The following four statements of personal belief were written by four of our members and shared with the Congregation at a Sunday Service. The writers’ ages range from under 20 to over 60.

I Believe... ...that god is life, truth, love, intelligence, spirit, soul and mind ...that the goddess represents magic ...that "miracles!! are normal occurrences ...that children are people ...that people are good ...that peace comes from trust ...that trust comes from having no secrets ...that secrets are for breaking lives, not saving them ...that the truth is the only answer, and I owe it to myself and everyone else ...that I have to be willing to risk everything for the truth I hold precious, or else I live a lie ...that freedom comes when the loudest voice in my head belongs to me ... that saying "I will never do that!! means I can pretty much count on doing it ... so I try not to say never any more ...that if you had told me 5 years ago that I would do the things I've done in the last five years, I wouldn't have believed you ...that I have been able to say that at any point in my life, and hope that I always will be ...that my dad was right when he said... "if you're going to do it, do it right!! ...it just took me 38 years to realize that I'm the one defining right! ..that the qualities I admire most in a person are honesty, courage and kindness ...but I'd like to qualify those: honesty is the drive to tell the truth, and to hear it courage is reaching out of their comfort level even the tiniest bit and kindness is what tempers the first two, so that your honesty and courage don't come at the expense of someone or something else ...that the only person who has to like me is me

What I Believe... There are two ways I think about belief. One entails a sense of certainty, a knowledge that one is right, that one knows something which is true beyond doubt. In that sense of the word I guess I'm basically a non-believer. I think I can honestly say that there is nothing that I believe absolutely. There is nothing that I can think of that I cannot conceive of seeing challenged or disproven. I see belief rather as a matter of degrees of uncertainty. So while I may not have absolute beliefs, there are some things of which I am sufficiently sure that I am prepared to base major life decisions on them. For example, I am prepared to act on the assumption that there are predictable natural laws. While the universe is full of amazing wonders of which we only begin to understand a small fraction, the physical behaviour of things is generally and reliably predictable. For all practical purposes, for example, I believe in the law of gravity. So I will base any decision about jumping from the top of tall buildings on the assumption that I would fall down rather than up. Similarly, I believe that, barring massive collisions with meteorites, the sun will rise every morning more or less in the east and set more or less in the west. So, at that level, I have a pretty high degree of confidence. These beliefs, if you want to call them beliefs, are really just summaries of universal experience. They have been observed so consistently that I don't worry about them failing, and I would be very surprised to wake up one morning and find that they were not valid. That being said, however, if someone were to tell me that there are circumstances in which the law of gravity does not hold true, circumstances outside our normal range of experience, I would be open to considering this possibility. Beliefs that go beyond the realm of concrete observation fall into a different category for me. Many decades ago, when I was a teenager, I tried really hard to be a believing Christian. Belief, among my religious friends, was something which one was supposed to be able to achieve by a voluntary decision. If only you will believe, you will be saved. There was the message that it is only those who believe in the death of Jesus on the cross as the route to salvation from the consequences of sin—it is only those who will spend eternity in heaven. Those who do not believe will not. I really wanted to believe, but I discovered that for me, belief is not a matter of will. I cannot choose to believe something. When I was a little kid, I tried really hard to believe that there were fairies at the bottom of the garden, because I really wanted to see them and I’d been told that you could only see them if you believed in them. I could pretend to believe, I could act as though I believed, but it was internally dishonest. It was a relief to leave behind the need to believe. Now, if I look at life honestly and ask myself the question, is there a god who really cares about individuals, a god who gives a damn about whether I personally live or die, I have to say, the evidence does not convince me. And no amount of willing it to be true has succeeded in making it so. I concluded long ago that I cannot base my life decisions on the assumption that there is a god who cares about individuals. However, that conclusion does not leave me adrift in the universe. I think what I have in place of belief is a concept that provides for me a basis for meaning in my life and a basis for ethics. For me the big religious question was always, what is the significance, the meaning, of my individual, brief life among the 6 billion others who live concurrently with me, and the other billions who have lived before and will live after me? This was the question that my youthful flirtation with a caring god was attempting to answer. The conceptual way in which I have now answered that question has come from ecological rather than theological language. I have learned to think of the natural world as like a kind of pea soup which is being continually stirred. The materials from which all living beings are made is in one big bubbling pot, in which temporary clumps form, creating various individuated organisms, which briefly maintain an identity, and then break down and return to the broth from which new individuals form. The material is unchanging, but it keeps appearing in new arrangements. It is the pot of soup rather than the individual forming and reforming lumps in it, which has meaning throughout time. Life as a process has meaning, the Earth which sustains it has meaning. As one of those temporary lumps in the life/earth soup, I can express individuality, explore and share ideas, love and learn, and then eventually get stirred back into the soup from which other aggregations will form. So this gives me a connectedness to all life, all beings, here and in the past and the future. I conceive of us as all part of each other and of all other components of the biosphere, as temporary re-arrangements of life material. Rather than a belief, I see this is a way of visualising the earth and my place in it which provides me a basis for ethics and a way of creating meaning.

