response 23 of 35:

Feb 2 00:28 UTC 2000

I attended a service at the "First Unitarian Universalist Society of San
Francisco" this Sunday.  It was very similar to a more traditional
Christian service.  The service started with some J.S. Bach being played
on an organ.  Following that were congregational announcements, some
singing, a "spoken affirmation", a "sun affirmation", more singing, some
stories about childrens books, stained glass, and the history of the
UUA, more singing, a very interesting "African chant" by the choir, more
singing, a sermon about the "free and responsible search for truth and
meaning", and some final singing followed by another piece played on the
organ.  

After the service, the congregation broke into as many different groups
as there were rooms in the attached community center.  I wandered around
the various rooms and remember that one was essentially a "Beacon Press"
book store, one was for welcoming new "inquirers", one was filled with
people pledging time and/or money to various community service projects, 
an so on.  

Of particular interest to me was a room in which the Buddhist interest
group was meeting.  Apparently, this congregation invites "interesting
people" from the various Buddhist traditions to talk about their
tradition.  The fellow invited on this particular day was downright
fascinating.  He has published several books explaining Buddhist
history, and has done extensive translation.  After giving some general
background, he talked about his particular school of thought, which was
a type of Zen that I don't remember how to spell.  8^)  He also led us
through the most rewarding meditation session I've experienced.  

Looking through the events calendar, it appears as though this
congregation also has a "Pagan Interest Circle" that conducts a full
moon service each month.