Universism

[Kaervek]

Is anybody familiar with Universism (http://www.universism.org)? It's a philosophy, and some would say a religion, comprised of various types of beliefs including atheists, pantheists, deists, and agnostics.

Universism is described as "a progressive, naturalistic worldview in which all meaning and purpose is understood through personal reason and experience. This allows for belief in a supernatural first cause, as in Deism, or a conception of the universe as explaining itself, as in Atheism. Universism truly embraces the individual Search - this could not occur if answers were preset. Universism reflects the reality of metaphysical questions, which is uncertainty. Universists do not always agree on details of our understandings, but we share solidarity in valuing the questions, we value reason and experience paramount, and we agree that no one knows for certain. Universists respect each person's efforts at perceiving reality as best they can, without reliance on any faith, holy book or teacher. The Universist (pronounced "universe-ist") worldview can be shared by all freethinkers, whether they have used the term Atheist, Agnostic, Deist, Pantheist, Transcendentalist or others to describe their beliefs in the past."

It's really quite interesting, and I've found myself exploring it in greater detail over the past couple of months. They've actually been featured on two national radio shows this week: The Alan Colmes show on Monday (download and listen (http://www.subliminallusion.com/blah/Universism_AlanColmes_96k.mp3)), and the Lars Larson show just last night (recording coming soon). This past week, what with the national radio show exposure, has been very exciting for United Universists, and it's helping to bolster morale in their ranks. Things are really starting to happen, and Universism is being taken seriously.

Lars was so impressed by the turnout of callers and attention received from the Universist movement's appearance, that they gave the Interviewee, John Armstrong, a direct line to the producer's desk. This is pretty exciting, to say the least.

I even had the pleasure of calling in and getting on-air to present my thoughts on Universism. It was fun.

Anyway, I think alot of you would find it interesting, and you can find information on Universism at the following sites:

Universism.org (http://www.universism.org)
Faithless.org (http://www.faithless.org)


Check it out, you might like it :)

[waxwing]

Reminds me of solipsism. I don't know much about universism, but the idea of an individual search falls right in line with solipsism (something like "a person can only exist to know himself"). David Hume, I believe. And empiricism....

Correct me if I'm off-base. I'm just shooting from the hip here. Perhaps solipcism falls under universism? Sounds interesting though. I should read more about it. I'm downloading the radio show now. Thank ya.

[Sackanaka]

Interesting, although I find it regrettable that they chose Universism as their official name. Maybe I'm just jealous that it was already made :/

[Miss Anthropic]

Why do people need to label their spirituality? Isn't it good enough to develop your own beliefs and just believe them? Should we feel obligated to join up with somepne who believes like we do?

[Sackanaka]

Nah we shouldn't have to label it but..
why did I join this forum again?

[Arioch]

It's amazing how many "universal" religions there are out there.

[Jacque]

Why do people need to label their spirituality? Isn't it good enough to develop your own beliefs and just believe them? Should we feel obligated to join up with somepne who believes like we do?

Convenience. Your spirituality would not be easily shared if I did not have words to describe it or at least a term to reference it. Un-named, ambiguous and esoteric die lonely. Or ironically, by giving it a name they intended that it may be misunderstood. When it is a simple word, it can be handle or mishandled easily and modifications can be made with little notice. By giving it a name you set it loose on the world, watch it grow, earn reputations, make friends and enemies, marry other ideas, sprout branches, take on hyphenations, and then finally wither and die...and perhaps later on to be resurrected. In the end, it may be hideously deformed from years of abuse and mental torment, but it is still yours...if only in name. And what is spirituality, but also a name.

Jacque

[mindbender]

I'm consider myself a Universist.

[Blue]

Overall the message is more appealing then most religions but I'd have the same objection as waxwing.


Universists respect each person's efforts at perceiving reality as best they can, without reliance on any faith, holy book or teacher.
From what I've seen of human behavior, I've learned never to underestimate the human power of self deception.
A lesson hard learned for me.

Your link is broken.
+Blue

[mindbender]

Overall the message is more appealing then most religions but I'd have the same objection as waxwing.
From what I've seen of human behavior, I've learned never to underestimate the human power of self deception.
A lesson hard learned for me.