What I believe It is quite likely that there is meaning to life, the universe, etc. The way that the human mind works, it seems far more likely that some force or order is entwined through all of existence, rather than the mind-boggling idea that everything just IS, by complete randomness and chaos. For example, the chance of a working wristwatch forming by itself from the elements, and appearing in a tree branch, seems quite absurd. It takes a mind/purpose/plan to create a wristwatch (and therefore, a living creature such as the tree, one could say). This argument is often used as a "proof of god's divine plan." Yet I would say it's proof of nothing except meaning/order, in the most vague sense. I will elaborate. Some things we have to assume, for the sake of sanity. For example, we have to assume that gravity will continue to govern physics, and that the sun will rise in the morning. We have to assume that what our senses perceive is more or less true. It's not hard to take it one step further, and say, "there is a reason (purpose, order, etc.) to existence." This seems a fairly logical step in rational thinking, even if it is merely an assumption. I would assume this, because it makes sense every way you look at it, and is the simplest explanation to life, and science, and a hell of a lot else (although still a vague one, of course...). Speculation into the mystical and the ethereal does not contradict science, or rational thinking at all, in itself. The only time that it contradicts is when it becomes arbitrary. (Such as deciding that there are a specific number of gods/goddesses, or deciding that there is a heaven.) Arbitrariness is when, philosophically, one decides something specific without either empirical, scientific proof of this thing, or a logical, rational explanation. (Logical explanation: because it is plausible and understandable from every way you look at it, and there are no other options quite so plausible. Illogical explanation: because I have faith in it.) So. This ends up, partly, being an argument of definitions. Perhaps "god" can be defined as that very same reason, or purpose, or order, which I earlier assumed was present. In that case, I have long devoted my life to god, and will continue to try to understand it (not him). This may seem unromantic or depressing, to view existence with such a basic outlook. It seems boring. But in fact, I find it the opposite. Science, I would say, is one of those assumptions that we allow for sanity's sake. (Most of science. Researched science. I realize that lots of it is debatable, but that's the beauty of it, that it's debatable. There's proof and explanations, no far-fetched faith involved whatsoever; which isn't debatable because it isn't rational.) Anyways, to contradict science would be to make a decision about philosophy, not to speculate in it. Spirituality does not negate science. In fact, spirituality is a form of appreciating science. Taking only the barest concepts that our senses tell us we can assume allows us to speculate into any religion, idea, philosophy, or scientific theory that we can imagine. Having faith in one specific idea discourages all of that critical thinking. Perhaps the "divine plan"is for the universe to be able to be conscious of itself, and we, being part of the universe, and quite conscious, are part of that plan. Perhaps there is no plan or purpose, and chaos rules; chance allows all things to be equally likely in reality, so it's not completely inconceivable that things just ARE. Perhaps humans are the receptacles for a spiritual presence "that entwines us all."Perhaps that energy, or presence, is equal in all the universe, and individual consciousness is a complete misconception. Perhaps we are within one of an infinite numbers of universes that stretch both inward and outward... infinity isn't confined to outer space; it also exists on the nail of your pinky finger. Perhaps we are the science fair experiment of some ginormous twelve-year-old. This is long-winded, but I think I made that point. If we don't make huge assumptions, if we don't believe, we are free to truly speculate. Maybe someday I won't be so agnostic; maybe I'll stumble upon something which I believe to be true. But if that never happens, I'll be quite content to come up with my own theories, and dabble in whatever pieces of religion, and science, that I come across. Spirituality is indeed growth and exploration. And throughout, I'll try to keep believing that reason exists, although some would call that a stretch of faith The ultimate point that I'm trying to make is that a spiritually satisfying life can be led without believing in any one thing. I find intense beauty in the world around me, and a sense of the awe-inspiring mystique that I'm sure "true believers" feel when thinking about God. I try to see things from different points of view, and even though I can't most of the time because I'm so hugely biased, this feels far more spiritual then deciding on one idea, philosophy, or meaning, and blending in with a crowd. I don't want a label for myself, which is what many religions are all about. "Agnostic"gets close, but generally refers only to the indecision between believers in god, and nonbelievers. There's a lot more to spirituality than a higher power... And with every person that doesn't give in to faith, we get deeper speculation. With deeper speculation, perhaps we get closer to this elusive truth.

