The Unitarian Universalists, are, as I understand it, pretty close to a "religionless church". There's a general sense of "search for the truth", but there's no specific confessed creed.

I've been attending a local UU Church for the last few months (raised no religion, this is my first spiritual community). While there's mention of the spiritual life I think about half the congregation would identify as atheists. There's no creed or mention of 'religion' and the individual search for meaning is repeatedly stressed. It's been a good addition to my life and very nurturing for the soul.

I am a Unitarian Universalist and an athiest, married to a seminarian in the religion. Happy to answer questions about UU and what it's like. It has definitely made me far less lonely to belong to the UU community, and I don't feel pressured to "believe" anything I don't want to.

What is it like? How did you become involved? What kind of events do they organize? How do they practice their religion? What are your biggest criticisms or complaints? What do you like most about it?

The Wikipedia article [0] managed to intrigued me. I lean agnostic, but I always try to keep an open mind in my pursuit for truth. Do you have any suggestions for someone that might be interested in checking em out? I'm located in the bay area.

My views on organized religion aren't generally great. Throughout history, religion has played a large role but it wasn't always very positive, see: crusades. The coverup of pedophiles by the Christian church is also absolutely sickening. It sounds like UU's are more loosely organized, which I'd expect would help prevent them from becoming too abusive or corrupt.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

> The coverup of pedophiles by the Christian church is also absolutely sickening.

I think you mean the Catholic church? There is no single Christian church. Not to say that didn't/doesn't happen in other denominations, but it seems to mostly be a Catholic problem. I've heard about it happening with the Mormons too, now that I think about it.

You're correct, I meant the Catholic church. Thank you for pointing it out; I agree that it's an important distinction worth noting.

Hi! Lots of quesitons here, some of them I answered in my other [0] post.

Sorry for the small novel :) I haven't really written about this stuff at length on the internet before so it's all just kinda coming out.

> What is it like

The services (sunday morning, an hour long) which are generally made up of a sermon, some singing, and some community meeting. These range from academic to somewhat spiritual (with no expectations) and usually have a theme or lesson.

The community functions much like you would think a religious community would: they support each other, they volunteer for events, they show up at potlucks and other social events. I've enjoyed getting to know people outside of my age range (from young kids to very old folks), which just doesn't happen at my tech job.

> How did you become involved

My partner started attending and dragged me kicking and screaming to the first few services :) Not really, but I definitely was looking for reasons to not go. But it turns out they were really friendly and (as I mentioned) there was no pressure to have any specific spiritual belief. Once I realized that it was a great group to explore my own thoughts on religion and a group of people to belong to who would care for me if I was in trouble (because I would do the same for them), I started enjoying going.

> What kind of events do they organize

Beyond Sunday services, the congregations I've been a part of have had young adult (18-35) groups that meet regularly, groups for young families, groups for seniors, etc. At a previous congregation I took a fascinating class led by the minister that focused on being able to better define my own belief system about the world.

> How do they practice their religion

Generally the "religion" is the idea that all humans and the earth are worthy of our love and attention. So we do things like organize activism, take care of each other, clean up our environment, etc. And also recognize that all of us are growing and learning in our own ways, so some of the practice is also discovering our own beliefs.

UU is covenantal. That means that we have an agreement with the other members of our congregation to treat each other well, and people who break that covenant are held accountable by the other members of the community. Here's an example from the Berkeley church[1] (which I have not attended, but I like it).

UU is not creedal. The ministers don't tell you what to believe. They are there to help you on your way to finding your own creedo - your own system of belief about the world.

> What are your biggest criticisms or complaints

Some congregations can be very "hippy", which I don't mind but I know it's a turn-off for some people. Fortunately they're generally super respectful of other belief systems.

One thing that I liked at the beginning was the fact that UU isn't evangelical. People are supposed to find UU on their own and join if it's something that interests them. But now I think this makes UUs timid to bring it up, and I really do think that it would be great to tell more people about it. There's a big difference between being pushy and just talking religion - and I think we need more of the latter.

Also the credentialing process for ministers is very long and we have a lot of student loans now (but most people won't have that problem!)

> It sounds like UU's are more loosely organized

UU churches are democratic, and every church sends delegates to a big gathering once a year to vote on things. This means that there's no top-down hierarchy, no pope to tell everyone how to run things. It's also slower and not perfect, but generally I think people like it. There's a president of the religion, but they're mostly just to organize and run things, not set beliefs.

Every organization of a certain size has its bad actors, and UU is no exception. But the few cases I've heard about have been handled well and the public informed.

Certainly if the crusades started up again, I'd be on the streets protesting against them with my UU friends!

Hopefully that helps. I've been meaning to write a blog post or something about this in a better form than an HN comment, maybe this is a good starting point for that.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19977295 [1] https://uucb.org/covenant-of-right-relations/

Did you guys meet at church or did you join the church because of them, and which was the main cause of you feeling less lonely?

We met before starting to attend UU services, and initially I was very anti-church and refused to go. But finally I was convinced to attend a few services and found them very in line with what I wanted, so I started going more often. Eventually I even volunteered with the youth and helped run events and A/V for the services. I would say I am less lonely because my partner and I made a lot of friends there, of all ages.

Very interesting. I'm somewhat tempted to go to a service just to see what it would be like.

Unitarian services are interesting. I have only gone a couple times with the atheist lesbian neighbors who invited us, and the sermons focused on some utilitarian concepts, power in community, and the goodness in helping others. I did not feel pandered to or prostylytized. Pretty sure if you're looking for a church that is accomodating to atheists, focused on community and good-will over dogma, then you'll find Unitarian services amenable.

Revolutionary France tried creating one not once, but twice: see the "Cult of Reason" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_Reason) and Robespierre's "Cult of the Supreme Being" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_of_the_Supreme_Being).

And of course the cults of personality that sprang up around Stalin in the Soviet Union (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin%27s_cult_of_personality), around Mao in Communist China, and in various Communist client states around their own local tinpot Stalin would probably qualify as well.

This is the problem with killing God: it's really hard to find a healthy candidate to replace him with.

I'm an atheist and I didn't replace god with anything or anyone after I lost my faith. My thinking developed more orthogonally to the old religious hierarchy. The idea that you need to replace god with someone is locked into a mode of thinking that is entirely unnecessary and unneeded.

Maybe something like budism or Tolle (https://youtu.be/j42cTkiGdXY)

Yours is the same argument for countries keeping their paternalistic dictators: "Whatever will we do without so and so?" It's childish and insulting, and the way out is to wean off. Every independence and turn toward truth has to start somewhere.

That’s not entirely fair, as the comment simply points out that there seems to be a historical trend of a reflex to reinvent religious structures after abolishing traditional religion. Even in the modern day you can take a look at various rationalist/atheist/anti-theist communities which get dominated by larger-than-life personalities from Dawkins to P.Z. Myers, all the way to LessWrong’s singularitarians reinventing eternal damnation via Roko’s Basilisk. Pointing out that it’s very easy to fall into dictatorship isn’t necessarily an endorsement of one, it just should serve as a caution and as a lesson in humility.

There are Humanist Churches in some areas.