C.I.T.O.K.A.T.E.

I may write a book someday about my experiences with experiments with Un-churches. One of the chapters would concern Universism. For those who don't know, Universism is a "religion" like Unitarian Universalism except that instead of embracing all religious heritages, it rejects all of them in favor of "faith in reason, inspiration in nature, and hope in progress". The emphasis was "on the attitude and spirit in which you address religious questions, and the tools you use to do so, rather than focusing on any conclusions that you may arrive at". Those tools were personal experience and reason. Flaky new-agers did not find a very welcome home among us, despite their attraction to the idea of experimental religion, because they didn't enjoy our disapproval of blind faith, prophets, and gurus.

The movement gained worldwide attention, hosted live internet chats with John Horgan, Sam Harris, and Richard Dawkins, and many appearances in radio, television and newspapers. Universist YouTube videos still circulate.

Today I found out how that chapter of the book ends. Many of you met Universism's founder, Ford Vox, when he visited me last year and accompanied me to the weekly gathering of fans at Tio's in Ann Arbor. He has replaced the Universism website with a retraction of the desire to present an opposing force to faith. Much of what he says is true and valuable, but no reason to back down. ( Read more... )

Ford Vox, who kicked off the Universism movement, is visiting Ann Arbor and wants to meet with cossettevaljean tonight. We've invited him to Tuesdays at Tios.

We Universists have been getting a streak of publicity lately. United Universists teamed up with writer-director Brian Flemming to distribute a documentary film, "The God Who Wasn't There." Representatives keep getting radio appearances. One of them even recently sat down with a director of Focus on the Family's institute for taking over the culture, in which the director reportedly was not shy about their goal to someday break down our bedroom doors with jackboots. We've had more news articles than I can keep track of.

When the Birmingham, Alabama contingent was not allowed to meet in a local coffee shop, they boycotted and got a story about it in U.S. News and World Report. What do you think? Should a privately-owned business be able to tell people to go elsewhere on the basis of their religious beliefs?

Rachel once visited a service at a local church in Southfield, Michigan. They were offering for sale at huge prices rags of cloth which had been prayed over for healing purposes. If I ran a coffee shop I'm not sure I'd want it to be the hub of activity for door-to-door evangelists from their church. Well, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, so if the proprietor of Cool Beans in Birmingham thinks we're using her store to send ourselves and others to an eternity of getting their flesh burned off, kicking us out of her store would be the least she should do.

The proper response in the Cool Beans case is not to stage a lunch-counter protest to force the coffee-shop to change, just as I wouldn't want to be forced to change if I were in her shoes.Subtle distinctions need to be drawn about this. I'm not saying we should do nothing. We should excercise the same right in reverse-- stop associating with the business that doesn't want to associate with me and my friends. Privately encourage good people to do the same.

This is a different civil rights battle than that of decades ago. There's no moral dimension to being born black. There is a moral dimension to selling or debunking snake oil. I'm sorry to the very sophisticated progressives on my friends list, but untruth does lead to harm, and for this reason, truth claims do matter. This is like a libel/slander prosecution-- if it's true, it's not slander, and if it isn't true, it is slander, and religious discrimination cases should be handled the same way. The truth in the Cool Beans case is that I do not deserve to go to hell for my unbelief, and the truth in the hypothetical case is that rags do not gain medical efficacy by being prayed over. Statements to the contrary are not OK just because they are based on faith. You can't carry out a prosecution or a defense in a court of law by saying "the evidence is against this but I believe it on faith." You ignore everything but the evidence. But that's all secularism is. That's why a nation with multi-lateral religious equality ironically can't help but be a secularist state.

This morning two of my friends from Alabama in the Universism movement were guests on the Russ and Dee Show. After some Alabama listeners were discussing on Universism's "Faithless Community" chat room what they heard on the show, I called in and spent almost a half hour on the line with the host, my two friends, and a guest theologian. The Universists on the chat room were ecstatic about how I came off on the radio and responded to the theologian. I think it's been recorded and maybe I can eventually get it as a download for you.

It was recently pointed out to me that according to the transcript of United Universists' live chat with science journalist John Horgan, I'm the one who gave him the word "Horganism" to use in his New York Times Op-Ed article about us. It was read by millions. The novel The Religion War, by Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, which I journaled about recently, involved someone called the Prime Influencer. This character unknowingly tips world opinion by giving a catchy phrase to a few influential friends. It seems slightly more plausible now... ;)

It's heartening to encounter a kindred spirit. If I collected my essays and published them as a book, it would take the same essential positions as this bestselling book that Sam Harris has now published, titled The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. You need to read this interview. I'm far from the only person who has come to these realizations, and it's clearly spreading. Click this link to join us tonight at 8pm Eastern for a live chat interview with Sam Harris of which I will be one of the moderators.

In my wanderings around the web I've noticed that certain kinds of conflict happen to very certain kinds of projects. ( Read more... )And yet all these are the very same people who have the greatest need to band together to succeed, because they serve a niche within a niche. ( Read more... )

In this online excerpt from Rational Mysticism, Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality, journalist John Horgan interviews the authors of The Guru Papers about the dangers of cults, gurus, and spiritual authority. "In 1999, just after I started researching a book on mysticism, I asked for advice from J.P., a man who works for a holistic-learning institute in New York City. J.P. cautiously recommended a book that critiqued the enlightenment industry and had caused a stir after its publication in 1993. Although the book makes valid points about the dangers of mystical traditions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, J.P. warned me, it "throws out the baby with the bathwater." That's how Mr. Horgan's article begins. The approach of weeding out careful, gradual amounts of spiritual bathwater is an excellent one. Keep doing that and one will eventually scrape the bottom of the bathtub and discover there is no baby. I was trying to explain this to Friar Jerry from Africa who randomly Instant Messaged me this weekend in order to evangelize me. He wanted to know "what happened" to make me non-theistic. There was no crisis point for me at which I suddenly ceased to be a dogmatic fundamentalist Christian and became a committed secularist. The breaking down of emotional barriers were many and varied, and so were the educational experiences such as reading Talkorigins.net. It was a process of gradual growth.

Now, whether or not the kid in The Matrix was correct that "there is no spoon," yeah, there probably is a spoon. The score so far: Spoon 1, Baby 0. :D Anyway, United Universists will present a live online chat with Mr. Horgan this Wednesday, September 15 at 8:00 p.m.

There's a verse in the bible that says "be ye not drunk with wine, but be drunk with the spirit." If religions were beverages and faith were alcohol, Universism would be O'Douls. For those of us who used to be raging irresponsible abusive drunks when we got high on god, this is welcome news.

For those who drink faith in moderation, like Unitarian Universalists, I suppose the equivalent of O'Douls is not necessary. But teetotalism is the right choice for those of us who find the analogy of driving and boating under the influence a tragically appropriate metaphor for our own experiences. Sometimes we were the pedestrian victim, other times we were passengers, some times we were the drivers. Other people can handle it... you're welcome to it. Don't worry, I believe in freedom of religion, so I'm not going to advocate restricting religious education until you're twenty-one years of age with valid ID.( Read more... )