we went to "church" yesterday

Then, you are to be congratulated for making that effort 42 years ago.

ebrown, I had a roommate talk me into going to her Pentecostal Church once.

Her parents were going to visit, and she wanted to show them I was a Godly person (oh boy )

oh yeah....speaking in tongues.....some woman jumped up and said she was moved to perform an interpretive dance about Mary and her veil.....(huh?)

Then, this pregnant woman a few chairs down from us...not even PEWS for heavens sake....chose this time for her water to break.....YAYYY!!!

The pregnant womans husband was up in the front playing one of the guitars, and someone had to go sneak up there and get him....The woman wouldn't budge until he came down to her.

I remember thinking...."good GOD honey, get up and start getting to the car, he'll catch up." Well, I realized then why she wouldn't, she knew what was to come. Her husband gets there and she makes him take off his suit jacket so she can tie it around her waist. Like no one ever saw a wet skirt before, or would care, considering the woman was going into labor.

When they stand up, the preacher guy see's what's going on and just made this incredible big scene as they were trying to leave. The woman looked like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her.

In hindsight, it was a pretty good show.

I was in a church recently. For a funeral. Thank goodness it was a non-denominational church or I don't think I could have taken it. And I wouldn't have had a choice.

It was actually a beautiful and simple service. Very fitting.

The one I went to prior to that was similar. Only it was a 'celebration of life', as they call it for anyone who's had a bit of a life. This fellow was a neighbour who fell off a ladder due to an aneurism. He was dead before he hit the ground. He was 49. He was a neighbour but we loved him and his over-the-top, supra-character ways. I'm still not over his death. God only knows how his wife feels. His dog sits by his chair and whines.

Seems like I've been in churches most recently for funerals. How sad is that? Maybe we're all just getting old.

Just realized this is a bit morbid.

Sorry 'bout that.

I'm not Dys, by any means, but that service wouldn't have worked for me, either. Now, as you may have picked up, I'm an atheist. Were it otherwise, I believe I would still heartly resent any assumption that I'm going to partake of every rite and tradition of whatever church I chose to visit. I mean, for all they know, I hold deeply held beliefs of my own*. Next thing you know, they start thinking my participation is an endorsement of their beliefs, and a forsaking of my own.

*I do have deeply held beliefs. They are my own.

I can understand being a believer, or trying-to-be-believer, and going to a wide variety of churches or temples or mosques, as a believer particular to each one, or a person trying to figure it all out by sampling.

I can see the attraction of the UU's organization in its most secular form, but I'm still out of the loop in the list JPB wrote... I'm not even interested in spirituality.

I spent a lot of hours in my life in church, uncountable, really.
After it dawned on me that I didn't believe the construct, as an adult, I was resentful on visiting some churches for various ceremonies for others... which I tried to hide in deference to the occasions.
I felt some level of rage when I went into the church of Guadalupe in Mexico with friends who wanted to see it.

A lot of time has passed and so has the overt resentment, so I can see chuches as buildings holding communities of people.
Tears came from my eyes at entering Santa Maria della Sopra Minerva in Rome when the high mass organ was producing full blown sounds, and on entering the piazza in front of St. Peter's. But those two things happened decades after the anger business in Mexico City. At SM sopra Minerva, I thought the music was gorgeous, period, and at the ellipse in front of St. Peter's, most of you won't believe me, but I'd just finished studying a lot of architecture and my feelings were that I'd gotten to see the space by Bernini (didn't hurt that I had pms.) I felt similarly in piazza Signoria in Florence, where they burned the burner, Savonarola, not so much for the the way the space developed, but the history encompassed by the buildings.
Same with the campo in Siena. If walls could talk, you'd hear the nine in an interesting effort in government, hear Benedict preaching, hear the hooves at some beginning bullfights, hear nazis executing, all with the sounds of the horses of hundreds of Palios swooshing around the corners.

My feelings about the nature of that space framed by Bernini and the nature around me all the time may be akin to someone else's sense of spirituality, probably not.

I personally couldn't sit in a congregation, as such, though I will go to weddings and funerals. At a regular service I might have to ulalate to get out.

My feelings are, like Roger says, only mine, and not to dissuade anyone else from peace and community.

Oh, Sweet Baby Cheeses.

My favourite.

sad, but true!

good laugh, blacksmithn!

Not to hijack the thread, but I went to church and read the Bible faithfully as a youth, wanting to give it a more than fair chance to turn my lack of faith.

Everybody seems to want to answer my question to Dys - 'cept Dys...

Dys is undoubtedly fast asleep.

Oh - does the old buzzard keep an early beddy-bye time?

Well I guess that would depend on the individuals involved, because love for neighbors IS NOT part of the UU creed or belief. But some UU members may practice it, and I commend them for it.

Peace is also not part of the UU creed or belief, but if some UU members place importance on peace and work for it, I commend them as well.

Caring for the poor is DEFINITELY not part of the UU belief. If some UU members do care for the poor, it is entirely of their own accord, not because the UU support it officially.

Being welcoming and non-judgemental may or may not be your experience at a UU congregation. If it is, the individuals who have taken the initiative to welcome you are certainly to be commended, but it is not to the credit of the UU that they are so welcoming. This behavior is not endorsed by the creed of the UU.

Why do I say this? Because the UUA itself states



from http://www.uua.org/aboutuu/

Remember the old Seinfeld joke that it was 'a show about nothing' ?

The UU is the church version of the Seinfeld show. They are all about nothing.

I am glad if you met some decent, loving UU members and felt welcomed by them. But don't credit the UU. They officially had nothing to do with it.

I wouldn't know, real life. Your comments don't fit my impression of UU people I've known, but that is only, of course, anecdote.

Old buzzard, heh, I'm older.

Hopefully you have met some kind, caring UU folks who were 'the salt of the earth'.

Many UU folks are.

But it is not because the doctrine of the UU church inspires them or teaches them to be so.

The UU officially endorses no such teaching, in fact, it has no doctrine at all.

It's a church about nothing.

Sorry if you miss the humor in this.

I think it's sadly funny that a group would put so little confidence in anything as to be a group which stands for nothing.

But there are many fine decent UU folks out there. I mean that sincerely and I know some of them personally.

I can't speak for the UU.

I have humor myself about all of this. That can be offensive, which, mostly, I don't mean to be.

...
'cause Then There Was A Boy Whose
parents Made Him Come Right Home Directly After School
and When They Went To Their Church
they Shook And Lurched All Over The Church Floor
he Couldn't Quite Explain It
they'd Always Just Gone There

mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm, Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm


Those are lyrics, not a statement, for anyone that does not recognize the song.

I usually only go to church on christmas eve...

Then I love it, though!

No disrespect - I'm the oldest buzzard at my place of work...

Well, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Cat-licks get bashed with abandoned glee by the bible-thumpers here, and it now appears that "real life" is intent on adding the Unitarians to the list of Satan's minions.

Ah, the sweet aroma of Christian love . . .