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ISLAM
What I Like
- Muslims pray several times a day. This keeps them in constant contact with their religion.
- Their faith emphasizes the importance of family, charity, and fairness.
- Violence is generally limited to self-defense, and defense of the family and community.
- The Muslims I’ve personally met seem very sincere, honest people. They speak well for the religion they serve.
- Muslims have no religious hierarchy. Each has a direct personal relationship with Allah/God.
- The religion is in the lineage of the God of Abraham. The story of Mohammed is characteristic of other prophets of that God.
- The stories of Mohammed and the Koran are as sensible as those of the Bible, and are perhaps even more reasonable and humane.
- General segregation of the sexes - fewer problems in school (hormonal distractions), fewer adulteries, fewer teenage pregnancies.
- Their version of God (Allah) seems more humane and merciful than that of the Christians and Jews. He may actually have a sense of humor and promote compassion.
- Humility - developed by a very demanding (and hopefully, equally forgiving) religion.
What I Don’t Like
- I have problems with the history of the God of Abraham, and many of the prophets associated with that line of religions.
- Illiterates and fundamentalists permit and perpetuate abuse, violence and injustice in the name of Allah.
- I also resent anyone who says I should be punished for not believing as they do. As a semi-atheist, unitarian-universalist, I am the ultimate infidel.
CHRISTIANITY
What I Like
- I like many (most) of the teachings of Jesus. (Some I still don’t understand, but I am working on them.)
- I like those who would practice discipleship, rather than evangelize, witness, or proselytize. Leadership by example, not words.
- The concept of sin as immoral action.
What I Don’t Like
- The belief that any document is the literal word of God.
- Those who profess or defend such foolish beliefs.
- Promotion of Yahweh from tribal god to creator of the Universe.
- Those who would cast stones while hiding their own sins.
- Hypocrites
- A cultural tendency toward abuse, psychosis, and condoned injustice.
JUDAISM
What I Like
- The very best interpretations of the Torah (Old Testament) of any religious folk I’ve yet heard. (Even if they’ve had several thousand years to perfect it.)
- The sayings at Bar Mitzvahs - “When I was a child, I thought as a child, and spoke as a child. And when I become a man, I put away childish things. . . Today, I am a man!”
- The long standing Jewish cultural tradition emphasizing learning, education, industry, diligence, duty and family. Similar to the Muslims and Chinese, yet curiously lost among many Christians!
- Wonderful kosher food
What I Don’t Like
- Ethnocentrism: arrogance, conceit, Chutzpah!, exclusiveness
- The Laws of Leviticus - anti-female
- Their tribal god (Yahweh) started millennia of religious persecution, warfare and suffering.
- Self-importance - their God chose them to reveal Him to the rest of the world. Geez! Imagine that! How convenient.
- A cultural tendency toward neuroses. (Although they do have some very good shrinks to help with those.)
BUDDHISM
What I Like
- Mindfulness
- Seeking to perfect the self first, before worrying about the defects of others.
- The downplaying of God-talk.
What I Don’t Like
- The paradox - we cease to exist after death, but we can still be reincarnated!?
TAOISM
What I Like
- The understanding that the true nature of existence may be ineffable.
- The way is natural
- Life has a rhythm and an order we may never fully understand.
- Harmony is the key to living a good life.
What I Don’t Like
- “He who knows, does not say. He who says, does not know!” Really? Who says?
WICCA / WITCHCRAFT
What I Like
- It’s like Taoism for westerners. Everything is natural, and flows with the seasons.
- Very Earth centered.
- Balance of sexual energy - equal parts male and female.
- No Christian hang ups
- Dancing around the campfire naked . . . (ooh! was I not supposed to say that?)
What I Don’t Like
- Too many gods and goddesses. If you don’t have the one you want, make up your own!
- Magickal thinking. As if . . .
ATHEISM
What I Like
- Disbelief in the existence of God solves a lot of thorny philosophical problems.
- Robert Ingersoll’s “Some Mistakes of Moses” is enlightening, refreshing, and is over a hundred years old.
- No fuzzy-headed God-talk.
- No God hand-puppet to tell us only what we want to hear or believe.
What I Don’t Like
- The premature conclusion that there is no reality beyond what we can sense and measure.
- The perpetual state of denial maintained by scientismists.
UNITARIAN-UNIVERSALISM
This is where I choose to go to church. It is my religion, liberal and non-theistic though it may be. Here, I am be who I have become, and hope yet to be.
What I Like
- The freedom to explore, collect and share one’s own religious views, among a group of similarly freethinking individuals, without fear of having second-rate dogmas shove down our throats or up our a**es.
- No Pope, Imam or High Priest to tell us that we are going to Hell if we don’t fervently profess belief in their inane delirium.
- Being among intelligent, open-minded people of great character. Many Unitarians populate the history books as heads of prominent social reform movements.
- Going to a church reminiscent of the one I grew up in, without the smoke of Hell, nor the smell of brimstone.
- Great music.
- An absolutely awe inspiring minister - Dr. Davidson Loehr. Cotton Mather should take notes.
What I Don’t Like
- Political Correctness - anathema to free speech, and free thought.
- Trying to win a given percentage of non-Unitarian minorities, just to satiate some do-gooders notions of being racially sensitive, open, inviting, multi-cultural, and politically correct.
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