Friday, September 15, 2006

Humanist Vs. Theist redux

Well, the old battle between the UU Humanists and UU Theists hasn’t ended yet. Thanks to The Wild Hunt and WitchVox for pointing out these articles about an event at a UU church in Rhode Island. Pagan Pride Day event and Unitarians spark controversy with Pagan Pride Day .

In this case, it isn’t the Pagans stirring up the controversy as much as the UU’s; it seems that this congregation hosts a CUUPS chapter who has organized a “Pagan Pride” day, and the Humanists aren’t happy about it. They quote a letter being circulated, but any UU Theist already knows what it says without having to read it; we’ve heard it so very many times before- “superstition”, “flakey spirituality”, “occult practices”, “the God myth”... the only one they missed is “psychotic break”. And actually, even that may be in there; they didn’t print the full text. It’s good that UU is such a welcoming religion.

I’ll tell you old-school UU Humanists out there something: you should thank Bertrand Russell that you don’t always get what you wish for... if all the UU Christians and UU Pagans left, the average age of the average congregation would approach triple digits, and the membership list would drop down to double digits- and half of them would be Buddhist. We irrational, superstitious psychotics are keeping your doors open; the least you can do is sneer at us behind our backs instead of right in our faces.

3 comments:

Robin Edgar said...

Well, as you may already know Joel, the self-professed "Cosmic Humanist" Rev. Ray Drennan, now the former minister of the Unitarian Church of Montreal, contemptuously dismissed my own profound revelatory religious experience by sneeringly saying, "you mean your psychotic experience. . ." As if this weren't bad enough he went on to label Creation Day, an inter-religious celebration of Creation that included participation by the Montreal pagan community, as "your cult". The current outbreak of intolerance and bigotry in Providence, Rhode Island is quite providential for me because it indicates that my decade long battle against anti-religious intolerance and bigotry within the U*U religious community is fully justified.

Quite frankly I would much prefer to have U*U "Humanists" intolerantly and abusively sneering in right in my face, as Rev. Ray Drennan, Frank Greene, John Inder and other bigotted "Humanist" U*Us have done, than doing it behind my back where I can't defend myself against it. . .

Anonymous said...

The Emerson Avenger AKA Robin Edgar has harangued the UCM and its members for years now, so I am posting this information so people have both sides. Please feel free to copy and paste this information as you see fit.

The withdrawal of Mr. Edgar’s membership from the Unitarian Church of Montreal was not motivated by his religious beliefs, but by his disruptive and aggressive behaviour towards the members of this congregation. His inappropriate behaviour has continued for more than ten years. Seven years ago he was brought before a Disruptive Behaviour Committee on several occasions, where over the next three years attempts were made to have him moderate his unacceptable behaviours. He would agree to proposed solutions and then go on as before. He was repeatedly warned that failure to comply with what he had agreed to do would result in serious consequences. Over this period, he was suspended from participation in Church life for six months. Unfortunately, upon his return his behaviour worsene , and he was suspended for an additional year. Again when he returned, his inappropriate behaviour continued. Finally in November 1999, at a meeting of the full congregation, during which he spoke on his own behalf, a congregational vote was taken and his membership was revoked. This decade long process, during which sincere attempts were made by the congregation to negotiate a solution, ended when it became clear that he had no intention of ceasing his disruptive and aggressive behaviours. It should be noted that Reverend Ray Drennan did apologise, in person, on more than one occasion. However, this did not meet with Mr Edgar’s satisfaction. Mr. Edgar has redressed his grievances to whomever he has saw fit, be it the UUA, CUC, etc., and his complaint to the Quebec Human Rights Commission in 2002 was summarily dismissed as being without merit. Mr Edgar continues to picket the church in the futile belief that the Church will act. Reverend Drennan is no longer the minister as he left at the end of August 2005, to follow his own life’s journey; and the church has simply moved on.

Robin Edgar said...

I see that Anonymous U*U has seen fit to post his/her U*U BS here inspite of the fact that he/she knows that I thoroughly rebutted it months ago. . .