\nthe Denton Unitarian Universalist Fellowship<\/a>
\nAugust 13, 2017<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
We all have assumptions in our lives \u2013 things we\u2019ve always been told are true that we don\u2019t question. Many times we don\u2019t recognize them as assumptions \u2013 they\u2019re just the way things are.<\/p>\n
In 2004, the Red River UU Church in Denison was founded, and like all churches, they filed papers with the Texas State Comptroller for tax exempt status. Their application was rejected. The Comptroller said they had no sacred text, no unifying belief, and no belief in a higher power \u2013 so obviously they weren\u2019t a real religion. She said \u201cwe have to have rules or anybody can claim tax exempt status.\u201d That may be true, but whose rules are we playing by?<\/p>\n
A couple of phone calls from the UUA headquarters cleared that up, but it showed some of the assumptions people make about religion in our wider society.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a proud Unitarian Universalist, and I\u2019m also a Pagan. A few years ago I was describing Paganism to someone who was completely unfamiliar with it. I talked about the Divine as both female and male, I talked about our ancient ancestors and their beliefs and practices, and I talked about forming a connection with the Earth and with her rhythms and cycles. When I was done, this person said \u201cwell, what I really want to know is, how does Paganism say you get to heaven?\u201d<\/p>\n My answer was \u201cthat\u2019s not a relevant question in Paganism.\u201d As a Pagan, my religion is about honoring the Gods and ancestors, living in harmony with the Earth and all her creatures, and living in such a way that when I leave this world and join the ancestors, I will be worthy of the honor of those who come after me. The afterlife will take care of itself.<\/p>\n This is another assumption \u2013 the assumption that any religion must be about what happens after you die, and making sure you end up in the good place and not the bad place. But perhaps there is no good place or bad place, just an Otherworld much like this one. Perhaps we\u2019ll be reincarnated back into this world. Perhaps there\u2019s only this one life. Or perhaps there\u2019s something else none of us have even thought of.<\/p>\n How many of you are familiar with Pascal\u2019s Wager? 17th<\/sup> century mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that a rational person should believe in God even if they aren\u2019t sure God exists. Believe in God and if there is a God, you go to heaven, and if there isn\u2019t you get nothing. But if you don\u2019t believe, you get nothing if you\u2019re right and you end up in hell if you\u2019re wrong. Clearly, the rational choice is to believe in God.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a cartoon I see on Facebook from time to time. A priest, a rabbi, and an imam are walking down the street debating religion and not paying attention to traffic. They wander into the street, get hit by a truck, and all three are killed. They begin to float upwards and one of them turns to the others and says \u201cat least now we\u2019ll finally find out who\u2019s right.\u201d They come not to pearly gates but to a great hall. And there they see an old man, wearing an eye patch, with two ravens sitting on his shoulder, and a sign that says \u201cOdin.\u201d<\/p>\n Pascal\u2019s wager makes a bad assumption \u2013 that there are only two options: either the Christian God exists, or there are no Gods at all. It also assumes that if the Christian God exists, He will send non-believers to hell, a belief our Christian Universalist heritage strongly rejects.<\/p>\n Not all the assumptions in our wider culture are Christian. There is the idea that religion is all about what you believe, another idea our UU heritage rejects. For most people in most of the world throughout most of history, religion was and is about what you do, who you are, and whose you are. UUs like to say \u201cdeeds not creeds\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s how week after week, this church is filled with Pagans and Christians, Buddhists and atheists, and a lot of people who are hard to classify and damn proud of it. We don\u2019t share common beliefs, we share common values, and we share a commitment to building a better world for all, right here right now.<\/p>\n This is the environment in which we work. Like fish who aren\u2019t aware of the water in which they swim, even the most mindful of us can\u2019t see all the Christian and materialistic concepts that influence our thinking and our lives. Many of us come to Unitarian Universalism or Paganism or both from other religions. If we simply start in isolation, our new religion and new spirituality will be built on the foundation of our mainstream society. And that\u2019s a recipe for failure.<\/p>\n Most people never examine their unstated and in some cases, unconscious assumptions. They retain the foundational assumptions, the philosophy, and the religious methods of the religion of their childhood, or the religion of the mainstream society.<\/p>\n I was thrilled to become a Pagan at age 31, but my practice floundered for eight years, because I wasn\u2019t dealing with the foundational assumptions of my fundamentalist Christian upbringing and of the mainstream culture. It was only when I committed to examine these assumptions and to build a new foundation was I able to become the kind of Pagan and Unitarian Universalist I wanted to be.<\/p>\n There is something else, something better, something that works \u2013 we just have to do the work to adopt it.<\/p>\n This morning, I want to offer four alternative foundational assumptions. They work for me \u2013 they may work for you. Even if they don\u2019t, exploring them can help you identify the assumptions in your own life so you can begin to deal with them in a conscious and deliberate manner.<\/p>\n Rather than beginning with assumptions about God or Gods, I prefer to begin with persons<\/em> \u2013 some of whom are human and some of whom are not. Animism is the intuitive observation that whatever it is that animates you and me also animates animates cats and dogs and birds and squirrels. From there it isn\u2019t hard to see that it also animate the wind and rain, the trees and even the rocks. Everything has a spirit, or perhaps, everything is a spirit. Most importantly, everything is not a thing but a person, and therefore has inherent dignity and worth that does not depend on their usefulness to humans. Everyone and everything has the right to rule their own lives, and the responsibility to rule them rightly.