Heresiology

3 vs. 200

2009-02-24T12:23:00.002-05:00

Westboro: "Counterprotest of the Westboro Baptist Church protesting a memorial service for a victim of flight 3407."

I live in Buffalo, the Memorial of one of the crash victims was happening very near my apartment. The Westboro Baptists decided to protest it. A wide range of groups came to counterprotest with white flags, sheets, and angel wings to block the visibility of the WB's. These are pictures I took.

On the Mulatto Lunches Controversy

2007-06-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

I personally believe that it is always a mistake to be offended by anything. Anything, but especially words chosen simply to convey information in a straightforward way.
It is always a mistake because it focuses the mind onto something other than finding a solution. Offense is to opposition what panic is to fear. It is always an irrational response. When dealing with an offended person, you are always at some level dealing with an angry animal. No matter how well thought out and intelligent their reasons for being offended, the reaction itself will always detract from the effectiveness of that person's opposition to the situation.

Notably, if your offense causes you to take issue with people who even you know don't hold the views you are opposed to, then it is pulling you away from the real battle.

Moving Blog (Mostly)

2007-01-01T22:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to use Heresiology as my main personal blog anymore. The mix of Unitarian Universalism and general news was never something I was completely happy with. This blog is being consolidated with the many other blogs I've been spending time on over the past year and a half, into Sixty Story Robot. I think I will still cross-post any UU themed writing to here, but I haven't decided any of that yet.

Nanowrimo Excerpt - the bully

2006-12-31T00:43:00.000-05:00

This isn't about privacy any more than it is about theology. This is only about bullying. The dominant theme here is a person trying to bully people into agreeing with him. You see it repeated over and over, you see it in the street, on the internet, in the churches. It is a consistent pattern of demonization and psychological intimidation of anyone who does not toe the party line.
So what do we do about bullies? I was brought up with the 'Ignore them and they will go away.' philosophy.
That philosophy is wrong.
Usually the bully will keep pressing you, slowly cranking up the abuse until you react. Even if he leaves you alone for a time, he will know he can come back. If somehow he decides to leave you alone, there is another deeper problem you have to face. He is still a bully, he's just bullying someone else.

Robin Edgar, the Censor

2006-12-29T22:31:00.000-05:00

ChaliceChick, Joel Monka, and myself just got 'memory-holed' by Robin Edgar himself. I wasn't really surprised that he 'redirected' my own posts, but I feel bad that Joel and CC got caught in the crossfire. Robin and I have been going at it pretty intensely recently.
Several times he said he wasn't going to respond to me anymore, but he did. Then he made a special thread and told me only to post there. He still didn't answer my questions, and progressively buried my thread. (He also tried to set the agenda on the thread he had set aside for 'me', which I thought was cute.)
Then he said that he would 'disallow' my posts if I did not reveal my real name. (more on that tomorrow, and the next day) Effectively he was trying to force me to out myself if I wanted to continue to post on his blog. Finally he turned on comment moderation and copy&pasted a number of post to the thread linked above. (He will try to say this is somehow different from a 'memory hole', but it ruined the flow of conversation on the thread affected, and destroyed much of the formatting, including his own links.If continued it also buries anything that Robin determines to be a 'non-post'.)

Now I want to go on record here, I am entirely open to criticism with regard to how I am dealing with Robin. I've never done this before. I understand that there is room for disagreement about how to approach this issue. I also understand that my approach is rather intense.
I'm not going to hold it against anyone that they think I've crossed a line. Most importantly I'm not going to let Robin interfere with my fellowship. (other than spending too much time on him.)

Desecration

2006-12-05T11:04:00.000-05:00

In addition to being a Unitarian Universalist, I am a packrat and a bibliophile. So I was triply disturbed when I found a very nice copy of the Quran under some leaves and seat cushion at the bottom of an abandoned bathtub behind a local plaza. By 'very nice', I mean: Hardback, the size of a phonebook, about 2 inches thick, textured cover, full page full color art, English, original arabic, and transliterated arabic on each page, plus footnotes, Cloth ribbon bookmark, plus a large cardboard bookmark with an arabic transliteration guide.
My roomate and I guessed that it would retail for well over $100, but whoever did this got it for free. It had been sent out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and included a letter explaining that Muslims regard the book as sacred.

"For example, Muslims avoid placing the Quran on the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or in dirty or wet areas, as this is considered innappropriate treatment of a holy text."

Again, I found it in the bottom of a bathtub under some leaves and a seat cushion. So this seems like a tailor-made desecration. I wonder if the person intended to come back for it to show off.
It had been rained on, so the front cover and many of the frontmost pages were wet, and the pages had spots of mildew near the spine. When we got it home I looked up ways to salvage it, and it is now drying. [This was written 25 days ago, it is now dry.] I expect that this will always be one of my favorite books, simply because I've rescued it. Despite the tears and spots that won't come out, I wouldn't trade it for any other copy, unless it was signed by the author.

Lessons:
1. You can find awesome things if you look through the trash.
2. If you give people a great offer, some will still decided to disrespect you for it.
3. If you want a really nice copy of the Quran send $8 shipping and handling to CAIR.

the Socinian: Greetings from Snowy WNY!

2006-11-04T20:38:00.000-05:00

the Socinian: Greetings from Snowy WNY! - With details on the most recent and at-least-tied-for smallest UU blogger meetup.

Novel, Gitmo, Don't let indrax get tortured

2006-10-31T23:07:00.000-05:00

I'm participating in national novel writing month. It will be a surrealist novel in which George Washington tries to kill a vampire (the protagonist).
To guard against procrastination, it has no plot restrictions. Anything can happen, and any writing I want to do will fit into it. I expect to do alot of philosophical exploration through my characters' monologues.

In the past I have been jaded and apolitical. I'm taking this opportunity to articulate some political stands, so If I suddenly disappear during or after November, you know why.

Timeline

2006-10-31T22:56:00.000-05:00

Having recently gotten out of what I can perhaps best describe as an abusive relationship, I have found making a timeline of events to be extremely fulfilling and liberating.

In any bad relationship, there is going to be some tendency for self-blame, guilt, polarization, and confusion. Laying out a timeline of as much as you can remember lets you take a good objective look at things. I'm not sure I'd reccomend this continuously in a relationship, because it would be too much likescore-keeping, but keeping a diary you could look back on would help. You will find that things you were feeling guilty about were entirely in line, and you will find other things that it would have been good to handle differently. You might still feel guilty, but it will be a realistic guilt about a problem that is actually manageable. Likewise, you will see ways in which the other person was not as bad as you had been feeling they were, and other, perhaps more fundamental problems.

Hey, it's worth a shot.

Not what she thought she said

2006-10-27T11:13:00.000-04:00

Ignoring for a moment the problems I have with a stripper pole-dance toy marketed to children as such, one of its critics made a suggestion that really wouldn't solve the problem:

"This should only be available to the most depraved people who want to corrupt their children."

The sad thing is that physically, this is an awesome toy. Kids love to swing around support pillars, table legs, or anything else. If this were marketed as a 'fireman's pole' or just an indoor jungle gym component, no one would have issue with it.

Final Report as an Ally

2006-10-17T16:14:00.000-04:00

Robin Edgar's case has concerned me since I read his posts on beliefnet several years ago.
About a year ago, shortly after I entered the UU blogosphere, I started frequenting Robin's blog, which started up around that time. I noticed quickly that he seemed hostile to Unitarian Universalism, but I offered to help Robin because I have a philosophy that despite whatever conflicts people have, their core goals and values can ultimately be compatible. In particular, I would like to see him become a valuable member of the UCM, and UUism as a whole.

Mr. Edgar is intelligent, passionate, and prolific, It is a shame that this conflict has gone on as long as it has. Robin could be an asset to the UU community, instead of a thorn.

The UCM should not cut off the possibility of dialog with Robin, or his reinstatement. It should state the conditions under which it will enter into dialog. It is not consistent with UU principles that anyone be eternally cut off from fellowship.

The UCM needs to address this issue publicly. The wider UU community deserves to have both sides voiced. Their silence reflects badly on the UCM and UUism as a whole.
The posts by an anonymous UCM member to Robin's blog do not serve this role.

Robin needs to stop being an ass.

Milton Friedman Choir - The Corporation

2006-10-08T00:27:00.000-04:00

I have no fundamental problem with free markets, and just today I was pondering that government run schools really aren't the best way to achieve universal education, but This is more disturbing than anything I've seen all week, and that includes the turtle rape video.

Well...

2006-09-14T22:49:00.000-04:00

I'm on a computer with a slightly sketchy network connection. I searched for 'basis of morality' and got a blank results page. I had the Google logo, the search box with my query, and absolutely nothing visible below that. For a moment I thought Google was making a joke, but I reloaded and got the results you might expect.

Still, that moment felt like a very good answer.

POW2

2006-09-07T21:14:00.000-04:00

indrax just got thrashed.
I think Robin Edgar has quite un-democratically ruled that I am being disruptive.
I'll post a reply by morning.

"The Power of Faith"

2006-09-03T19:05:00.000-04:00

In one of the discussions on improving UUsim, I said that UUism acted like an old religion even though it's size and novelty put it in the situation of a new religion. The habits of an old religion aren't good for fostering growth and adaptation.

This is the kind of thing I meant
(If you want to save time, You can get the feel of the video by jumping in at about 2minutes 50 seconds.)
Now this video is far more anti-faith than anything UUism would/should do, but it's out there, it's well done, and it probably works. It's the kind of thing a new religion does.

I heard about Universism a while ago, I think it attracts a lot of the same people as UUism. I don't think it would even exist if we did a better job of filling our niche.

