Top products from r/excatholic

> what's Unitarian Universalism like?

I've found it to be a good fit for me. It was a long journey to get there. When I first was leaving Catholicism and talking with friends, several people suggested I check out Unitarian Universalism. In those days, I didn't want to go anywhere near any church. Over the years, the UU suggestion came up a few times. When I would take those "what religion am I?" online quiz, I would always get UU. Eventually, I decided to check out the local UU church.

There is a certain amount of familiarity. There's a weekly service that has a similar structure: readings, songs, sermon, etc. UU congregations can differ in their religiosity. The church attend is pretty reluctant to embrace Christianity, but that's okay with me.

What I like about UU'ism is that people come to it from all sorts of backgrounds. At my church there are people who grew up: Catholic, Baptist and various Protestant denominations, Jewish, Buddist, Pagan, Athiest, Agnostic, and more. What helps make it work in one of the UU Principles

> As responsible religious seekers, we recognize that we are privileged to be free, to have resources to pursue life beyond mere survival, to continually search for truth and meaning, to exist beyond bonds of dogma and oppression, and to wrestle freely with truth and meaning as they evolve.

There is no official religious dogma or creeds, people are encouraged to find their own truths and respect other peoples search for truth. It's not a perfect process. There have been people who find their truth in more conservative viewpoints and then get frustrated that other UUs are not supportive of that. If you are a fairly liberal, lefty, progressive, then UU could be a great fit, though there are probably more conservative UU congregations that would embrace those beliefs too.

I found this book to be a helpful introduction to UU'ism.

Usually with enthnographies, the academic either lives among the communities and makes observations or keeps asking questions until someone talks to them. It helps them tremendously to make friends and gain people's trust.

That board also brings into question if the island was real, which this Wikipedia article clears up. The island's true name was Inisheer, stylized as "Inis Beag" for the resident's privacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inis_Beag

I haven't read the actual ethnography essay, which is 34 pages long and don't know who he cites for his info, but it does come with 2 pages of references. It would be pretty rare to publish an ethnography without any evidence whatsoever. Considering the number of sexual health and sexology books that reference it, I have to assume there must be some merit. I would be very interested to read it, but it's hard to find a digital copy without paying.

http://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/ehrafe/citation.do?method=citation&forward=browseAuthorsFullContext&id=er06-017

He also did a longer study of the island that was 136 pages.

https://www.amazon.com/Inis-Beag-John-C-Messenger/dp/0881330515/ref=pd_sim_14_1/145-2609404-5587267?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0881330515&pd_rd_r=1CZWPNFV2T0ARQF8N47G&pd_rd_w=okO2G&pd_rd_wg=zmLDd&psc=1&refRID=1CZWPNFV2T0ARQF8N47G

All it takes is 5-10 people of different statuses/ages to accurately describe the cultural practices of a homogeneous 300. It's essentially a large tribe.

Also, this was in the 1950s/60s before the island had electricity or running water. No idea what it's like now, it'd be great to have an AMA from someone who lives there currently.

I believe it.

So let me qualify what I'm about to say: I don't subscribe to the intelligent design theory (but neither does the Catholic church.

But you're completely backwards about occams razor, which is the basis for intelligent design. If you walk along the beach and find a complex sand castle, it is the appropriate response to assume it was designed and built by someone. You don't say, "becasue this could happen by itself through a random ordering of atoms, that must be the case."

Rather, you would look at the odds of it happening by chance and say, "If the odds are so astronomical that this shouldn't have been able to happen by chance, then it probably didn't."

Occams razor isn't just a saying, it actually has a scientifically appropriate application.

Take the Omega value - the universal average density of matter. Too high==universe collapses. Too low==universe keeps expanding. Just right== universe exists. What are the odds that the Omerga value of the universe came out just right? What are the implications of that?

For a good discussion I would read Dawkin's (average) book, The God Delusion, and then follow it by reading Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God by Hahn and Wiker. If you don't want to by it there are ways to get it free on the internet ;)

For the record, if you're interested in atheist literature, please, please, please move beyond Dawkins. There is good atheist stuff out there, but Dawkins isn't it.

I'm not saying don't be an atheist. I will say, looking for the basis for that in science might be a little hard. But seriously, read Hahn and Wikers boook.

Read the reviews here - https://www.amazon.com/Answering-New-Atheism-Dismantling-Dawkins/dp/1931018480

Agreed. The tragedy is that there might have been a better version of Jesus' teachings-- one that could have really helped people live happier, more fulfilled lives without all the Christian garbage. That's what i try to give in my book about one of those surviving members of Jesus' entourage. https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Thomas-%20Younger-Novel/dp/1945572736/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1499446494&sr=1-1&keywords=gospel+of+thomas+the+younger

I always like to recommend Carl Sagan's book The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. It is a layman's guide to scientific materialism: the philosophy that only that which can be proved is real. It's also a pretty entertaining read. Start there.

