Sooooooo...

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

I joined a church? It's weird. The local UUs are, strange as this may sound, very nearly our kind of people. Like, the chair of the worship committee described it as "the church for people who burst into flames walking into other churches." Nobody talks about an afterlife. At. All. Nobody asks God to cure anybody of anything, nobody advocates being nice and letting sky pixies sort it out. The weekly prayer always includes something to the effect of "give us the balls to go fix this shit." The collection plate gets shared with lawyers who advocate for victims of sexual assault and charities serving Puerto Rico, the meeting hall gets used for meet the candidate events, and there are rainbow flags at the door and next to the altar. They hold discussions about systemic racism and white supremacy, they hold vigils on trans remembrance day, there are pagan-y services and the name tags include pronouns. The minister is a petite trans dude and the first time I saw him was at the pop-up "oh shit Nazis" in our town, and the first time I went in for a service was after those nazi fucks showed up in Boston and I cried like a bitch.
They really, genuinely, care about The Work, and they want to support the people doing it, and they want to do more of it themselves while keeping themselves sane. And yeah, they're not perfect, but they're queer and they're nice and they give a fuck and they fall down and get back up.

It's still super weird, you guys.

[Cramulus]

That's cool though! One of the drawbacks of our weird lunatic path is that we don't have a clergy as support network, we have internet trolls and other types of harpies. I've been considering checking out a local UU, I hear they're pretty easy going.

I kind of get the sense that UU is like the diet coke of religion though - they're so general and inclusive that they don't really have any specifics? Maybe good for us dogma-free wanderers.


I totally feel you about the weirdness of going to church. I've been thinking about JAYSUS a lot recently and it's super disorienting. Somebody pointed out a way to read jesus that makes him extremely relevant to my life, and so I'm riding it out until it gets uncomfortable. Thinking new thoughts, some of which are corrosive to older selves I've got archived. But if I start talking about Jesus randomly, my friends are going to think I've completely lost my shit so I try to keep my mouth shut, it's too alien.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

The biggest thing with UUs is that every parish is different. Some of them are barely disguised Catholics or Baptists, some of them are basically a social club for old people. And it's not even necessarily the same year to year. I actually made an attempt a few years back to join this church and noped the fuck out. In that time they took stock of who they were and what they wanted to do, and took a HUGE step over towards getting things done as opposed to navel gazing. Maybe 2016 shook them up, too, the way it shook up a lot of folks. Whatever happened, there's like, this whole community of people who are close to where I am in my head, and want to find and support people like me in the shit we're already doing. And holy shit do I need that, you don't even know.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

According to the internet I am a 93% match for UU-ism. Maybe I'll check it out. It's probably the closest thing I've seen to the "atheist church" I keep hoping will spring into existence. The real obstacle is that with everything tilted toward "moral support", what are the chances there's any high-protein-content spiritual guidance going on? I'm not really looking for religious authority, but it would be cool if there was a place that could teach me how to astral-project myself into the white house and force-choke someone.

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

According to the internet I am a 93% match for UU-ism. Maybe I'll check it out. It's probably the closest thing I've seen to the "atheist church" I keep hoping will spring into existence. The real obstacle is that with everything tilted toward "moral support", what are the chances there's any high-protein-content spiritual guidance going on? I'm not really looking for religious authority, but it would be cool if there was a place that could teach me how to astral-project myself into the white house and force-choke someone.

It's entirely dependent on your local people. Force choking is probably not very likely, the few unifying things the UUs have are pretty clear on the non-violent stuff. The Satanic Temple (the folks with the headquarters in Salem MA, not one of the other groups) may be closer to your interests? I mean, they're still super atheists and unlikely to dick around with astral projection, but they're gonna be more supportive of the whole idea.

[LMNO]

If I recall, a while back someone here gave a sermon at a UU about Discordia.  Details hazy, but well-received.