Universist principles:

The most important thing is the search for meaning and purpose, as in relationships and love, understanding and knowledge, experiences and emotions, etc.
There is no absolute truth that applies to all people. Ultimate knowledge of the nature of existence cannot be communicated; it can only be reasoned or experienced personally. The natural state of most individuals is uncertainty. This generates curiosity, open-mindedness and appreciation for the experiences and thoughts of other beings.
Morality is relative to individual circumstances and relationships. Any action's ultimate rightness or wrongness can only be determined by those involved in the action. Good and evil are ideas that can be useful, but are inaccurate if used to describe the nature of the universe.
Social structures such as governments and institutions are useful insofar as they help individuals to flourish - that is, become and remain healthy, happy and able to work toward their goals that do not interfere with the rights of other individuals to work toward their own goals.
All life is free to develop in the universe, limited in potential only by the physical laws of nature.

On the flip side of 'being a new religion', it seems that the founder has abandoned these principles, and is promoting a new universism...

POW

2006-08-18T00:53:00.000-04:00

Robin Edgar just got completely thrashed.
Some anonymous UCM member let him have it.
There is much useful information, most of it makes my job harder. hmm, useful information usually does.

Bob the Angry Flower

2006-08-14T00:26:00.000-04:00

I've been wanting to make this point, in almost exactly this way for a while now, but Bob just nails it.

God is a Metasyntactic Variable

2006-08-02T20:57:00.000-04:00

If you are a programmer, you know them as foo and bar, among many others.
If you are in business making anything, you are making widgets.
If you're just a John or Jane Doe from Anytown, think 'Pronouns' and keep reading.
For example:

foo(int bar){
if(bar>10){print bar;}
}

Is an example of how to write a function and use if statements. (Notice how I'm giving an example of giving an example, this may be important.) foo and bar are common metasyntactic variables, this is a programmer's way of telling the reader the words foo and bar aren't important, I'm writing about some other level of abstraction. It might not be so important what the program is doing, but how it does it.

It's not just that God can mean different things to different people, that you make it just a common variable. It's that God actually means 'this word is standing in for a higher level of abstraction'. By itself it is useless, even if explicitly defined, you have to look at the words around foo to understand what concepts the writer is getting at.
Defining God makes as much sense as writing an implementation of foo, or building a widget factory, or finding "Her". Nice concepts that have no meaning in reality.

This doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about God, any more than we shouldn't talk about foo and widgets. If we follow these examples, we should talk about foo and widgets all the time. Doing so lets us say "The particular diety involved isn't what matters here, I'm talking about some other concept," in only one syllable.

This is good for UU's. This God lets us lead conversations using the language of reverence, because we have some pretty awesome concepts, for a religion.

Welcome, Children of the Winds

2006-07-31T06:20:00.000-04:00

From this site, which is awesome. I've been flirting with atheism lately.

Q: If you don't believe in God, why do you spend so much time talking about Him? You don't spend time talking about the Toothfairy or Santa Claus.
A: The people who believe in the Toothfairy and Santa Claus don't vote, neither do they threaten to beat the shit out of people I care about. When people start beating my friends for not putting teeth under their pillow, or there's serious talk about defining marriage as between one man and eight tiny reindeer, I'll start complaining about that.

Q: Why do you use offensive language?
A: To offend a certain kind of people. I reference sexual and excretory functions; the people I'm mocking reference hellfire. Out of fucking, taking a shit and being burned alive, which is on your avoid-at-all-costs list for this weekend?

"Welcome and peace be with you beloved children of the west wind.
Welcome sons and daughters of Jehovah, followers of Moses and Jesus, keepers of the covenant.
Welcome gentle children of the west wind.

Welcome and peace be with you beloved children of the north wind.
Welcome sons and daughters of earth, followers of shamans, seekers of moon and sun.
Welcome gentle children of the north wind.

Welcome and peace be with you beloved children of the east wind.
Welcome sons and daughters of the Tao, followers of Confucius and Buddha, casters of the I-Ching.
Welcome gentle children of the east wind.

Welcome and peace be with you beloved children of the south wind.
Welcome sons and daughters of the pyramids, followers of old ways made new, catchers of dreams.
Welcome gentle children of the south wind.

Welcome and peace be with you beloved children of the other winds.
Welcome whoever's son or daughter you may be, no less the pilgrim for traveling your own path.
Welcome gentle children of the other winds.

Welcome and peace to all the children of all of the winds,
Great and small, beloved one and all.
Welcome brothers and sisters. Let the winds blow you to the truth.
Then, gentle children, heads full of air, you can blow me."

Now there's a thought

2006-07-28T01:13:00.000-04:00

A mennonite pharmacist denied the morning-after pill to a rape victim. Link. She had to drive to the next dtown over to get it.

"People drive to Reading to buy jeans. Even if that were the case, that you had to drive to Reading to get this [prescription], to me that does not rise to a compulsion that you have to pass laws that [doctors] have to do something," Dr. Joe Kearns said.

To which I thought "Well what if the next pharmacy over isn't so close? Or what if the patient lacks transportation?"

Now, this goes against all my libertarian principles, but why not say that if a pharmacist denies a drug to a patient for religious reasons, they have to provide timely transportation to a pharmacy where she can get it? The pharmacist doesn't have to do anything unethical, and the patient still gets their drug quick.

'timely' to my mind means at worst calling (and paying for) a taxi, but I'm not sure what the taxi situation is in rural america. 'where she can get it means that they call ahead and it will be waiting there for her.

Perhaps give the company the option to call in another pharmacist, assuming they can guarantee they will be there within the hour.

I don't think I would advocate this, but it seems a fairly good compromise.

Lost Words

2006-07-21T10:49:00.000-04:00

snobographer - one who describes or writes about snobs

If you're looking for a snobby elitist blog title like mine, look no further than The Phonistery's Lost Words.

I've pulled out some of the words I'd like to work into conversation.

ebaptization - declaring that someone has not been properly baptized
eternitarian - one who believes in the eternity of the soul
hymnicide - killing of hymns through alterations
inobligality - quality of not being obligatory
interfation - act of interrupting another while speaking
inveteratist - opponent of reform; one who inveterately holds to tradition
isangelous - equal to the angels
jungible - that may be joined
sacricolist - devout worshipper
scathefire - great destructive fire; conflagration
sceptriferous - bearing a scepter
schismarch - founder of a schism
sermonolatry - excessive devotion to sermons
sigilism - act of revealing the secrets of the confessional
sodalitious - of or belonging to society or to fellowship
synallactic - reconciliatory
tecnolatry - worship or idolization of children
temerate - to break a bond or promise; to profane
theomeny - the wrath of God
I may suffer theomeny for my beliefs, but at least I will have been consistent.
thural - of or pertaining to incense
thysiastery - sacrificial altar
triclavianism - belief that only three nails were used at Christ's crucifixion
venialia - minor sins or offences
Lutherolatry - worship of Martin Luther and his teachings
magistricide - the killing or killer of a teacher or master
magophony - massacre of magi or priests
nerterology - learning relating to the dead or the underworld
omniregency - universal rulership; state of complete authority
papicolist - one who worships the pope; a papist
parepochism - error in dating or assigning time period
paterophobia - fear of the early Church fathers
poliadic - of the nature of a local or tutelary god
prescited - foreknown or predestined for damnation; condemned
redamancy - act of loving in return
rogalian - of or pertaining to a great fire
rogitate - to ask frequently
"Are we there yet?", the kids rogitated, apparently unaware of their parents' frustration.

I've heard of the Shakers, but:
jumperism - principles of a jumping Methodist sect
While snake-handling is ridiculous, it is no worse than jumperism or the stylites.
I need to look that up sometime.

dicaearchy - just government
graocracy - government by an old woman or women
fallaciloquence - deceitful speech
vampirarchy - set of rulers comparable to vampires

citharize - to play the harp
fabrefaction - act of fashioning or making a work of art
sagittiferous - bearing arrows
sagittipotent - having great ability in archery
speustic - made or baked in haste
stiricide - falling of icicles from a house
supellectile - of the nature of furniture
uglyography - bad handwriting; poor spelling
zygostatical - pertaining to a market official in charge of weights
mariturient - eager to marry
namelings - persons bearing the same name
orgiophant - one who presides over orgies
palintocy - repayment of interest paid on a loan
pamphagous - eating everything; all-consuming
piladex - game where an inflated bag is hit with hand to keep aloft across a table
portmantologist - one who studies or coins portmanteau words
pregnatress - female power that generates or gives birth to something
quibbleism - practice of quibbling
radicarian - pertaining to the roots of words
ruricolous - living in the country or in fields

cosmogyral - whirling round the universe
hercotectonic - of or pertaining to the construction of fortifications or walls
dodrantal - of nine inches in length
brephophagist - one who eats babies

Two things.

2006-07-20T18:33:00.000-04:00

God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule

And from the Colbert report:

Things I did not know

2006-07-20T07:20:00.000-04:00

A while ago, I visited my local Church of Scientology.
I took a self-guided tour of the displays they had set up, then my guide tried to sell me some stuff, then I saw the film Orientation. After that I got a tour of some of the rest of the building.

There is serious money here. For every set of 8 foot high color panels, there was an inset flat panel display playing a relevant video loop. I'd say at least 7 just in the downstairs area.
They had coffee, I'm guessing it was decaf. Later, I grabbed a chocolate wafer from a plate that hadn't been there when I came in.

