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Thursday, October 15, 2015

A Unitarian Is Someone Who Believes That, At Most, There Is One God

Alan: The first time I heard this definition of a Unitarian I cracked up.

In recent decades, I have reconsidered my laughter and now find that the underlying conditions of "Whitehead's" definition are useful - if not essential - to the development of healthy religiosity.

Given that absolutism -- and the frequent transformation of "perceived righteousness" into "the irrepressible arrogance of self-righteousness" -- compel many believers (whether sacred or secular) to blithely commit unimaginable atrocities, I have come to believe that it is best to harbor a core belief in "the ultimate unknowability of God" and, furthermore, that the only safe repository of religious conviction is for humans to consider their convictions a subset of the Magnum Mysterium. 

Devout Catholic, Blaise Pascal

It is essential that we live in religious milieus that inspire repugnance whenever another person's human dignity is in the cross hairs of violation. 

The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights -- drafted under supervision of Eleanor Roosevelt and ratified by the United Nations (with notable opposition from Saudi Arabia and Iran who saw it contradicting Sharia Law) -- is a useful touchstone for determining the characteristics of human dignity.



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