Gosh I am sorry...I am not UU, but I can't suffer and watch this going on.
It is a little like a train wreck, isn't it? However, a lot of us UUs know that way-too-many American (Christians, typically) simply don't understand the nature of other faiths, nor does our society foster in them a intention to develop such understanding. If they're going to do so, it needs to be self-motivated.
This morning I went for the first time to a Unitarian Universalism church. I was a little shocked how liberal it was.
Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; acceptance of one another; and a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. As such, we don't overvalue the old and staid. We recognize that our awareness of ourselves and our universe is always improving, and therefore things that we, as humans, used to believe may have just been myths, superstitions or other distractions from universal truth. This acknowledgment and acceptance of humanities limitations is, in essence, the foundation for liberal perspective.
I consider myself liberal but the church was very liberal. Lots of atheists and older lesbian couples.
Given the innate and pervasive intolerance for them in other religions, where would you have expected those folks to be?
I did wonder, do these people consider themselves so enlightened that they put themselves above God?
Quite the opposite. From my perspective, it is (some) Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc., that place themselves above God, professing that they understand God and have "The Answer" -- asserting that the only way to truth is through their preferred religious perspective. These traditional faiths essentially put written and verbal history (including what are arguably just sets of myths) above the power of God. That's indicative of the kind of intellectual and spiritual arrogance you allude to, while UU is nothing like that. As I mentioned UUs promote and affirm the free and responsible search for truth and meaning and the right of conscience, subjugating UU, itself, to the power of reason that God has given each one of us.
The woman who led the services, the psychologist professor, is a practicing Buddhist.
One of the ways I am beginning to explain UU to folks is that it is Western civilization finally opening its mind and reaching the same conclusions about truth and God that south Asians reached 1500 years ago.
It's not precise -- otherwise, I'd be a Buddhist, I assure you. Buddhism has had 1500 years for fallible human beings to ingrain in that faith a small amount of the same intransigence that has almost completely precluded the big Western religions from reaching these critical, rational realizations. However, with regard to the basic philosophical differences between UU and Buddhism, we're not talking a big gulf here. You can map UU's seven principles and key aspects of Buddhism to each other pretty readily. There isn't much in either that isn't addressed somewhere in the other.
Another thing, the talk/sermon was a political talk against fake patriots and George Bush. I'm all for talks like that but not really on Sundays. I was wanting to hear more about God/religion.
Since UU affirms and promotes a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and the right of conscience within our congregations, you will see religious connections made, when what happens in society (call it "politics") happens to intersect with religious issues. Heck, most of the contentious issues of our time are religious issues, being played out in the political arena where one side (typically) is attempting to impose its own religious beliefs on everyone. Politicians engaging in such practices tend to either defend them as such, or deny that their motivations are religious, whichever is more convenient for the politician.
Having said that, our church tends to consider outright attacks on the Republican Party or Republicans to be, itself, a violation of our principles. Again, referring back to our principles (amazing how useful they are, this morning, in replying to your inquiry), we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person (i.e., including Republicans), acceptance of one another (i.e., including Republicans), a free and responsible search for truth and meaning (i.e., even by Republicans and even reaching more conservative conclusions), and the right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our society at large (you get the point).
If we don't model moral behavior with regard to our comments regarding Republicans, for example, how the heck can we reasonably expect them to learn such moral behavior from our example?
I lead a small group ministry circle, for our church, and one of our members is most distinctly Republican with regard to his perspective on business, and I'm very firmly a moderate, taking the Republican position half the time, and taking the Democratic position half the time. There are other (fiscal) conservatives in our congregation, absolutely.
What you won't find in our congregation are bigots and other folks who exhibit intolerance for the beliefs and values of others, including but not limited to, sexual orientation. One of the most-repeated (even by UUs)
mischaracterization of UUs is that UU says that can believe whatever you want -- nothing can be further from the truth. UU holds
firmly to the seven principles I've been alluding to throughout this reply.
No. 