[Cain]

I totally feel you about the weirdness of going to church. I've been thinking about JAYSUS a lot recently and it's super disorienting. Somebody pointed out a way to read jesus that makes him extremely relevant to my life, and so I'm riding it out until it gets uncomfortable. Thinking new thoughts, some of which are corrosive to older selves I've got archived. But if I start talking about Jesus randomly, my friends are going to think I've completely lost my shit so I try to keep my mouth shut, it's too alien.

By and large, Jesus had a pretty good message.  It's trite I know, but the problem really is the fan-club (and especially certain very vocal segments of it).  The moral bankruptcy of, for example, the evangelical movement is plain for everyone to see, even well known evangelicals are struggling with what is going on there at the moment

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Jesus had some pretty explicit anti-divorce shit I am not here for.

[Cain]

Sure, I didn't say he was perfect.

[Doktor Howl]

That's cool though! One of the drawbacks of our weird lunatic path is that we don't have a clergy as support network,

I'M STANDING RIGHT HERE, YANNO.

[THE QLIPHITISER]

I joined a church? It's weird. The local UUs are, strange as this may sound, very nearly our kind of people. Like, the chair of the worship committee described it as "the church for people who burst into flames walking into other churches." Nobody talks about an afterlife. At. All. Nobody asks God to cure anybody of anything, nobody advocates being nice and letting sky pixies sort it out. The weekly prayer always includes something to the effect of "give us the balls to go fix this shit." The collection plate gets shared with lawyers who advocate for victims of sexual assault and charities serving Puerto Rico, the meeting hall gets used for meet the candidate events, and there are rainbow flags at the door and next to the altar. They hold discussions about systemic racism and white supremacy, they hold vigils on trans remembrance day, there are pagan-y services and the name tags include pronouns. The minister is a petite trans dude and the first time I saw him was at the pop-up "oh shit Nazis" in our town, and the first time I went in for a service was after those nazi fucks showed up in Boston and I cried like a bitch.
They really, genuinely, care about The Work, and they want to support the people doing it, and they want to do more of it themselves while keeping themselves sane. And yeah, they're not perfect, but they're queer and they're nice and they give a fuck and they fall down and get back up.

It's still super weird, you guys.

Unitarian Universalists? yep, they're cool 

[THE QLIPHITISER]

According to the internet I am a 93% match for UU-ism. Maybe I'll check it out. It's probably the closest thing I've seen to the "atheist church" I keep hoping will spring into existence. The real obstacle is that with everything tilted toward "moral support", what are the chances there's any high-protein-content spiritual guidance going on? I'm not really looking for religious authority, but it would be cool if there was a place that could teach me how to astral-project myself into the white house and force-choke someone.

What online test is that?

I've been trying a few and none come up with my actual practices 

I got Seventh day Adventist in one and Buddhist in the other  (Buddhist is way closer but still not close enough)

[P3nT4gR4m]

I totally feel you about the weirdness of going to church. I've been thinking about JAYSUS a lot recently and it's super disorienting. Somebody pointed out a way to read jesus that makes him extremely relevant to my life, and so I'm riding it out until it gets uncomfortable. Thinking new thoughts, some of which are corrosive to older selves I've got archived. But if I start talking about Jesus randomly, my friends are going to think I've completely lost my shit so I try to keep my mouth shut, it's too alien.

By and large, Jesus had a pretty good message.  It's trite I know, but the problem really is the fan-club (and especially certain very vocal segments of it).

I always read the crucifixion as a meatphor for that. Like, you take all the cool shit the dude said and you nail it to a plank of wood and watch it rot 

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Jesus had some pretty explicit anti-divorce shit I am not here for.

If memory serves (and I could well be wrong), the rationale behind the anti-divorce stuff is because of the societal realities of that time, place, and culture, where by and large men would initiate divorce and the divorced women would end up destitute and homeless. It seems fucked up from our perspective but put in context, it was more a way to prevent women from getting fucked over by dudes who wanted to trade in for something newer.

[LuciferX]

Plus, figuratively, one's union (with/of/to) the One can't really be undone.