In the film:
They made no apologies that the best place to go next was to the bookstore, where it would be best to buy the entire starter set, plus Dianetics.
There were a series of 'testimonials' that were so dry I can only assume they were actors, of the three celebrity actors I picked out, Kirstie Alley and Anne Archer each said that scientology saved their life. John Travolta just said it had helped every area of his life. No one else said it saved their life, and I wonder how differently they treat their celebrities.
I think everyone in the film was an actor, the credits seemed to indicate this as well.
I learned that they have a chapel and sunday services, and a library with all of Hubbard's works available for free. Also aparently the Minister (Minister? not sure that was the word) will try to set you up with free scientology services if you can't afford to pay.
Every 'Org' (note the use of in-group jargon.) has an Ofice for L. Ron Hubbard. This is a holdover from when he was alive and would travel and work in many different places, it is retained as a symbol that the given church should remain 'on source'. I don't know if it's my christian upbringing, or southpark talking here, but I think they think he's coming back.
At the end they let everything drop: You can leave and never think about scientology again and spend your next trillion years writhing in agony. It would be stupid, but it's your choice.
The host talked about something happening to the planet, but it wasn't clear what it would be.

Later I got a tour of some of the upper floors. I saw the library, the chapel, L. Ron's office, and this other, thing...
The library was nice, in the advanced section they had scraps of clay for molding things, I'm not sure what was up with that.
The chapel had the history of L Ron's life in panels all around the room, almost like the stations of the cross in a catholic church
adjacent to the chapel was a room with a 'canteen', an area for refreshments, and 5 more video displays high lighting the humanitarian efforts of scientology.
In one of the training rooms, I saw a large glass panel with a lion's head etched into it. My first thought was of Aslan, but that wouldn't fit, I'm not sure what it is.
Hubbard's office was small.

The 'other thing' was a standalone video Kiosk that seemed to be on a floor that was otherwise just administrative. It was an interactive unit about 10 feet wide that let you preview and order audio tapes of speeches of L. Ron.

Overall my feel for the building was 'weird but churchy', but then I'm a Unitarian, so weird but churchy is normal for me. Somebody coming straight from a traditional background might be very impressed or very freaked out.

I was only a little freaked out.

Iraq

2006-06-18T23:16:00.000-04:00

Discussions about when and how to pull out of Iraq tend to ignore one very important point:

Iraq has an independent, sovereign, democratic government.

Any talk in our congress of splitting up the country is moot, we have no input anymore.
If we had any interest in ever leaving, then Bush could diffuse this whole issue quite simply by making it clear to both democracies that the US would pull out when either A)the US believed they had fufilled their obligation to stabilize Iraq after the war, or B) the US was asked to leave by the Iraqi government; whichever happened first.
This would put the ball firmly in the court of the Iraqi people. 'Do you want our troops protecting you? or do you want to rely on your own police and military?' We might still be there for years, but frankly I think we would owe them that.
I think it more likely though, that the Iraqis would start pressuring their government that very hour, and the request for a pull-out would come within a week.

My point is that however noble the justification for the war, they have a legitimate government there now, and we have no right to be there if they do not want us.

There are, of course, some problems with this scenario:
Bush will never set any pullout conditions, and will never pull out.
Their 'democracy' is owned by our 'democracy', and 'we' don't want to pull out.
The Iraqi resistance knows this.

Space Colonization

2006-06-15T10:17:00.000-04:00

There has been some discussion Here, and more disturbingly Here, and Here.
I wanted to make my case there, but there appears to be many people caught up in their own biases and misinformation.
Some of these people are Environmentalist Wackos to the level of self-parody.
I want to make some points:

The extinction of humanity is not an acceptable outcome.
Whether through our own actions, or by nature, the earth will sooner or later become uninhabitable for humans.
We do not know when, it could be tomorrow.
It will likewise at some point become uninhabitable for all life.
Barring some really amazing advances in launch technology, it will always be impractical to do a planetary evacuation, even if we knew everyone on earth would die.
This is not about saving the people on earth, or giving us a way to escape our own foolishness.The people who 'escape' will be called 'astronauts' and they will probably be numbered in the thousands, not the millions.
At that scale, talking about social representation is a bit silly.
Nothing about space colonization means we don't need to work to solve problems here.
The costs involved to bootstrap this process are negligible compared to global GDP, and what we currently spend on causing problems.
Much of what we learn in the process will be extremely helpful in solving problems on earth.
The earth's biosphere does not have any magical properties required for human life. There is no reason to believe that we cannot create a long term habitat, if we try.
Another threat to humanity is tyranny. One good way for people to free themselves of tyranny is to leave. If there is a large system of colonies in space, and we continue our expansion, then there will always be somewhere else to go.

I am afraid of ecological disasters, but I am more afraid that we will get stuck here with somebody in charge of us.

Cowardice

2006-06-02T08:06:00.000-04:00

The ChaliceChick wrote about courage and specifically about 'cowardice' describing the 911 terrorrists. I've been thinking about this topic for a long time, and this is a good excuse to write it out. If it doesn't make any sense, it's because I haven't slept.
Courage is not about a willingness to sacrifice your life, it is about a willingness to sacrifice the success of your goal. Running into a burning building is not brave merely becasue you are risking your life to save somone, it is brave becasue you are risking something, yet you could still fail to save anyone.
In the context of warfare, this means giving your opponent a fighting chance. No sneak attacks, no killing unarmed people.
In the in old days, when muskets weren't worth a damn, they understood this. You both stood up and shot at each other. Not only might you die, but you might not even hit the other guy.
In economic terms, you risk A to get B, you have X% chance of losing A and Y% chance of failing to achieve B. whether or not you choose to take the chance depends on the specific numbers, and how risk-averse you are. (risk-averse=cowardly)
But...if if your chance of losing A (your life, some money) is very high, and the chance of failing at B (destroying a building) is very low, then how brave you are isn't so important, because it's effectively just a trade. You pay A you get B, is it worth it to you? So the terrorists may have been brave, but 911 was not a brave act. It was just a value choice they made weighing their own lives against a certain amout of destruction of their enemy.
These days we have laser-guided push button muskets. Spend a few million dollars, and you can bring down any building in the world. So yeah, it's the same low-risk game.

It's a double edged sword though, these tactics are popular for a reason, there is a fine line between bravery and stupidity. On the other edge, a system that uses a lot of low-risk tactics will tolerate much more risk-averse leaders, and these may not be the people you want leading you.

Consolidation

2006-05-07T22:07:00.000-04:00

I guess I'm what you might call an ex-extropian. Extropianism is a kind of futurist philosphy. Extropians are into like body modification, smart drugs, longevity, and maybe someday uploading their minds into computers in order to cheat death.
It may shock you to hear it, but as a young human male I was rather fond of the concept of immortality.
Over time my concept of death and identity has changed. I am no longer convinced that the entity in the computer would be me, and I'm no longer worried that the me I am now might cease to exist. I want to live because I have stuff to do, but if I can achieve even a fraction of my goals, then I can die happy.
I am a major packrat. I will keep broken things because I might someday have use for the parts, given enough space I would probably never get rid of anything. Being a packrat isn't all bad, it's as much a virtue as it is a vice. We wouldn't have much of history if there weren't people who kept useless things. I think fundamentally the same instinct drives packrats and environmentalism. Save it before it's too late!
A few months ago the thought crossed me that if you took detailed records of a persons experiences and personality, or at least their memories and whatever you could peice together of their life, and got a blood sample, you could clone them and run the clone through experiences that would produce a very similar personality and memory. Like The Boys from Brazil but with you or me, instead of Hitler. Naturally, for best results you would want to have every possible record and artifact of their life.
This is an interesting [thought] experiment for the extropians, because it offers essentially the same kind of immortality, but it is entirely doable with modern technology. Personally, I think I'd get a better form of immortality simply by having children, but this idea did resonate strongly with my packrat-nature.
I do not have an infinite storage facility, so I've been cleaning out all my old junk. Every time I would throw something away I'd think "Oh no, there goes a little peice of me that future generations will never be able to reconstruct, if I throw this away, this memory will be lost to eternity!"
Externally, my life is a mess, even beyond all the junk. Internally, I am pretty happy with who I am and what I am doing. I am under some pressures though- money, biological imperatives, some social aspirations. A big part of me wants to kick off, head for California and be some kind of itinerant prophet. But for a number of reasons (about 13,000) I'm stuck in normalcy. So I sit at home and clean.
Partly to help resolve those pressures by streamlining my life, and partly to become less materialistic, I've committed to getting rid of things that don't have genuine practical or sentimental value. I still get that twinge that a little peice of me is passing on, but I burst right through, and throw it away.
But my question now is, is my new effort of cleaning a symbolic form of suicide? I'm basicly saying to myself "Yes this will mean I die, and I don't care." Is this my way of dealing with my strong desire to escape?
I'm not actually suicidal at all, I realized long ago that under almost any circumstances, heading to California is infinitely better than death. (Maybe I should submit that to their department of tourism. (or immigration!)) But I can't go to California, so maybe I'm just trying to get rid of what I have here.
I know cleaning is a fairly normal way to deal with stress, but it's not normal for me, So I'm kind of puzzled.

Libertarian Death Penalty

2006-04-26T00:10:00.000-04:00

A Libertarian Argument for the Death Penalty
My Libertarian response:

In order for rights to mean anything, they must be inalienable.

The difference between the murderer and the thief is that the murderer does not represent a threat because you have already denied him his liberty. The thief on the street is a threat to the rights of others, and this may justify violating his right to liberty.

I don't think killing murders is justice at all. I think justice needs to be based on restitution. The thief should be forced to work to pay for the what was stolen and any incidental damages. The murderer should live a long and productive life, the proceeds should go to pay for his trial and imprisonment, and to the families of the victims. Justice is about setting things right, as much as is possible.

If rights are alienable, then you have the question: What alienates them? does a man give up is right to life by shooting his wife's lover? What about attempted murder? mere assault? rape? If a stranger abducts, tortures and rapes your daughter, can you kill him then? I know what the instinct is, but does that really alienate his right to life? Where do you draw the line?
Once you give the state the power to draw that line, it can draw it wherever it wants.
Do you give up your right to life by committing the treasonous act of exposing the crimes of the President?