THIS I BELIEVE ABOUT US I believe we as a Unitarian Universalist congregation are people who have decided that enough is enough—there must be a better way. We feel threatened by notions of authority that are less than inclusive. We feel intimidated by cultural systems that are overly rigid in their expectations. We have aversions to beliefs that are imposing in their applications to life. As a result we have become seekers who look for a different display of connection. We seek a more living or spiritual connection with ourselves, with nature, with others past and present, and even with the cosmos. 1. For many of us the living connection with ourselves is no more than a feeling. We feel we are closer to our life aspirations here than anywhere else. We find a level of comfort here that is penetrating in its gentleness. We find our own inner diversity here as something we can accept, share and appreciate. Put very simply, I believe we come here because we find ourselves growing in completeness. It happens through our participation in programs, especially worship. It happens through the relationships that are generated here. It happens because in everything that we do, we feel guided and affirmed by our Principles. 2. I believe we have become defensive about our connection with nature. It shows in our concerns about pollution, about rodents, insects, weather and genetic manipulation. It shows in our efforts to conserve and preserve what is left of our natural heritage. We have a sense that the balance in nature is something we depend on for our own health and well-being. Note how many have adopted creatures for winter feeding or as family. We have adopted trees for banding because of the luxuries they provide. We decorate our living space and our sidewalks with samples gathered and crafted from nature. They remind us of our connections within an intricate web of creation. 3. Probably the most important connection we have as Unitarian Universalists is with others from the past and from among us here now. We are a part of a tradition that emerged out of humanist and Anabaptist sentiments. Our predecessors were people who risked their lives or livelihood in order to be more free to mold their own beliefs and their own relationships. For some of us, being here is still somewhat of a risk because we have demonstrated the belief that it is okay to be different. The difference is most evident in our in-reach and out-reach programs. In our Religious Exploration program, for example, young people and their teachers are exposed to various belief systems and then are allowed to fashion whatever standards fit their experiences as family and friends. Often I have wondered how parents coped with what I presented to their children from their chosen curriculum. All can say is I would have relished such exposure and opportunity when I was a child. I believe it is our respect for a common humanity that allows us to be different and stirs us to share. Then whenever there is dissonance, it is our hope and our trust that moves us to go beyond differences toward a new level of common ground. 4. I believe all of us ponder our ultimacy or destiny in some way. It happens because culturally we can easily feel swept by the pressures of mass appeal (i.e. war). There is a momentum to science and an economy to technology that is very difficult to ignore. Most of us wonder where change and the pace of life is taking us. In our search for answers there are many avenues or choices. We explore the mystery via mythology, theology, naturalism, cosmology, ethics, determinism, humanism, spiritualism, metaphysics and so on. We blend these sources in our own personal and collective way with sentiments and intuition. This leads me to my last belief for today pertaining to our living tradition. I believe the evolution we allow in our tradition as a congregation and as Unitarian Universalists intrigues us all. We all draw our knowledge and inspiration from many sources because they all provide some desired glimpse of the Truth. Truth is important to us because it carries the mystique or promise of ultimacy and destiny. This Truth is what sustains us in our togetherness as Unitarian Universalists.