This is probably why you come up UU; nearly anyone who has a belief in some kind of ethics that aren't entirely relativistic but doesn't believe in a dogmatic truth is going to end up rating pretty high on the UU scale. This is about as dogmatic as UU's get:
We believe that personal experience, conscience, and reason should be the final authorities in religion. In the end religious authority lies not in a book, person, or institution, but in ourselves. We put religious insights to the test of our hearts and minds.
We uphold the free search for truth. We will not be bound by a statement of belief. We do not ask anyone to subscribe to a creed. We say ours is a noncreedal religion. Ours is a free faith.
We believe that religious wisdom is ever changing. Human understanding of life and death, the world and its mysteries, is never final. Revelation is continuous. We celebrate unfolding truths known to teachers, prophets, and sages throughout the ages.
We affirm the worth of all women and men. We believe people should be encouraged to think for themselves. We know people differ in their opinions and lifestyles, and we believe these differences generally should be honored.
We seek to act as a moral force in the world, believing that ethical living is the supreme witness of religion. The here and now and the effects our actions will have on future generations deeply concern us. We know that our relationships with one another, with diverse peoples, races, and nations, should be governed by justice, equity, and compassion.
UUs often get accused of believing "nothing," but I think the idea that you can feel religious about a lack of dogma is pretty alien to most Americans. Culturally, we certainly have a great deal of trouble approaching concepts like Zen. And in practice, most of the atheists I've met have been at least as dogmatic as the fundamentalist Christians. (Any honest social anthropologist would describe your average Secular Humanist Society meeting as functionally identical to a church service.)
As for the worth of absolute truth, what's the value of seeking truth--absolute or otherwise? Even if it's arguably a quixotic quest, people who seem to treat life as a constant search for real truths, small and large, are far more alive than those who aren't interested in the quest at all (and generally both more interesting and less dangerous in an Orwellian sense than those who believe they've succeeded at it).
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2002-08-22 20:06 (UTC)This is probably why you come up UU; nearly anyone who has a belief in some kind of ethics that aren't entirely relativistic but doesn't believe in a dogmatic truth is going to end up rating pretty high on the UU scale. This is about as dogmatic as UU's get:
UUs often get accused of believing "nothing," but I think the idea that you can feel religious about a lack of dogma is pretty alien to most Americans. Culturally, we certainly have a great deal of trouble approaching concepts like Zen. And in practice, most of the atheists I've met have been at least as dogmatic as the fundamentalist Christians. (Any honest social anthropologist would describe your average Secular Humanist Society meeting as functionally identical to a church service.)
As for the worth of absolute truth, what's the value of seeking truth--absolute or otherwise? Even if it's arguably a quixotic quest, people who seem to treat life as a constant search for real truths, small and large, are far more alive than those who aren't interested in the quest at all (and generally both more interesting and less dangerous in an Orwellian sense than those who believe they've succeeded at it).