And the the question of certainty remains. You acknowledge this, but you also say "Assume for purposes of argument that there is no doubt of his guilt. He’s admitted the crime and is proud of it." I would say that this is not enough, and that having no doubt, or even no reasonable doubt, is inherently impossible.
Demonstrating any doubt is easy: He might be controlled by martians, so none of it is his fault. It could happen to anybody.
So to convict anybody at all, we have to allow only reasonable doubts. The thing is, every conviction is supposed to be beyond a reasonable doubt. Reserving the death penalty for cases that are 'really beyond any reasonable doubt' only highlights the fact that juries are incapable of considering reasonable doubts, or willing to convict anyway. We know we have false convictions at every level from parking tickets to murder. I would posit that in the vast majority of cases, if something actually happened (like innocence) then it was a reasonable possibility that the jury ignored.
If we completely revamp our legal system, and then go 100 years with no false convictions for anything, then this could be reconsidered.

To recap:
We shouldn't kill defenseless people.
We are too vengeful to let our instincts define justice.
We are too stupid to figure out what happened, so we shouldn't kill people no matter what we think they've done, or how sure we think we are.

There's a lesson here...

2006-04-21T14:58:00.000-04:00

Beaver Overthinking Dam

Hidden Law

2006-04-06T21:54:00.000-04:00

Why I Am Communitarian:

"A soft communitarian is a person who maintains a deep respect for what I call 'hidden law': the norms, conventions, implicit bargains, and folk wisdoms that organize social expectations, regulate everyday behavior, and manage interpersonal conflicts.
...
Why a "soft" communitarian? Because there is a harder variety that replicates the lawyers' mistakes in a communitarian direction. The hard communitarian, seeing that hidden law has broken down, demands a series of public laws or subsidies to re-establish it. Require children to support their aging parents, require students to do involuntary volunteer work, make voting mandatory--that sort of thing. "

I like this

Rush Abuse

2006-03-05T23:02:00.001-05:00

Video of people heckling Rush Limbaugh, mostly on abortion.
I think he handled it very well, and I think the hecklers were entirely out of line. This clearly makes the pro-choice side look idiotic.
I wonder how much experiences like this taint his descriptions of the left now.
I also wonder if this was staged by him.

He is an entertainer.

Fold it, Ship it, Roll it.

2006-02-21T23:34:00.000-05:00

Boy in the Bands Had an Idea: "I saw the answer to a problem few have and even fewer have written about: a folding pulpit or reading desk for congregations that rent Sunday space in a non-church facility. Unitarian Universalists don’t worship at the Y as much as in the 60s, and so a lot of tricks to make such a space work are probably lost."
I like the solution, though my brind is sifting through other ays to do a similar thing. (a big old- fashioned trunk, so things wouldn't fall out?)
I think space-renting would be a good way to start up congregations fast. Why don't we do it as much? I wonder if small UU groups could borrow UCC churches for free or cheap.

My friend Cj was once looking trough a book of road-trip stops in New York State, and she pointed out a church that was 3 feet by 5 feet. I think it was the world smallest, it's centainly New York's smallest.
I was imagining what must have driven some pious but poor pioneer who could only get enough wood for a 3x5 church. Then read the it was built in 1989. I said "oh, they just bought that at Home Depot!"
Now I've been wanting to start churches for a long time, so I said that if I just had a place to put it, I could get a shed and turn it into a church. Cj then volunteered the backyard of her boyfriend's soon to be bought house, She even called him to make sure it was OK.
Now this was not a completely original idea for me, every year, a local charity has a 'Playhouse Project' in which they auction off half a dozen very high end playhouses. I think the cheapest playhouses go for $4,000. The year I remember most, they had (among others): An HSBC bank playhouse that looked just like a tiny bank, a whimsical Dr. Suess playhouse, and a tiny curch: 8'x8', four small pews, stained glass, hardwood floors, steeple and brass bell.
It was beautiful.
I'm always on the lookout for church-on-a-budget ideas. There was this school bus for sale once...

Robin Edgar mad at non-UU?

2006-02-06T02:52:00.000-05:00

Anthony Perks, a gynaecologist, has posited the idea that Stonehenge is a symbolic representation of female genitals when viewed from above. David Miles, and archeologist, disputed the theory, and Robin Edgar (A disgruntled Unitarian) was upset by what David Miles said.

Here is how David Miles was quoted in the Observer:
"It is intriguing theory, though it has failed to impress experts. David Miles, chief archaeologist for English Heritage, which owns the site, said Perks's theory, although interesting, was essentially untestable. 'You can come up with just about any idea to explain a structure like Stonehenge if you stare at it for long enough. And if Stonehenge was built so that it looked like a female sexual organ when viewed from above, how were people supposed to see that? As far as we have been able to tell, they didn't have hot-air balloons in prehistoric times.'

In fact, scientists have shown that Stonehenge was not built in one single act of construction, but was put together over a period of more than 1,500 years in a series of successive modifications and improvements. Nor was it built by the druids, the people most often associated with the site. In fact, many more ancient tribes and societies - individuals attempting to make their impact on the landscape of England - were responsible.

'The archaeologist Jacquetta Hawkes once said that every age gets the Stonehenge it deserves,' added Miles. 'For example, in the 1960s, at the dawn of the computing era, researchers argued that you could use Stonehenge as a giant calculating machine.' Later, in the more mystical New Age, it was argued that the monument was really a spaceport for aliens, while, in the Middle Ages, it was said Stonehenge was built by giants. 'By those standards, this latest idea seems to say something quite odd about the twentyfirst century.'"

And here is how Robin Edgar described David Miles's statements:

"flippant and gratuitously dismissive"
'sarcastically dismissive response in the media was uncalled for and at least one of his comments that served to publicly discredit Dr. Perks' theory with the "voice of authority" was a totally spurious non-argument that may none-the-less have been very misleading to the public.'
"As far as I am concerned David Miles and indeed English Heritage whom Mr. Milres publicly represents owes Dr. Perks an apology."
"flippantly dismissive comments that clearly serve to publicly discredit Dr. Anthony Perks Stonehenge theory"

To me, even the little that was quoted from Miles does not seem to be particularly flippant or dismissive, certainly not excessively so. He is a scientist, and science is about skepticism. We also do not know how much else was said in the actual interview. I do not think that an apology is in order.
Now, Robin Edgar has a personal interest in the idea of 'an eye above', and the idea that ancient societies believed in heavenly viewers. There is a case to be made there and Miles did not address it (or it was not quoted) so it is worth bringing up, but I think Robin Edgar's reaction was out of proportion to David Miles's comments.

This has implications to interpreting Robin Edgar's words against Unitarian Universalists.

It's an Aquarian!

2006-01-26T22:49:00.000-05:00

My newest nephew, Jason Daniel Andrix, was born January 25th.

Fix UUism Entries

2006-01-23T00:17:00.000-05:00

Rewrite the Principles and Purposes
It has been decades since our congregations adopted the Principles and Purposes. It is my understanding that these are supposed to be revised from time to time, and I think it is time to start. This s something it may not be best for the UUA itself to do. To me, the Principles feel like they were written by a committee. Don't get me wrong, I like them, but I think it would be nice to have what we stand for stated in a way I can comfortably quote in an elevator speech. People find "Unitarian Universalist" intimidating and "The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large" is not much more comforting. I do not think that this is the best way to present to people the higher, abstract concept that that principle represents.
The best religious guidance is simple and clear. Generally, this is done by individuals. Some editing would probably be needed for wide acceptance, but this should ideally be done by the individual or small group that wrote the original.
The UUA should encourage UU's to begin thinking seriously and writing about 'What UU's believe' with an eye towards a revision of the Principles and Purposes. YOU need to start writing. Someone will create a new document that resonates with us.
Regardless of the method used, we need to talk a good look at our current document, and find ways it can be improved upon.

Inreach to the "Unchurched"
Somewhere around two-thirds of Unitarian Universalists are not members of UUA congregations. Some of these are probably active but not 'signed-the-book' members, but why aren't the rest coming in? We need to find out what is keeping these people away, change it, and let them know. These are people who already consider themselves UU, they should require relatively little convincing. This could be an easy way to triple our numbers.
Yes, it is herding cats, but that just means we need a can-opener.

Abandon our History
Wicca started out in 1954 when Gerald Gardner published the book Witchcraft Today. It has since grown dynamically and is (for better or worse) a cultural icon. Some would argue that Wicca is in fact much older, but this is not relevant to my point because Wicca ACTS like a new religion. It spreads quickly from person to person, it adapts and mutates easily, it knows how to handle being a minority religion, and it doesn't have a centralized bureaucracy.
Unitarianism started in the 1500's, and Universalism in 1793. Both claimed roots back to Jesus. Most Unitarian-Universalists think that we are an old religion with a rich history. For this reason we ACT like an old religion. We are hard to explain, and slow to change. We lost our minority religion stance when we had Unitarian Presidents, and we are centered in Boston. These things need to change.
Unitarian-Universalism was created in 1961. It is vastly different from any religion that has come before. It is accepted by less than one half of one percent of the population of America, and is virtually unheard of elsewhere in the world. We are a new and small religion, and we need to act like it. We need to simplify our message, so that people can learn about us more easily. We need to be less attached to traditions, and more encouraging of adaptations. (And more apt to adopt adaptations) We need to learn to use our smallness, instaed of trying to bark like a big dog. We need to remember that Unitarian Universalism is not owned by the UUA, and should exist and thrive even where the UUA is uninvolved.