<\/p>\n How many of you talk to your dogs and cats? How many of them talk back? They talk back \u2013 not in English or even in human concepts, but they communicate. More importantly, we have relationships with them. Anyone who says \u201cit\u2019s just a cat\u201d is assuming these beautiful beings are things and not persons. Non-human or other-than-human persons are persons too.<\/p>\n Though animism is a foundation of my religion and spirituality, it requires no theistic or supernatural beliefs. Animism is grounded in the agency of persons \u2013 in the ability of a bird to fly where birds want to fly; in the ability of a tree to grow in the way an oak or a pine or a birch wants to grow. And animism is grounded in our choice to relate to birds and trees respectfully, as persons and not as things. Whether your dog has a soul or not doesn\u2019t affect how you relate to your dog.<\/p>\n Animism has a complication in practice. We start thinking of other beings as persons, and then we come face to face with the reality that we have to eat \u2013 life feeds on life. Every animal on this planet survives by eating other living things \u2013 other persons. Some eat plant persons, some eat animal persons, and some eat both. While plants feed on sunlight, they also require nutrients in the soil \u2013 nutrients that come from the decayed bodies of other plants and animals. Life feeds on life.<\/p>\n How do we eat \u2013 how do we live \u2013 without being consumed by guilt for killing other persons? Some religions say humans alone are made in the image of God \u2013 other living things aren\u2019t really persons, so we don\u2019t have to feel bad about eating them. That concept hasn\u2019t worked so well \u2013 it\u2019s led to environmental desecration and species loss. People who don\u2019t treat non-human persons well tend to not treat other humans well either.<\/p>\n But either we eat other persons, or we die.<\/p>\n Can we treat the persons we eat \u2013 animals or plants or both \u2013 as a sacrifice, as something sacred? Can we insure the persons we eat live a decent life and not in some torturous factory farm? Individuals will die, but can we make sure their species survive, and that we don\u2019t drive them into extinction with overfishing or habitat destruction? Can we give thanks, not just to Nature for her bounty, but to the persons who die so that we can live?<\/p>\n In our eating and in our other interactions, let us be mindful and respectful of other persons.<\/p>\n None of us got here by ourselves \u2013 the second alternative foundation is ancestors.<\/p>\n As with animism, the impulse to honor our ancestors is intuitive. Nobody has to tell us to do it \u2013 it just feels right. Even our fundamentalist neighbors have pictures of their grandfathers on the wall. We use our mothers\u2019 recipes not just because they taste good, but because they\u2019re a tangible connection to someone we knew and loved, and still love despite the fact they\u2019re no longer in this world.<\/p>\n There are five types of ancestors: those we knew in this life, those we know by names and stories, and those whose names are lost to us forever. There are ancestors of spirit \u2013 those who influenced our lives even though we\u2019re only tangentially related to them by blood. And there are ancestors most ancient, the early human and pre-human species who lived lives unrecognizable to us, but without whom we would not be. They are all worthy of our honor.<\/p>\n Death changes relationships, but it does not end them. We maintain our relationships with our ancestors when they are dead as well as when they are living. They are not physically with us, but we still experience them in memories, in dreams, and in visions.<\/p>\n Our ancestors live on in us, whether we carry their genes or their ideas. Some day we will live on in our descendants. May we live so as to be worthy of their honor.<\/p>\n And that leads us to our third foundational assumption \u2013 relationships. There is a time and place for rugged individualism, but it only goes so far. Humans are social animals, and our communities are built on interactions, cooperation, and interdependence.<\/p>\n We have relationships with many persons: with humans, both living and dead; with Gods and spirits; and with other species and ecosystems.<\/p>\n Will our relationships with them be respectful and for our mutual benefit, or will they be exploitative? Good relationships are based on hospitality and the interaction between hosts and guests. And they\u2019re based on reciprocity: I give, so that you may give, so that I may give again.<\/p>\n Let us honor and strengthen our relationships.<\/p>\n The fourth foundational assumption is the primacy of religious experience. Every sacred text you read is the result of someone else\u2019s religious experience: Mohammed was visited by an angel, the Buddha sat under the Bodhi tree. There is much we can learn from other people\u2019s religious experiences. But there is also much we can learn from our own.<\/p>\n Religious experiences happen all the time. Most are small and so we don\u2019t notice them. We experience wonder and awe at the immensities of Nature: a sunset, a mountain, the ocean, a storm. There\u2019s the miracle of birth and the transition of death.<\/p>\n![\"flower](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/08\/flower-after-rain-04.10.17.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThe environment in which we work<\/h2>\n
![\"like](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/08\/New-Orleans-Aquarium-2010-782x411.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnimism<\/h2>\n
![\"rabbit](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/08\/rabbit-04.07.16.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAncestors<\/h2>\n
Relationships<\/h2>\n
Religious experience<\/h2>\n
![\"03](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/08\/03-051-Carrick-a-Rede.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"08](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2017\/08\/08-083-Skara-Brae.jpg\")
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