NEW
ANSWERS FOR OLD QUESTIONS
The First Unitarian Universalist Church of the
Internet
might become a introduction to people who have never heard of UUism
before.
Most of the 2,000,000,000 people on Facebook
have had no previous exposure to Unitarian Universalism.
Some of these are in other countries, where there is no local UU
presence.
But some of these explorers will be Americans
who have perhaps heard about UUism
but who have not taken any opportunities to attend a UU gathering of
any sort.
Such possible visitors will not feel as reluctant to
explore FUUCI
to see what this movement might be about.
In fact, we might decide to have a section of cyber-sermons
explicitly designed to address the old religious questions in new ways.
Religious questions would include such concerns as:
Where did we come from?
Where are we going?
What is the meaning of life?
Should we hope for anything after death?
How do we differ from the other animals?
How do we become more deeply persons of spirit?
Are there any supernatural beings or forces?
A preliminary step toward answering the old questions
is to help clarify just what the traditional religious questions mean.
After that, we can invite different UU thinkers to offer their new
answers.
Because UUism has no settled body of belief,
no single answer can claim to be THE UU answer.
But all of us can attempt to answer the ultimate questions in our own
ways.
And our openness to new possibilities will make our answers
interesting to people who are emerging from traditional religions.
If the old questions are really deeply rooted in
being human,
then everyone who opens this part of our website
will already be familiar with the questions in some form.
And if these questions are alive in their minds already,
they might be open to new answers to their old questions.
In fact, they might be looking
for new answers
because they have found the answers
provided by their childhood religions unsatisfactory.
Persons in spiritual quest might reject all of new
answers
provided by means of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of the
Internet,
but even such rejections can be stepping-stones
across the river that might ultimately lead to better answers.
The fact that we disagree among ourselves about the
new answers
can be a refreshing discovery for visitors to FUUCI.
They might be most familiar with religions that have ready-made answers,
which were established hundreds or even thousands of years ago,
which the believers are now required to believe
mainly because they have been affirmed for so long by that tradition.
For example, we Unitarian Universalists do not agree
about the meaning of life.
But we have explicitly made the quest for meaning in life
one of our purposes as a movement.
Created
August 14, 2009; Revised 5-1-2013; 5-5-2017;
If
we are ready to begin this process of devising new answers for old
questions,
here
is a cyber-sermon that begins to clarify the questions:
"Asking
Ultimate Questions":