So my non-believer friends, would you go to a Unitarian church service?

[ccgr]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/25/opini ... .html?_r=0

[Bruce_Campbell]

Eh, I wouldn't, but I know people who have tried them and liked them. I wouldn't mind trying one of those atheist "churches", but I don't see myself going regularly.

Honestly, the only thing I miss from church nowadays is the community, and I've got a circle of friends that meets that need now. We get together a few times a year and basically party for two or three days. We also support each other when one of us is going through hard times, whether that means helping someone pay their rent when they've lost a job or just giving someone a shoulder to cry on. A lot of nonbelievers form groups on social media sites to build similar communities.

Some people who have left Christianity miss going to a formal service every week, so going to a Unitarian service (or something similar) helps them cope with the loss of their faith (which, as I've said more than a few times, can be a pretty difficult experience). Personally, I was never crazy about getting up early Sunday to go to a service outside of the social aspect, so I probably wouldn't bother going to a Unitarian service. But if it makes people happy, more power to 'em.

[ArchAngel]

Absolutely not.

I'm more than happy to have some correct me on my stance on the Unitarians, but strikes me as a group of people who really don't give a **** about what they believe, just some wishy-washy, as-long-as-it-feels-good sort of church.

I don't have time for that.

[Sstavix]

I'm more than happy to have some correct me on my stance on the Unitarians, but strikes me as a group of people who really don't give a **** about what they believe, just some wishy-washy, as-long-as-it-feels-good sort of church.

Probably not too far off the mark there. From what I've seen, their stance is that all religions are correct. Even those that contradict the others.

If I wanted that kind of chaos, I'd go for the Discordians. Because why not?

[ArchAngel]

At least the Discordians have the courtesy of being interesting!
I'll choose a fundamentalist Christian over a Unitarian, 10 out of 10 times, all other things considered.
We, at least, can agree on two things: That truth is important, and that the other person is wrong.

[Truthseeker]

I attended unitarian church two or three times when I was a teenager. It was not for me. One of the youth services focused on the Force. Yes, I mean that Force. But I don't know if I agree with Arch that Fundamentalism deserves more sympathy just because they are wrong WITH CONVICTION. Both ideologies are intellectually faulty answers to an important question. The question is how we deal with the fact that human beings universally have subjective experiences they interpret as divine revelation, yet different people's experiences of this kind contradict each other. The fundamentalist's answer is that only his subjective experiences are true and everyone else is either misinterpreting something or being actively deceived. How does the fundamentalist know that he is one of the lucky ones getting the right messages? He just KNOWS. The Unitarian deals with this by saying that everyone is equally correct, somehow. Both of these answers are transparently flawed to anyone who cares to look at them honestly. The better answer is to view all these contradictory subjective experiences as equally suspect, and try to get at the truth through systems designed to eliminate individual subjectivety. Yes, the reality these methods tend to reveal is very, very sad.