Real Outreach
Unitarian Universalism needs to start seriously evangelizing. I'm not talking about ads in Times Square, or 'Principles' wallet cards. We need to give every person in America a basic idea of what we are about, as a first step. This would require much more advertising, or very much more personal effort. I don't think going door to door is in the cards, we need to find our own style, but we need to do it in bulk. This is worth a whole other brainstorming contest.
Then we need to start being present and talking to people about why the things that we value are important, and why a church is a good way to promote those values. We need to look to groups that would be sympathetic (homosexuals, minority religion members, environmentalists, etc.), and also to groups that we have not appealed to in the past. (The poor, the uneducated, the bigoted, and even the fundamentalists.) We need to give everyone in America a Personalized 'Elevator Speech' as a second step.
Then we will be ready to start a real outreach.
While we are doing that, we can use what we are learning to look into evangelizing overseas. Of course, we should NOT link our charitable services with conversion, or probably even evangelism, but that does not mean we can't present our faith as an option to people overseas, and help them establish churches. Unitarian Universalism is about some very powerful and useful ideas. People dedicated to those ideas being present woudl be very helpful to the rest of the world.
During WWII Unitarians in Germany adopted the Flaming Chalice as a secret symbol to help Jews and others escape. Unitarian Universalist can not help people escape genocide if there are no Unitarian Universalists in the country.

We are not good at evangelism, and many of us don't even like the idea, but it will give us new blood, more numbers, a better presence, and a stronger voice. We can promote our principles without violating them.

Now that is a Pro-Life message

2006-01-23T00:11:00.000-05:00

Also See "Got Life?"

Who?

2006-01-20T17:48:00.000-05:00

ChaliceChick is having a Contest to fix UUism
On of her suggestions is:
Don't forget church polity. Don't suggest something that the UUA can't do.
I honestly don't think that the UUA is the best agent for change here. I think that looking to the the UUA for leadership slows down the kind of dynamic growth we need. (in both size and maturity)
Somewhere around two-thirds of people who call themselves Unitarian Universalists aren't members of UUA member congregations. Any move by the UUA is by default a minority move. The first step to fixing Unitarian Universalism is to remember that the UUA doesn't own it.

That said, I'll probably be making an entry.

Progenitorivox

2006-01-17T03:20:00.000-05:00

Link

Intelligent Design (1)

2006-01-14T09:20:00.000-05:00

If you are walking in the desert, and you see five similar stones all lined up in a row, evenly spaced, then you know someone has been there and done that. What are the odds that random forces of nature would set not just threee or four, but five rocks to be be in a line? The chances are astronomical.
A similar question:
You see five similar stones all lined up in a row, on Mars. You, as far as you know, are the first person to set foot there. Was someone there before you? Aliens? The analysis is very different now, and it is an important question. Maybe it won't be a face or pyramids, but I'm sure we will eventually find something on mars that looks amazingly artificial. What is the difference?
For the five stones in the desert, we can safely presuppose the existence of human who might have done it. We know other humans exist, and we know they can go to the desert and move rocks. Even if it is unlikely that any individual would do so in such a way, it is far more likely that some individual would, than that the rocks would find their way into a line by chance.
On Mars, we are fairly certain humans have NOT been there before, and we know of no other entity with such volition and intelligence. It is our habit, our natural inclination to assume the presence of another entitity. We are surrounded by entities, but not martians. We can NOT safely presuppose the existence of entities on Mars. We must assume random natural processes, however unlikely.

There is however another possibility. Perhaps the processes are not entirely random. There may be something about the rocks or their surroundings that lend themselves to becoming so ordered. If such a a process could be found, it would significantly increase the chances of finding those five stones in a line.

Morning Conversations.

2006-01-12T13:11:00.000-05:00

Discussion with Kim:
"Do Unitarians discuss the concept of grace? or is that a taboo subject?"
"No, we can..."
"Well, can and do are two different things..."
"...but we don't. Why?" (Kim is working on an adult sunday school class with a book titled What's So Amazing About Grace?")
"I realized that Unitarians are good at showing grace to people. Nobody would bat an eyelash if you showed up to church in a rock band T-shirt, whereas some churches won't let you in if you aren't dressed right."

Later I spoke on the phone with another friend who has decided that 'UUism is a nice support group but people who call it a religion are "hiding" ' grrrr.

4 year old:
"Didn't your mother tell you to get out of your bathing suit?"
"I forgot"
"Oh really..."
"She's not here now, and I forgot"
"Well, what you do think you should do now that you remember?"
"Keep on forgetting! "

Repeal a bad law

2006-01-11T02:34:00.000-05:00

Help repeal the DMCA, see EFF site. Support H.R.1201 -aka DMCRA

Have you ever ben playing a DVD, and the previews come on, and you try to fast forard through them, but you can't? This is because the movie companies set certain permissions on the disc, and the law says that the DVD player has to honor them. It is effectively illegal to make a DVD player that fast forwards through these ads.
Under copyright law, you have 'fair use' rights to copy works. for example quoting an excerpt from a book. Most copy-prevention systems ignore this, and because it is illegal to circumvent them, these systems hinder the rights of consumers.

If you've just crawled out from under a rock, you might not be aware of the Sony rootkit fiasco. H.R. 1201 would also force record companies to label CD's that use copy protection.

Finally, H.R.1201 would establish a legal standard that creators of software are not responsible for copyright by it's users. (In the same way the makers of VCR's should not be held responsible for bootleg movies.)

H.R. 1201 is an important reform.

Tags: copyright, reform, DMCA, DMCRA, rootkit, freedom, rights, democracy
Technorati: copyright, reform, DMCA, DMCRA, rootkit, freedom, rights, democracy

Definition of Heresiology

2006-01-06T18:17:00.000-05:00

From time to time I get hits from people searching for heresiology, but I don't talk about heresiology all that much, so I thought I'd make a definitions page of sorts.

Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a "theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the catholic or orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. By extension, [heresy is an] opinion or doctrine in philosophy, politics, science, art, etc., at variance with those generally accepted as authoritative." (WikiPedia)
Heresiology is the study of heresies.
A Heresiologist is a person who studies heresies.

I chose the name heresiology for my blog because I am contrarian, I like to play around with ideas and twist established notions.(obscure notions too) It helps the unitarianism, universalism, and unitarian universalism are all largely heretical.

Tags: heresy, heresies, heresiology, heresiologist, definition, unitarian, universalism
Technorati: heresy, heresies, heresiology, heresiologist, definition, unitarian, universalism

The Decline of Western Civilzation

2006-01-06T17:40:00.000-05:00

A british TV show, Derren Brown: The Heist is showing how normal people can be led into deviant behavior, such as stealing candy, or armed robbery.

"At other times it's more disturbing. The re-creation of the Stanley Milgram test, for instance, in which Vicky and Phil and the rest of our middle-management business people are made to think they are administering excruciating electric shocks to someone. It's a well-known experiment to show that people will do outrageous things just because a person in authority has told them to. Some of them are quite happy to carry on upping the voltage, even though the victim has apparently passed out from the pain."

Tags: Milgram, crime, psychology, TV, Heist, control, authority
Technorati: Milgram, crime, psychology, TV, Heist, control, authority

Truth

2006-01-04T01:06:00.000-05:00

TEA and Will were talking about truth and belief, and it brought to mind this Beliefnet discussion I had. I start posting at post 23 (as James123). The important bit here is my discussion with runegurl.
I was taking the position that truth is truth, and doesn't vary from person to person.

This is from her post 35, starting out quoting me:

I don't understand 'What's true for me may not be true for you'. Where 'I don't understand' means 'I don't know what these words mean'

in terms of belief, what you believe to be true may very well work, for you, because it's internally consistent with what you believe otherwise about life and the world and gods and etc. there is always a subjective element to belief, and there will always be. so believing that your personal beliefs are the "right" and "true" ones for every other person on the planet, or even just for me, ignores my own subjective reality and my own similar truth.

i'm not talking about "beliefs" that are objective facts here, like the sun coming up tomorrow, etc., which are the same for all of us. i'm talking about the subjective. the level of faith.

Later on, I touch on some old-school Universalism. ("Belief in the eventual salvation of everyone, including Satan and demons is called Apocatastasis.")

What got to me in this was the phrase 'a subjective element to belief'. What I relate to there is that some things I believe independently of logic or experience. I am a theist, but I wouldn't even try to make a case that God exists. My belief is entirely irrational in origin. It is reflexive, like flinching when jabbed in the eye.
So in perhaps many cases, it is as pointless to to try to talk someone into a belief as it would be to talk them out of flinching when jabbed in the eye.
They just believe.

This is in agreement with findings that there is a genetic component to belief or relgiosity.

Tags: religion, belief, true, truth, relativism, subjective, objective, universalism
Technorati: religion, belief, true, truth, relativism, subjective, objective, universalism

Trinitarianism

2005-12-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

The Trinity is supposed to be a mystery, rationally incomprehensible. So unitarians rejected faith in favor of reason. Personally, I've never had a problem understanding the Trinity. I credit Star Trek.
I grew up on Star Trek, and it often has strange aliens with strange ways of thinking and states of existence. I grew up adjusting my mind to radical concepts.
I can almost hear Mr. Spock:
"Captain, the it appears to be an entity of infinite complexity and power, divided into three distinct agents, yet functioning as a single consciousness, it exist outside of our spacetime. Fascinating."

Ok, maybe I didn't capture the full intricacies of trinitarian theology, but my point is that on the weirdness scale, the Trinity does not impress me.
The sad thing is that to traditional christianity, I'm pretty sure that the notion that the Trinity is comprehensible is as much a heresy as the notion that it does not exist.

P.S. By the end of the episode, Uhura is poisoned by an alien fruit, one of the agents dies to save the Enterprise, and they beam Captain Kirk out of the Tomb, just before the door opens.

Christmas Carols

2005-12-21T23:14:00.000-05:00

I hope everybody had a Happy Solstice.

