Posted by:
boilerluv
(
)
Date: February 07, 2017 07:19PM
I joined a UU church because a) atheists are welcome, as is everyone else, b) there is NO dogma, nothing you have to say you believe, and c) primarily because of their RE program, where kids of all ages are taught to think for themselves. They are taught about the world's religions (and celebrate many various religious holidays--Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Dwali, etc.), taught what those religions believe, but never ever told "this is true or this is right." Except for the 7 UU principles, which boil down to: everyone is worthy of love and respect, be kind to animals, be kind to the earth, recycle, trust your conscience, stand up for others, etc. Oh, and by the way, UUs are VERY open to the LGBTQ community, which is important to my family, as two of my grandkids are trans(very recently out), and open only to their friends, and at our UU church. Not at their workplaces yet. That alone should tell you how much they trust the people there. We're also really big in social justice stuff.
The reason I went there to begin with was because my grandkids were living next door to an Evangelical Christian family, and the girl in that family was telling my granddaughter that she was going to hell for reading Harry Potter books. My granddaughter had not heard of this "Hell" before and was worried. I told my daughter we needed to get the kids some religious education so they wouldn't be susceptible to that kind of terror tactic, or to members of cults who come knocking on your door and promising you happiness if you only join them, and she said, "If you want to take them someplace like the UU church, go ahead--I will personally never set foot in a church again." So--I started driving 60 miles each way every Saturday to bring them to my house, keep them overnight, take them to the UU church in the morning, and then 60 miles back to their house. But it worked. And in the process, we all became UUs. About half our congregation is atheist--the others are a mixture of Buddhist, liberal Christian, Hindu, Wiccan, agnostic, humanist, etc. We like it.
:)