Calling all Unitarian's (Universalism)!

[Hacker]

Hi,
Believe it or not, I never really knew what the Unitarian Universalism religion entailed until I stumbled upon this religion during my research which has been about finding my "place" in the world spiritually with God. I'm not too fond of the aspect of Christianity because I DO NOT believe that a loving God would send anyone in a fire pit of hell,(just like as a mother or father, you wouldn't do that to your child if THEY were bad) and I don't believe in some of the quotes that are documented in the bible that make God sound like a very jealous, mean God. I'm sure you have an idea of the quotes. I do believe in however, that God is all loving and does give us chances, meaning incarnations, to improve our soul and to attain the purpose that we were all intended to achieve. In my mind, we are all sinners and born sinners and temptation(imo, by the ego, not satan) is an innate fight that we all have to overcome and believing in an all loving God is what helps me through those obsticles of overcoming sin or I like to call it the "ego's desire" which is mostly about selfish self gratification, etc. About Christ, I believe he was sent down from God as a VERY special being and I respect his teachings very much and from being brought up Catholic, I still pray to him. I just feel that the bible is very contradictive and I know my beliefs are very erratic but that's what drew me to this religion because from what I read, the belief system is very open and encouraged....in other words, questions and different beliefs are welcome and that's what I like.:shout
For those of you who belong to a church or hold this faith, what is your church like and or what do you believe?

 

[Karl R]

Unitarian uninversalist churches are not uniform. They do all tend to pursue social justice, and they tend to be highly tolerant of other religious beliefs.

UUs would no longer be considered a christian denomination. I've been told that the church I attend is about 50% secular humanist. Christians would probably be the next largest percentage. We have two ministers: one christian/wiccan, one secular humanist.

UUs make a point to be welcoming to GLBTs. There are always openly gay and lesbian couples in the congregation.

Many aspects of a UU church will seem very normal to someone coming from a christian church. The service progresses in a fairly normal order. We sing hymns. There's a choir.

Other aspects will seem a bit strange. The church I attend starts each service by ringing a zen gong. The church offers yoga, meditation, and tai chi classes. Last week's sermon (given by the secular humanist minister) was about mysticism. The previous week's sermon (given by the christian/wiccan minister) was about evolution.

The best recommendation I can give would be to attend a UU church and see what it's like. It probably won't be quite like the church I attend.