>history seems to go against Christianity

What do you mean?

I've read the books and I think they're overall pretty good, though a bit dated. If you're looking for a multi-volume series on the history of Christianity, I'd read Jaroslav Pelikan's The History of the Development of Doctrine series - Vol. I here.

I think that just by sitting in the pews and dropping ones dime in the collection basket one is giving tacit approval to the church and it's crimes.

Through government and church propaganda, Germans were taught that Jews were a threat. I don't buy the business about most German's not knowing about the concentration camps, or the holocaust. They certainly must have seen their neighbors being arrested and hauled away, their shops and businesses closed, their children missing from society, etc.. Rumor alone travels very quickly. I believe that most Germans knew, but believed it to be for the greater good. Could happen anywhere that propaganda turns the people against any segment of society, especially one that's been demonized by the churches for many centuries.

Fascinating/terrifying film documentary on AMAZON Prime, called 'Lesson Plan' The story of the Third Wave experiment in fascism that took place at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, as told by the students and their teacher, Ron Jones. This moving recounting by Jones, school administrators, former students, and many others enthrals with the force of inescapable conclusions, and demonstrates how its theme has only grown in relevance. https://www.amazon.com/Lesson-Plan-Philip-Neel/dp/B076KS3CCS

50% is correct.

Richard Snipe is an author, former priest, and researcher who has done a lot of study in this area. He has several books on celibacy and it's modern practice, or lack there of. A Secret World is a book in the accounts of about 1500 priests who were sexually active. He has an ancient looking website but his data is sound. He's been involved in Vatican funded studies on the sex lives of priests. http://www.awrsipe.com

A recent book worth checking out that explores the lack of clerical celibacy is In the Closet of the Vatican by Fredric Martel. There's an interesting chapter on an internal war between gay and straight priests and how gay priests are a bit more protected.

Also, I've mentioned this in this sub before, but the reason for my knowledge on this subject is because I myself was in a consensual relationship with a priest for a year and a half, in the mid 2000's. I was not his first and was not his last partner.

>I think the evidence firmly points to the person of Jesus having existed and when you couple this with the fact that the apostles did not recant their faith, it makes a promising case that the Resurrection was genuine.

You need to develop a standard for evaluating claims. And the standard needs to be something you can honestly live with.

There are many, many supernatural claims out there. Mohammed, for example: There are Muslims who argue just as effectively for the veracity of Mohammed's miracles as do Christians with respect to Jesus' resurrection. The same goes for many other religions that we still live with today -- and countless more that have died off over the centuries.

If your belief in a supernatural event is satisfied by ancient second-hand accounts of uneducated people who've never been exposed to science, then you need to apply that belief even-handedly, without respect to your upbringing, cultural experiences, and so on. But, of course, if you do that, you'll find yourself believing in contradictory dogma.

There's a better option: Simply put, Jesus existed. He clearly had an impact. He was tried and executed for that impact. Myths about him (including his resurrection) also developed as a result of that impact. Human beings see patterns, conspiracies, miracles, divine intervention, and divine damnation where none exist. It's a constant in the human experience. We see it historically, with, for example, the myths about Jesus. We see it today, with myths about Q-Anon, crisis actors at Sandy Hook, Obama's birth certificates, and so on. There is something about our brains that invents realities that never existed.

The specific details -- the precise, exact manner in which this one specific miracle developed and grew, is a subject of some study (I'll cite one great book below) but we'll never know the exact truth of how this myth got started. However, the absence of absolute certainty as to development of a myth doesn't mean that you have to believe the myth. If you did, you'd be forced to believe in all kinds of contradictory nonsense.

For an empirical look at Jesus' life and the development of the myths around him, check out Bart Erhman's How Jesus Became God. Erhman is a highly-respected biblical scholar and author of a number of textbooks, a few of which I read ages ago when I was a Religious Studies university student.

I cannot recommend "Demon Haunted World" by Sagan enough for this.

http://smile.amazon.com/The-Demon-Haunted-World-Science-Candle/dp/0345409469/ref=smi_www_rco2_go_smi_1968491462?_encoding=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0&pf_rd_p=1968491462&pf_rd_s=smile-campaign&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0345409469&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0NA1PTR8YS7CFF6NF6XY

I was given a modesty book as a child that quoted a "study" that men's eyes were INSTANTLY DRAWN TO THE VAGINA when wearing pants.

It looks like they're off Netflix, but here they are. Deliver Us From Evil ($2) and Twist of Faith (free with Prime)