We had a solstice celebration at my church tonight, I helped set up.
We had a labyrinth in the parking lot, the path was defined by brown paper lunch bags, weighted down with gravel and with tea-lights inside for illumination. the plan was to shut off the lightposts, so just the light of 200 candles would guide us.
Once we got the borders well defined, Scott had to go get more gravel, and I had to go eat dinner, and get some chocolate chip biscotti for the desert potluck. My sister in law eats them alot, and they have chocolate in them, so I eat them too, when I'm over there. While at the grocery store, I ran into both our Director of Religious Education, and our Administrator. I guess this might be normal church/community interaction, but since I live about 13 miles and twelve tax brakets away from my church, I'm not used to it at all.
Unfortunately it was windy. The candle we were using to light the tea-lights kept going out, and even the some of the tea-lights were going out in the bags. We only ended up with a quarter of them lit.
The labyrinth walk went well anyway though, we left the light post on. We each took a pebble from a glass at the entrance, and carried it through the labyrinth thinking of something we wanted to be rid of. When we reached the center we dropped in into a chalice, and took a sparkler. We lit the sparkler from one of the nearby tea-lights, since the chalice would not stay lit. Then we walked back out thinking of something we wanted for the new year.
The labyrinth did it job, in that even after spending over two hours setting it up, and being well aware of the layout, I got lost. Tammy played the flute while we marched, and I remembered I forgot my drum in the Emerson Room. I decided I liked the walk better without a drumbeat, the lone flute sounded more magical.
nonetheless, when I got out I went and got my drum, and once most of us were out of the labyrinth, Tammy and I let the procession back into the woods. (have I mentioned that my church has about 10 acres of nature preserve?)
We circled around the fire pit, and we all got small candles, those ones with the cardboard circles so you don't get wax on your hands. It was a trial to keep them all lit, so we skipped the symbology of using our individual goals and efforts to light the community fire, and went with the symbology of constantly lighting each others' candles, which I think is neater anyway.
I fell in love with, and consequently ate, 9 chocolate fondue marshmallows. I recommended them to others as 'glorious'.
I also became an arms dealer, showing the children how to make proper snowballs. I also tried to explain to them the implications of the Geneva Convetions, but this was less well recieved.
We sang "Christmas" carols, including 'God rest ye, Unitarians':

To the tune of "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen":

Gods rest ye, Unitarians, let nothing you dismay;
Remember there's no evidence there was a Christmas Day;
When Christ was born is just not known, no matter what they say,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

Our current Christmas Customs come from Persia and from Greece,
From solstice celebrations of the ancient Middle East.
This whole darn Christmas spiel is just another pagan feast,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact.

There was no star of Bethlehem, there was no angels' song;
There couldn't have been wise men for the trip would take too long.
The stories in the Bible are historically wrong,
O, Tidings of reason and fact, reason and fact,
Glad tidings of reason and fact!

Parkour - Home

2005-12-18T21:25:00.000-05:00

Before today, I didn't know that I was into Parkour.
See awesome Videos.

I'm very much into running and jumping, my natural inclination is to move faster and more vertically than most people do. If a wall is blocking my way, and I can jump over it, I jump it, where most people would go around.
Now I've discovered that there is a movement for this. It's not just me being crazy, it's a skill with a name. I've got people to compare myself to and learn moves from.

I need to get in shape.

"No violence, No competition, No Groups, No Chiefs."

I also like that this appeals simultaneously to the tough guy part of my brain, and my attraction to pacifism.
I've got to say though, it's funny that a french soldier and his son turned running away into a martial art.

Tim Berners-Lee's Blog

2005-12-17T19:07:00.000-05:00

Creator of the World Wide Web, and Unitarian Universalist too!

Questing

2005-12-15T20:18:00.000-05:00

I got fired last night. This is the first time I've actually gotten fired. Usually if I'm going to get fired, I'll quit first. I was working in a call center for the Red Cross, call blood donors, get new appointments to donate. I'm not too fond of the phone work, but I liked it because even when I had a bad day, I knew it was a good cause. I didn't feel like a cog in a corporate machine. I was a cog in a blood sucking machine :-) I just started 6 months ago, and this was the end of my probationary period, I knew my numbers were not where they were supposed to be, too surprised. Bossguy will give me a good reference though.
The upsides are: More time to do Christmas shopping, (thought less money with which to do it.) I can stay at my Mother's for Christmas, I can more easily get to the saturday craft group my friend is doing at church, (I make devil sticks).
I'll also have more time to work on my many blogs. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Part of me wants to push my websites into making enough money to pay the important bills, but I'm not sure I can do that in time.
I'm experimenting with a mini-blog in the sidebar of my blogs, for random links and general indrax-related news. If it looks terribly wonky, tell me how and what browser/system you're using.

The One True Chalice

2005-12-08T23:13:00.000-05:00

I don't think the designer is Unitarian, and unfortunately you can only get the design printed on big steins. Maybe if there are requests....

My Unitarian Jihad Name

2005-12-06T14:40:00.000-05:00

I went to the Unitarian Jihad Name Generator, and I think for now I am going to go with:

The Boot Knife of Quiet Reflection

I wonder what the ideological differences are in the First Reformed Unitarian Jihad.

New Logo

2005-11-27T21:46:00.000-05:00

The Jesus Fish, the Cross, the Star of David, the Star and Cresent, the Pentagram. what do these have in common? They are religous symbols that you can easily draw in two strokes or less. You can make a recognizable yin-yang in three.
The Old UUA logo was hard to draw, the new one is a monstrosity.
Being able to draw a symbol is important. It personalizes the symbol, as something that the individual created. It also makes it accesible, because wherever you are, you can make and focus on a symbol of your faith. The uua logos are nice, but no one is going to scratch them into the wall of their cell just before they are lead to their death.
But the UUA logo isn't supposed to be the symbol of Unitarian Universalism anyway. The symbol of Unitarian Universalism is the flaming chalice. Not this logo or that logo, the flaming chalice, an abstract visual concept like the cross or the pentagram.

So I'm announcing the new/old official/unoffical logo of Unitarian Universalism.
Take anything you can use to draw, draw an oval that's about three times as wide as it is tall, then draw a teardrop shape with it's point somewhere above the oval, and it's round part somewhere inside.
That's it, the two-stroke chalice.
Here's mine, with some other low-stroke symbols:

It's perfect for Unitarian Universalism, because it's unique, and comes from yourself.
Now, yes, there are fancy looking crosses, and it's fine for an organization to have a fancy chalice logo. But remember that the symbol of the faith is much simpler, and remember how to draw it.

Robin Edgar, Volume 1

2005-11-17T23:52:00.000-05:00

Elsewhere , The Emerson Avenger said...
Actually I never heard any voices or saw any visions at all. The primary spiritual phenomenon that I experienced, other than the profound mystical experience of feeling God's presence in a kind of 'born again' experience, was the extremely unusual 'meaningful coincidences' of synchronicity that individually and collectively communicated the prophetic message that it is not a pure random chance 'coincidence' that a total solar eclipse distinctly resembles an 'Eye In The Sky'. . .

Best Regards,

Robin Edgar

http://revelationisnotsealed.homestead.com"

Some thoughts on the theology here:

Synchronicity is a standard new-ageish concept.
I'm not sure he's using 'born again' in the capacity in which I understand it.
"feeling God's presence" combined with positioning the earth-sun-moon, indicates a personal-God-creator entity. (though the latter could indicate something else very interesting...)
If eclipses are a sign from God, what is she saying? and what can we infer from the message and the medium?

To me, 'born again' has a component of becoming a new being. This is strong in the Christian 'born agains', which is I think very similar to a new-age walk-in experience. I don't get the impression that that's what happened to Robin, it sounds more like a 'peak experience'

Do they Know it's Hallloween?

2005-11-01T00:17:00.000-05:00

Listen

Ahh, All Saint's Day. The time when the veil between worlds is at it's thinnest, when the spirits find influence in the world. When our thoughts turn to spiritual questions, such as: When is it appropriate to blow out a candle in the middle of someone else's ceremony?

Story:
I was living with Chris, Matt, Faith , and Sabrina. Matt and Sabrina had broken up the year before, shortly after Matt and Faith got together. Things were tense.
It was he night after Holloween. Chris was away getting married.
A friend and I came home after some college adventure, we found Matt and Faith casually lying on the floor of the living room next to an arrangement of candles. As quietly as possible, I asked what was going on.
Now, Matt was a sick man, physically and mentally. Aparently something had 'told him' to lay out these candles in this particular arangement, and since he had done so, he felt that his health had dramatically improved. Sabrina was in her bedroom just off the living room, I gathered that she objected to the state of affairs in te living room. We chatted a bit, as Matt occasionally adjusted the candles.
Suddenly, Sabrina came into the living room in her nightgown, carrying a cordless phone, walked up to the center candle, bent over, blew it out, and walked on into the kitchen.
Shortly after that, Matt passed out, he did that from time to time. It didn't take too long to revive him, but he certainly didn't seem 'alright'.
At some point in all this my other friend left, I assume completely weirded out.

Learned after the fact, from Sabrina's side:
It seems that the arangement and colors Matt was using would produce results that were somehow very bad, according to, someone...

The tricky nit about this is that the candles of infamy were cheap orange and black halloween candles, and were only coated in their colors, over a white core. It seems it is the core color, not any outer color that is magically relevant, so Matt's arrangement was entirely white candles, which is an altogether different thing. Sabrina at the time did not know this.

Discuss!

Seriously Disturbing

2005-10-14T13:34:00.000-04:00

From and index of stories for children, two religious parables:

Wumpalump
Loomploy

This is calvinism, right?

muhaha

2005-10-07T05:30:00.000-04:00

Finally got caught up again in writing my fictional blog Xenobiology, After being two or three days behind for far too long. (hit the archives to start at the beginning.)

