Can an Atheist Be a Unitarian Universalist? (Part 2)

Adam Lee on November 11, 2011, 6:37 AM

In my previous post, I quoted the letter I wrote to John Buehrens, Unitarian Universalist minister, to ask if he stood behind the anti-atheist denunciations in his book A Chosen Faith. The same evening I sent it, I got a response. I regret to report that not only did Buehrens not express regret for his language; he doubled down on it, with more insults and accusations even worse than what's in the book. His reply is reproduced in full below:

Dear Adam,

The relationship between religion and violence is complex. But the reaction against religion is often far more murderous than those disillusioned with religion will allow. My claim is that religion, at its best, across confessional lines, tries to stop, or at least reduce, the cycle of violence and revenge.

Cultural evolution, I believe, supports this. Some of the most murderous episodes in modern history have been in attempts to get rid of religion entirely. Example 1): During the French Revolution, no sooner had the Goddess of Reason been set up in Notre Dame than the Terror began, with the guillotine.

2) This summer my wife and I went to what Yale historian Tim Snyder calls The Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Both tyrants hated religions of the Golden Rule. Hitler hated the Jews for introducing what became Christianity, which he regarded as wimpy, weak and lacking in a basis for German "volkische" self-assertion. Stalin had studied for the priesthood, yet began that period by deliberately starving 3 million Ukranian peasant families. Between the two of them, they orchestrated state policies - quite apart from war - that murdered, between 1930 and 1945, some 35 million people.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/41051

Part 1:

http://bigthink.com/ideas/41021

The guy would get hounded out of any UU church I've ever been in, but they've all been on the west coast.

He doesn't seem to grasp that Stalin and Hitler offered what were, to all intents and purposes, religions to their people. Nearly all religions want to get rid of other religions. Some are just more graceful about it.

Religion at its best and atheism at its best are morally indistinguishable. The only difference is that religion still requires you to believe something absurd, whereas atheism allows you to abstain from belief completely, although it tends to look more like agnosticism at that point.

Atheism at its worst is just another group of humans asserting that they have the ultimate truth and trying to cram it down the throats of others against their will, just like religion.

At their worst, both atheism and religion appear to me to be mere shells for justifying behavior that is better explained by looking to other primates than to the content of their beliefs.

Or, in cruder terms, people don't kill because they believe in killing. They believe in killing because they want to kill, and believing in killing makes killing more enjoyable.

And I doubt he'd be hounded out--he just wouldn't have any listeners.

"Religion at its best and atheism at its best are morally indistinguishable."

But we have yet to see either.

Did you find the "new atheist" books by Dawkins or Hitchens hateful?

I agree with your idea that human behavior is better explained by looking at other primate behavior than at people's beliefs. But, your comment that people believe in killing because they want to kill is in contradiction to that. I think people kill largely for the same reasons that other primates kill, mainly to secure resources.

:shrug:

That needs to be provided to the Association governance team. Seriously.

Neither my pastors in Rochester nor my pastor in Somerville NJ would EVER behave or write in such a manner. It is so NOT UU!