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"Faith of the Free"
-- A forum dedicated to "free-thinking, openly questioning, radically-inclusive, ethically-engaged, reform-oriented religion in the Unitarian and Universalist tradition. --
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uufreespirit
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Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 2190
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 Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2007 12:30 pm Post subject: Maybe this is self-explanatory... |
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"What would you do if I sang out of tune,
would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song,
and I'll try not to sing out of key.
Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,
Mmm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mmm, gonna' try with a little help from my friends..."
-- The Beatles
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"We look upon our tasks as opportunities to serve, and upon our failures as keys to fresh knowledge. This is religion: not that we never fail, but that we try greatly; not that we make no mistakes, but that we face the future with undiminished courage and good cheer; not that we be free from wrong, but that we have faith to do better."
-- Rev. Robert Weston
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"God is a comedian playing to an audience that is afraid to laugh."
-- Voltaire
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--It seems that so much of life is built around pretense... around trying to come across as being far more perfect--more poised, more powerful, or more righteous--than we really are. The point, of course, is that, as individual human beings gathered as a religious community, we're "only human" and make no claims of being anything else. It just didn't feel that this "Faith of the Free" message board would really be complete without having a place devoted to "bringing things back into that sort of perspective."
-- So...please join me, won't you, in sharing your thoughts and feelings about the role of honest humility and the inevitable incompleteness, imperfection and "built-in folly" that accompanies -- and presumably always has accompanied -- the "human experience" and our human quest for Ultimate Truth and Meaning. Please join me in talking about how best we can grow an inevitably imperfect but improvable religious (and general human) community where friendship and of love transcend all artificial or dogma-based walls and boundaries...where it's considered perfectly natural to "sing a little out of tune," and to be just a little "bozo-ish" now and then.
Ron
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-- Ron
"Beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I'll meet you there." -- Rumi
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
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Last edited by uufreespirit on Thu Apr 17, 2008 11:38 am; edited 8 times in total |
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uufreespirit
Site Admin
Joined: 16 Apr 2007
Posts: 2190
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| Posted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:10 am Post subject: "Bozoism" versus ..... what? |
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-- At this point we may need to draw a distinction between the inevitable imperfection and fallibility of the "human condition" AND a more chronic sort of human error/stupidity-- I don't have a name for it, but as the saying goes, I generally know it when I see it. It's basically a refusal (often habitual) to see and acknowledge error when it's staring a person right in the face. Like the classic description of insanity, it may involve repeating past mistakes, over and over, expecting different results.
-- The reason this distinction seems important here is that it connects with the ole' "tolerance issue" -- which has been at the heart of Unitarian Universalism from the very start. It appears to me that, again generally speaking, we are (to some degree) expected/obligated to "tolerate" a basic "Bozoism," but that more chronic form of "error-acceptance and endorsement" is considered fair game for challenge and criticism. (For example, I think we can all understand or sympathize with those of many centuries past who thought the Earth was flat, or that the Sun revolved around it, or that lightning was a sign of God's displeasure, but subsequently it became ridiculous to hold on to such notions and increasingly justifiable to challenge it. )
So...what I describe here as "Bozoism" is by no means an endorsement of the kind of chronic, attitudinal ignorance which, especially when accompanied by power and arrogance, can be downright dangerous. (Some of us today might include many forms of dogmatic tribalism in that category.)
I would love to know your own thoughts about this. Does any of what I've said here make any sense?
Ron
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-- Ron
"Beyond the ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing there is a field. I'll meet you there." -- Rumi
"The Reformation Must Continue!" --- Friedrich Schleiermacher
-->> Have you tried "UUPLINK UU RADIO" lately? You may be surprised! Go to... http://www.live365.com/stations/uuplink?site=uuplink"&"%20play
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