Now I just need to finnish the work of finding people to be on the church board next year! Thank god I don't have sunday school this week.

Detroit Rock City Fight Song Name

2005-09-22T12:53:00.000-04:00

There is a movie Detroit Rock City about 4 kids in the 70's trying to make it to a KISS concert.
During the one fight scene between the main characters, there is a opera song playing that is not on the soundtrack, and is not credited many places on the internet.
That song is titled O' Fortuna, from the opera Carmina Burana.

It is an awesome song.

Simon of Space

2005-09-15T23:48:00.000-04:00

You must read Simon of Space by Cheesburgerbrown (CBB).
During one of the discussions, the subject came up of CBB's views coming through in his work.
Here are a snippet of his reply describing his philosophy:

"I am interested in the world, which by definition makes me interested in either science, religion, or both.

Though run through with elements of fantasy, SIMON OF SPACE is a science-fiction story. The science is uses as a basis for extrapolation is sociobiology (now called "evolutionary biology" in some circles). In other words, the main concern of this story is not how spaceships fly or what makes robots tick, but what people do.

Now, to be clear: I have no interest in telling people how they ought to behave. The societies I have written about are not models. If there is one over-arching moral theme to this telling, it is probably that one should always be highly suspect of anyone who thinks they do have the right to tell people how they ought to behave or think or feel.

Righteousness is sensitive to context, and the ultimate context is not knowable to mortal actors. As said so eloquently by S. Morgenstern: "Anyone who tells you differently is selling something."

I am politically naive.

I'm sure there are very clever readers out there who could do up a fine paper on how my lifestyle as a person is reflected in the beliefs and conflicts of my characters, for whatever that's worth.

I am a knowledge-based worker who lives out in the country with big dogs and a gun. We have a well, and I intend to keep it as I don't trust my province's ability to control civic water quality. We grow our own vegetables and apples. I am self-employed, and answer to no boss. We're working toward investing in a wind-generator, so help ease us off the grid.

My personal priorities in life: to tell good stories, to be a good father, to be a good husband.

I am, by some measures, therefore unambitious.

My credo? LIVE AND LET LIVE. Does this come through in SOS? I'm sure it must.

We recently had an au pair staying with us who came from the island of St. Maarten living under a religious hegemon, and she spent eight weeks being delighted shocked and warmly awed by the way we live by our neighbours in this part of the world. I admit, it made me proud. I know it's uncouth for Canadians to be proud of Canada, but, honestly: seeing someone from an intolerant society so moved by the common decency and everyday rationality we take for granted in our village was inspiring to me. That is something I wanted to be able to communicate in a story, because I think it's important.

Like I said, I'm sure you scholarly types have an excellent term for "live and let live" that would make my political orientation more plain. All I know is that it makes life go smoother, for me and mine and our neighbours.

I don't know -- let's see...what other philosophical slogans lie close to my heart? For one thing, I have a bone to pick with anyone who would exclude human beings from the category of "animals" or suggest that human civilization is somehow "unnatural." This point of view can only result from a misapprehension of the power and complexity of natural selection, which is sad but common. Nature is frequently robbed of most of its dignity and awe by many religious and secular modes of thought alike, in my opinion.

Should people recognize their natures? I don't know. I don't really care. All I mean to say is that when I talk about people it's going to be coming from a background of viewing them as animals, specks in a continuum of evolution that started four billion years ago.

And as I've said before I believe strongly in the importance of awe. I don't care whether your awe is inspired by science, religion or just open-eyed wonder -- but if you live a life without awe you truly do have my pity because you're dead inside.

So what have we got here?

#1. Live and let live.
#2. Man is natural.
#3. Awe is essential.

Anything else? Let me see. I'm really stretching now. I guess I'd also have to say that I am a firm proponent of constructive rationality over intuitive whinnying when it comes to decision-making or conflict resolution. I believe in negotiation and compromise, in reasoned discourse and fairly-considered argument. As much as the passion of awe is important, so is unbiased calculation and the ability to step back from base drives which compel us to act emotionally. So...

#4. Constructive pragmatism is predicated on dispassionate rationality.

And I suppose add to that a human corollary, for the sake of balance:

#5. It's fun to get drunk, laugh loud, and squeeze the fine derriere of a sweet woman.

...And now I think we've pretty much defined the five pillars of CheeseburgerBrownic philosophy, such as it is. I'm sure it's clear to you now that SIMON OF SPACE is not a treatise on right living, but just a story generated out of my particular imagination, hinged on issues I think about in my idle or awe-filled moments of reflection or experience.

This is how the galaxy in my head looks. It isn't a prescription -- it's just a fun place to explore and feel."

I was inspired by this to ask him if he is a Unitarian Universalist. I think I ended up linking the words to the UUA principles and purposes page, but it seems to me that that isn't really the best place to point people who have never heard of UUism before. (which is essentially everyone)

How do we talk to people who 'sound UU' but might not know anything about it, and might be aversive to 'organized religion'. I dunno.

Back to Work

2005-09-15T04:14:00.000-04:00

The funeral was yesterday, I am (I think) on a normal sleep schedule. Not that I was on a normal one before.

Sorrow

2005-09-09T13:40:00.000-04:00

My two best friends had a baby a few days ago. It had heart surgery yesterday. It died this morning.

They noticed the heart condition fairly early on. So we've all known this was a possibility.

They have a 2 year old & a 4 year old. The 4 year old knew she had a sister coming.

This is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone I know. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me.

Proof of God

2005-09-09T02:18:00.000-04:00

This was linked to on the Bnet UU board here. I think it is interesting, once you parse through the bad english.

I found that version 1 was more clear than version 3.

I find it interesting because it is not to far from my own conception of how consciousness works.
It does not prove God in the traditional sense, at best it proves that the universe as a whole has experience. I think he relies a bit too much on gravity.

It smells like the interconnected web. It is a specific version of it.

Water

2005-09-04T23:37:00.000-04:00

ChaliceChick is uncomfortable with the water ceremony while New Orleans is under water.
I don't think it's good to stop holding something up as sacred just because it is being destructive. What would we be left with? flame? no. Rocks? no. People?
If something is sacred, even symbolically, you need to be able to see it as sacred even when it is horrible. It won't work to have a religion that values something, but ignores that value when you don't want to hear it.

From Kali, to Pele, to Zeus, to Jehovah, deities sometimes kill you. Water is no different, life is no different. If you give up on what you revere when it is unpleasant, then you have lost faith. We have always known water could be destructive, but we chose it as a powerful symbol anyway. Water is still as life-giving and interconnected and beautiful as it ever was, even now.

If people have inherent dignity and worth, do they still have it when they are killing someone?

I do think there is room to change the way we spiritualize water to better handle it's negative aspects. A 'Bad Water Ceremony'? Or perhaps just a balance in the poetry we use, and then waters we bring. At our water ceremony, we have the option to use a pitcher of symbolic water for things we forgot, or didn't have access to. No one brought symbolic flood water.

Sermon 2005: A Dangerous Religion

2005-09-01T23:48:00.000-04:00

I've posted the text of the sermon I gave this summer.
The blurb in the church newsletter went like this:
Title: 'A Dangerous Religion'
The end of the world is at hand. A leader will soon rise, teaching the acceptance of all religions, and unite humanity in peace and brotherhood. He will be the ultimate evil. Will he be one of us?
Is the Antichrist a Unitarian Universalist?

Read it.

Flaming Chalice Clipart.

2005-08-31T01:28:00.000-04:00

I whipped this up in the Inkscape SVG editor. I traced the 'k' chalice from the Chalice Font, then smoothed it out (the chalice font is rather bumpy.) SVG is a vector format, so the SVG version can be scaled up to any size and still look good. It is also fairly simple to change the colors. (or shapes!)
I also tried making a fancier looking chalice. I realized afterwards that the color would blend in nicely on this page, so you can see it at the sidebar. Click on it to grab the SVG file.
In hindsight, it looks more like a bowl with legs, that happens to be on fire.

My Elevator Speech

2005-08-31T01:12:00.000-04:00

What Unitarian Universalism has is a rich tradition of recognizing the importance of people determining their own beliefs. This is something most other religions do not have. It is not that we lack beliefs, not even that we lack common beliefs. The thing that makes us different from almost every religion, what is in effect, our central teaching, is that seeking the truth is more important than teaching it.

When you have an idea that is so powerful that it has changed the world several times over, yet there is only one religion that dares to promote that idea, You must realize that that is a religion of note. We have seven ideas that powerful.

Forgiveness and Death

2005-08-26T06:08:00.000-04:00

I saw a Jew once argue against the divinity of Jesus because 'God can't die'. My thought was that an equally amazing notion is that God could change. My understanding is that the Jewish concept of God is timeless and unchanging. The Jewish God is also a God of Justice. (harsh justice by today's standards, but 'punishment for transgressions', at least)
Christianity brings to this a forgiving God, a God that suspends harsh justice out of love. A God that CHANGES his mind. But this is incompatible with the old testament version of God. How can an unchanging God change?

A classic paradox:
Q: If God is all powerful, can he create a wall so strong that even he can't break it down?
A: Yes he can, and he did. Then he broke it down, but it killed him.
God, in order to forgive, had to alter a fundamental part of who he was, in so doing he became something else, he died. The real action of salvation wasn't at Calvary, it was in heaven, probably 'before' our space/time was created. This may have fractured him into the trinity.

What really irks me is that I of all people come up with this stuff, while after 2000 years of development Christians are using CHICK TRACTS?!? What is that about?