Your link is broken.
+Blue

That's the main principle of Universism - uncertainty.

[meshou]

Reminds me of solipsism. I don't know much about universism, but the idea of an individual search falls right in line with solipsism (something like "a person can only exist to know himself"). David Hume, I believe. And empiricism....Not quite. Solipcisim denies the existance of a meaningful outside world. One can believe all meaning must be self determined, or even that perception skews reality so much it's fundamentally unknowable by humanity without being a solipcist.


Correct me if I'm off-base. I'm just shooting from the hip here. Perhaps solipcism falls under universism? Sounds interesting though. I should read more about it. I'm downloading the radio show now. Thank ya.It sounds more like Existentialisim with a new name.

[mgb]

I think spending a lot of time on these ideas is a waste of time. We aren't capable of knowing or understanding the answers to all of our questions.

[Geek Engineer]

Interesting..

I was looking into Universism a while ago when I took a test and it told me this was the religion that would be best for me. I looked into it but it mainly looked like a place for some of outcasts of other mainstream religions. If you are a person who need spirituality and an organized religion yet don't fit into the mainstream it looked like a good place for that. They also consider that anyone can be a profit as well which was a bit creepy to me. As for me I am not one who really needs an organized religion. I can easily ponder that out that on my own. However, I have thought off and on of just going there to see if I could maybe find more compatible women there to be honest. Trouble is half of them might be lesbians for all I know. :shock:

[Lilykins]

I belong to a Univeral Unitarian church of about 300 ppl, mostly athiest, agnostics, Wiccan and Buddhists.
It's not like a church, but more of a social group for misfits who don't fit into the mainstream.

[Ka.avik]

I think spending a lot of time on these ideas is a waste of time. We aren't capable of knowing or understanding the answers to all of our questions.
That in itself is an answer worth pursuing. Wait, are you saying it's like the matrix? ;)

//gotta go back to college. Didn't know solipsism was a valid philosophy

[Geek Engineer]

I belong to a Univeral Unitarian church of about 300 ppl, mostly athiest, agnostics, Wiccan and Buddhists.
It's not like a church, but more of a social group for misfits who don't fit into the mainstream.

Yea, I don't know I just remember looking at a video they had online and it seemed like they were showing off some religious ceremonies they were doing at the church close to me. So I was a bit turned off by all that, but maybe you don't have to get involved in that if you don't want to.

[meshou]

//gotta go back to college. Didn't know solipsism was a valid philosophyOh, it's not. It's coherent, and possibly true, but it's not.

Solipcisim, used as a philosophy in daily life, does not work. You can do whatever you like, because it's meaningless because it does not exist. But because you doing anything in the first place assumes an outside world, then one can conclude that, in any philosophy that wants to talk about the majority of human experience, since every person we interact with experiences an outside world in some fashion or other, it must assume that an outside world does exist in some way.

You can say it's an illusion, Matix style, but the Matrix was not an inconcequential illusion. You can say it is inherently meaningless, but something does not need meaning to exist. You can assume that it's an illusion, and that everyone is a projected aspect of yourself, but again, it's not inconcequential, and "self" is redefined to mean bits of you you still must interact with.

Therefore, Solipcisim is not considered a valid philosophy. Descartes, who first came up with it rejected it for the same reasons, and so have all his important progeny.

[Lilykins]

I've been to several different "UU" churches and they are all very different.
I went to one that was totally mainstream Christian, and another that was Buddhists. From my understanding it's all very democratic. For instance, in the church I attend, we took a vote to see if we wanted to have any type of ritualistic ceremonies. I voted a big "NO!" since I despise that stuff, but the majority was a "yes".
Then we voted on what type of ceremonies we would have. We now have a Spring ceremony where we all bring each other a living plant to exchange. And in Autumn we all bring some homemade bread to share. IMO it's all pretty lame, but I'm ok with it.
No one is expected to join in if they don't want to.

[jread]

I was a member of the deism forum before we were merged together with the Universists. I've been on there a few times since.

I am a deist/pantheist, so I definitely fall under the title of Universist. I like what they stand for and I'm glad they're gaining in popularity.