(no subject)

[serene]

YAY!

Comments

[supergee.livejournal.com]

Congratulations, and as the gaoler said to Bertrand Russell after being told how to spell "agnostic" on the admissions form, "Ah, well, there are many faiths, but I suppose we all worship the same God."

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

*chuckle*

[semperfiona]

It looks *AWESOME*! I'm signing up! (soon)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[redbird]

Bravo!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

*beam* Thanks.

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

This loony cult follower is disgusted.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Noted; it's not for everyone, and you're not the only one who hates it.

I'm curious

[someotherguy.livejournal.com]

Do you think being called loony is better or worse than being told that God hates you and you're going to BURN?

Not that I assume you're one of those people who do that, just curious.

Re: I'm curious

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

It's definitely not as bad. It's still a mischaracterization of something that's important to me on a deeply personal level.

But that's sort of beside the point. I don't really expect to be treated respectfully by anyone who goes around telling people that God hates them (and being a Jewish lesbian makes me a potential target for that kind of bigotry regardless of whether or not I believe in God). I expect better than that from Serene because we're friends despite our significant differences on matters of theology.

I think that if the initial announcement had included a brief disclaimer of some sort then I would have found it easier to say "hey, good luck with your new project" instead of taking offense.

Re: I'm curious

[someotherguy.livejournal.com]

...I expect better than that from Serene because we're friends despite our significant differences on matters of theology...

If it helps any, I wrote the bit about loonys, not serene.

...if the initial announcement had included a brief disclaimer of some sort...

Such as what? A warning that the material behind the link may be offensive to some?

Re: I'm curious

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

On second thought, I'm generally not a big fan of insisting that everyone who's more than two inches out of the mainstream should have to slap a disclaimer on all indications of their non-conformity. So that's probably not the way to go.

But like I said, some of the comments in this thread (yours in particular) enabled me to view the site in a context other than "my atheist friend thinks that all non-atheists are nuts." If I think about it in terms of you folks needing safe space for your beliefs or lack thereof, I can easily manage not to take it personally. But my initial reaction didn't occur in that context, which is probably some combination of my fault and a function of how it was introduced.

Re: I'm curious

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I'm just catching up with LJ. I'll try to answer all the posts in this thread that I can think of coherent answers for (because it's easier than thinking about other things), but chiefly I wanted to say that I don't think all non-atheists are nuts. Two of my three partners are sincere believers, and many of my friends are, as well. I respect them, and you, and have no desire to malign their belief, especially if they're not trying to legislate me out of existence or strong-arm me into believing in their god(s). The believers I have the easiest time getting along with, to be honest, are those who see their belief as a choice they're making, rather than the inevitable response to some Great Truth, but I have no beef with belief. It's like kids -- my favorite kind are other people's.

[The following sounds snarky to me upon re-reading it, but please take my word for the fact that I'm not feeling snarky, just wanting to be clarity-girl with regards to how I feel in all this:]

I have kept my poking at religion and rabid theists to a minimum in public space, only being explicit about it in my own journal, and both my and the church's website, both of which are specifically atheist space, complete with big ol' banners that say "A Church Without God", in case anyone is unclear on what they're about to read. I haven't gone to theists' sites and told them they're disrespecting me when they say that I need to believe in $DEITY to be happy/saved/enlightened, and I will confess that I'm not going to expend much apologetic energy towards people who are upset with me for what I've put in my space. (All of which is not to say I'm not happy to answer concerns, because I am, or that my opinions become unassailable when they're in "my space," because they don't.)

Re: I'm curious

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Just to be ultra-clear, I did mention in my journal that the site would be of special interest to atheists and agnostics.

[wispfox.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

'competitor'

I like that option. :)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[futabachan.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Thanks, cutie!

lite my way!

[pir-anha.livejournal.com]

i am so there.

Re: lite my way!

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

*bounce*

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I am *soooo* there.

(Nice work on the site, too, you guys!)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

someotherguy did ALL the work. [brag: I loved watching him do the graphics, because he didn't use a graphical tool thing; he wrote the shapes/colors/etc. purely in code. It was really cool to watch him decide the thing needed to be brighter, and then switch to his code and tweak the stuff there, rather than just, say, using a fill tool, as I would have to do. I love geeks.]

[malte.livejournal.com]

Hm, if it's all the same deity, why didn't you call it A Mosque Without God?

[redbird]

Maybe they want to wear shoes?

[malte.livejournal.com]

Nah, they could easy write a shoes-permitted clause into their constitution.

[someotherguy.livejournal.com]

A lingering cultural bias (which we acknowledge, but often fail to rise above) leads us to identify potlucks with protestant churches, and it's really all about the potlucks.

Feel free to mentally substitute mosque, temple, circle, synagogue, sweat lodge, forest glade, UFO landing site, cathedral or whatever for church as appropriate to your situation.

--Rev James Huber

[malte.livejournal.com]

And here I was thinking potlucks were a lesbian thing.

But seriously, I think if you really want to be a church without god and not a christian church without god, you might want to look a bit more closely at traaditions you can borrow from other religions. Otherwise it's going to look very much like you think that it's them that are the real loony cults (see slinkr's comment above), while the christians do most things right - including 'light' imagery and the word 'church' - except the god bit.

[someotherguy.livejournal.com]

Actually, I have some background in Eastern mysticism and considerable background in neo-paganism. I suspect that the church will be more comfortable for disgruntled witches than disgruntled Christians.

If you'd like to add expertise in Islam or whatever, then by all means join.

It's very important to realize that the church is not an attempt to reach out to everybody. Unitarian Universalism already does a fine job of that.

ChurchLite is an attempt to reach out to other people who are like us, people who (for example) find UU too WooWoo for their taste, and who think James Randi deserves some sort of freakin' medal.

We do think most people are loony. We get along with them fine most of the time, but we need a place where we can sing it out loud occasionally.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

But seriously, I think if you really want to be a church without god and not a christian church without god,

Who said we do? "Church" is a christian concept. In my country, protestant christianity is the dominant paradigm. I have fun poking at the dominant paradigm, especially because I'm soaking in it.

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

I know a guy (Frank Medina) who used to do training lectures on paganism to cops during the height of the Satanic Panic. Frank relates the story of showing his training film (part, I think, of The Occult Experience) and having an earnest old boy come up to him afterwards and say, shaking his head, "Why cain't they jist go to church on Sundays?" Finally, another place for people who can't "jist" do that.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

:-)