I am a Unitarian Universalist

2004-12-01T01:02:00.000-05:00

I am passionate about being a Unitarian Universalist. Of all the religions that I know of, this is the one that I can be entirely enthusiastic about, and promote without reservation. I value religious freedom, I value learning, I value humility.

I value people.

Is the Antichrist a Unitarian Universalist?

1990-08-01T21:59:00.000-04:00

Four years ago, I gave my first sermon here, it was on cults. I defined a cult as being a dangerous religion. This sermon is about a particular dangerous religion.

Many Christians believe that the book of revelations foretells an anti-Christ, a man who will rule the world and cause the whole world to worship his image. He will also persecute Christians severely, and God's wrath will be poured out upon the world. Eventually god will destroy the world, judge the living and the dead, and create a new heaven and a new earth.

Modern fundamentalist Christians Have made a number of predictions about the nature of the religion that the antichrist will bring about in the world.

The Left Behind series is a fictionalization of evangelical eschatology. (Eschatology is a part of theology dealing particularly with final things, such as death, or in this case, the end of the world.) They have sold 55 million books over the past 10 years, and the authors, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, have become major leaders in evangelical Christianity.

The Left Behind books give some description of what the Antichrist’s Relgion is supposed to look like. It is a blending of all the world’s religions. It is universally accepting of all people. It’s leaders see it as a modernization of what were the established religions, seeing wisdom in ancient teachings, but also recognizing modern knowledge and practice. It is intended to be a more enlightened religion, to better guide humanity through troubled times.

What is special about Unitarian Universalism?

When you have an idea that is so powerful that it has changed the world several times over, yet there is only one religion that dares to promote that idea, You realize that that is a religion of note. We have seven ideas that powerful.

Tim LaHaye thinks that there is a war of ideas being waged right now in our society. In another book he co-wrote, Mind Siege, Tim Lahaye lists the ideas that are threatening Christianity, and the people of the world.

The ideas are:

Atheism, or anything other than worship of his Biblical God.

Evolution, because it reduces humanity to the status of an animal.

Amorality, which is what he calls the idea that people are capable of determining what is right and wrong.

The Autonomy of man, The idea that humanity can be self sufficient, and does not need God’s help or slavation

Globalism, The idea that we should have a goal of a peaceful world community.

These ideas are increasingly popular beliefs. Evangelical Christians see their beliefs being marginalized, and they are afraid. Their eschatology predicts a world church led by the Antichrist, so they conclude that it is these beliefs that the Antichrist will promote, and these beliefs are finely woven into the religion depicted in the Left Behind Novels.

I make a special note of Tim Lahaye’s fear of a peaceful world community. It is interesting and frightening that if we ever achieve a lasting peace on earth, this worldview would be invalidated. This makes any move towards a lasting peace a threat to their ideology, and any such threat must of course come from the antichrist. In fact the only peace on earth predicted by this worldview is brought about by the antichrist, just a few years before the end of the world. At the same time, implying that this form of Christianity is an enemy to peace only makes us look guiltier in their eyes.

The Idea he calls the Autonomy of Man, is I think the best example of how this religion resembles Unitarian Universalism. We have a history of casting aside restrictions and going outside of boundaries. In General, we do not seek salvation from God, and we do not rely on ‘him’ to solve our problems on earth. We believe that people can think and reach correct conclusions. Tim Lahaye believes that human reason is flawed, and leads to rebellion from God.

Ultimately, the biggest problem with Unitarian Universalism is the use of reason.

The largest difference between Unitarian Universalism and the religion of the antichrist, is that the latter requires worship of a single man, by everyone, and by force. Strangely I think that Tim Lahaye sees this as a minor difference.

I think that there are two problems that Unitarian Universalism has, that could lead it to become more like the religion of the Antichrist, and Less like what we want it to be.

First is the difficulty of recognizing and rejecting ideas that are against our principles. Because we value acceptance, we can be hesitant to subject the ideas of others to scrutiny.

Paradoxically, the second problem is that we sometime are not as accepting and open as we should be.

It is very often observed by newcomers to UU communities that we can be hostile (perhaps unintentionally) to those who hold more traditional or conservative views. It can come in the form of harsh remarks towards the faith we were raised in, or just the natural tendency to relegate ideas that you disagree with.

It seems that most of the time I hear of a UU church, it is because its majority(perhaps Humanist, Christian, or Pagan) has alienated one or more of its minorities(Perhaps Christian, Pagan, or Humanist) I wonder what if any, minorities at our church we have alienated.

One thing that most fundamentalists believe is going to happen just before the rise of the antichrist is the Rapture of the church. In this event, all believing Christians instantly vanish to heaven, all over the world.

How would religious liberals react if the religious right suddenly lost its influence? After the initial shock wore off, we might look forward to a brighter, saner world.

If that ever did happen, and it looked like fundamentalists were coming back, We might really dread having them around again. Sometimes when you really want something, and especially when you're really afraid of something, you can forget what you really believe.

When the antichrist comes to lead his chosen faith, we may be more willing than we would like to think we will be. He will use the fourth principle against us. He will rely on our acceptance of his free search for truth, and let us forget his responsibility. Then appeal that since fundamentalism is clearly not a responsible search for truth, people should not be free to adopt it.
This is a danger we should watch for, whether the antichrist appears or not.

An interesting thing about Christianity is that it seems to be hooked on this 'waiting for the messiah' concept. Originally, the coming of the messiah was a Jewish prophecy; the messiah was to rule the world justly, with Israel getting its proper position among the nations. Jesus came, and His follwers claimed him as the messiah, but then he died. But he promised he would rise from the dead.

According to the bible he did, but then he left again, he ascended into heaven. But he promised to come back, and this is where we are now, Christians, like Jews, are waiting for the messiah, but there's more. Many Fundamentalist Christians, like Tim LaHaye, believe that Christ will come again and 'rapture' the church before the anti-Christ ruled tribulation period. He will instantly take all believers to heaven, to spare them the suffering to come. After that, there is another 7 years, during which any new believers will again be waiting for Christ to return. When he does, He will rule on earth for another thousand years before he finally destroys the world, and create 'a new heaven and a new earth' So technically, the end of the world is not at Christ’s second coming, but his fourth.
I think there might be something intrinsic in the human condition that make this idea recur. We want to hope for something, when what we are hoping for comes and goes without changing our lives, we hope for it to happen again, always believing that /this/ time it will be as we imagine.

Jesus never taught how to govern. He taught you to be kind, even when evil was done to you, and he taught to forsake everything to teach this forgiveness to others, but he did not teach how to live in a society where everyone knew his teachings. He told his followers how to respond to judgments against them, but not how to judge (indeed he taught not to judge)

When Christianity was developing, it was persecuted. In order for the faith to survive, its leaders had to teach Christians how to cope with that persecution. They emphasized and expanded on the teaching 'blessed are you who are persecuted for my sake’ they warned their followers that if they went out with the truth, the world would be against them.

The failure of Jesus to teach explicit law, meant that when Christianity became dominant in an area, and it was time to establish a civil law, the only suitable basis was the Jewish scripture, which is generally much harsher than Jesus’s teachings.

Another thing that happens when Christianity is dominant, is that it isn’t persecuted anymore. No more crucifixions, no more hungry lions. (unless you were a heretic) But what is a Christian to do? They were missing out on the blessings that come with persecution. One option is to go find people who don’t accept the Christian message, and push it on them until they do something mean to you. Then you’ll be blessed. Another option is to promote some heresy. They’re easy to come up with, even accidentally, if you just think on your own for a little while. If you tell someone, and they threaten you, then you know that the world is persecuting you for teaching the truth, and again, stick you your guns no matter what, and you’ll be a martyr and a saint. The third option, especially if you’re a Christian on the high end of the social ladder, is to decide that every slight against Christianity is a form of persecution. From taking ‘under god’ out of the pledge, to putting a planned parenthood clinic, anywhere, you see Christianity being attacked, fight the good fight against the pagans, and you will be blessed.

My point is that because Christianity was abused in it’s childhood, it has developed a faith-wide persecution complex; and because it didn’t have enough guidance early on, when it had to make tough decisions it latched on to the only authority it knew, the old testament. That is why some Christians are so annoying.

Unitarian Universalism is in the minority. We do not have to contend with crucifixions or hungry lions, (yet) but we do sometimes feel a level of hostility from the larger Christian culture. Especially those parts that link our beliefs to pure evil.

In my sermon on Cults, I suggested that the best way to deal with dangerous religions is to actively engage their members in dialog, in order to Highlight the deeper core beliefs that all religions have in common.

We need to find ways to deal with that hostility, but we need to make sure that we are not scarred by it. We need to be careful about what teachings and traditions we leave behind. We need to make sure that if, someday, the most powerful man in the world hands to us the churches of the world, we can respond with compassion and maturity.

The word Satan means ‘adversary’ I think a way to avoid being cast in the role of Satan is to not be adversarial.

We need to find ways to cooperate with people who have values fundamentally different from ours. I think that in most cases, it would be enough for us to suggest a course of action to take. If we choose our suggestions carefully, our advesaries will agree. In this way we can direct their efforts to causes that everyone agrees is beneficial, and show them the common ground we have.

Where we do not agree on a course of action, we must do an odd thing: we must cooperate with them anyway. Here I use 'cooperate' in an odd way: We must support their personal and spiritual growth. It is not normally the UU way to tell people what to think, and that's not quite what I'm suggesting. We affirm that all people should have a free search for truth, but we need to recognize that not all people seek responsibly. It is our job as a UU congregation to promote a responsible search. Through this 'cooperation', we help our adversary in their personal growth. This is 'Loving your enemy'. By always trying to do what is best for each person we encounter, we will get what is best for everyone.

I believe that by prompting people to continue to explore their values, and by exploring ours, we can come to agreement, if not in theology, then in action.