So now to my first question : what is your religion / faith?
I'm a
liberal christian. I'm a member of a
unitarian universalist church.
A short list of traits common to liberal christianity would be:
* internal diversity of opinion
* an embracing of higher criticism of the Bible, and a corresponding rejection of biblical literalism
* an intimate, personal view of God
* broader views on salvation than those held by conservative Christians, including universalist beliefs
* non-traditional views on heaven and hell
* an emphasis on inclusive fellowship and community
* a willingness to consider and adopt viewpoints which have their roots outside of Christianity
* a willingness to combine theology with modern scientific theories
While I agree with all of these, I used bold-face to indicate the ones that I feel particularly strongly about.
when i see the word " universalist ", then i have a strange feeling.... usually churches and religions , which do englobe this word, are compromised....
Then I'm sure you would feel unitarian universalists are compromised.
Historically speaking, unitarians reject the concept of the trinity. Universalists reject the idea that a loving god would eternally damn everyone to hell; they believe that everyone goes to heaven, without exception.
The two denominations merged in the 60's. In the U.S. (particularly in the central and western U.S.) the church has moved away from being exclusively christian. Many UUs are christian, but others follow other religions (i.e. buddhism, judaism, islam, etc.), and there are also humanist, deist, agnostic and atheist members. It's also reasonably common for members to hold syncretic beliefs (beliefs drawn from more than one religion or philosophy).
Always the interesting question.
I grew up in a moderate mainstream methodist church. My father is a scientist, so I was raised to approach everything (religion, science, the evening news, etc.) with a healthy dose of skepticism. I also learned that reasoning has a place in religion. For the most part, my religious beliefs should make sense. (This will not always be the case, due to my limited ability to understand.)
As a young adult, I moved to Texas which is much more religiously conservative. I quickly becamed disillusioned with the church due to how eager they were to judge and condemn those who didn't believe and act like them. (I strongly believe that judging and condemning are god's job, not ours.)
I drifted away from the church for a while, because I couldn't understand why god permitted all these denominations to exist, especially when some of them were so clearly wrong. Eventually I had an
epiphany: the different denominations exist because different people require
different paths to god. Some people
require dogmatic rules or they feel lost; others
suffocate in that environment. (This idea applies to any relevant difference between denominations.)
Over the years, I've come to believe that principle extends not only to different denominations, but also to different religions. I'm a christian, because that's the path to god that I was raised with, and it works best for me.
But what I know of god and truth is dwarfed by my ignorance. The human mind is not capable of fully understanding god or truth. God gives us a seriously dumbed-down version of both in order to accommodate our limitations. When any person or religion claims they know "The Truth", I view that as a human conceit.
A decent analogy would be
The Blind Men and the Elephant. Every religion contains
part of the truth, but
none can see the full picture. Therefore, I've been studying other religions for the last few years, to see what I can learn from them.
