Tim, I present to you what I believe to be the antithesis of The Beast and our competitors: Unitarian Universialsim. I just encountered it, and I'm a bit suprised.
See, at work they daily have literature tables right across from me, and
often it is some religious or political activist group sitting there. All
last week I was intrigued by a banner on one of them that said "Unitarian
Universalism: A Liberal Campus Ministry". This may be old hat to the rest
of you, but it was an unfamilar term to me, and I considered approaching
them. One day, an irate British man was standing there shouting at a man
and a young woman with sea-green hair behind the table, and I assumed that
he was an aggressive atheist. After talking to the woman the next day, it
turns out that they are not even a Christian group, and that man was a
"Fundie" berating them for being unconventional.
I ended up being impressed with what the woman had to tell me, and this is
the first time I've ever actually *agreed* with the philosophy of a
"western" religion and supported their cause. Kind of a big step, because
I'm usually very cautious and skeptical when talking to any "ministers"
about their religion.
So anyway, I was wondering if anyone else would agree that if a person believes in God, this small group would be an ideal and nearly perfect choice? They seemed to be just the opposite of the kind of hardcore relgious zealots that I've encountered before.
One note before I type out a bit of the literature they had to offer explaining themselves: The woman made a comment saying that if she chose the name, they would be called the "Patchwork-ists", because their form of theology blends together many different relgious and spiritual texts, including feminist and Eastern (buddism, taoism), into something unique.
"What do Unitarian Universalists believe?"