Atheists and Agnostics 

Script for Sunday 

December 4, 2022 

Atheists and Agnostics

The best way to understand God is to think in terms of myth and metaphor. 

NIUU, Jeanie Donaldson, Pastor Fred 

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Welcome and Announcements: 

Come into this circle of love and compassion,

Come into this community where we can dream and

Believe in those dreams—

Welcome to North Idaho Unitarian Universalists where we accept, we support, we transform:  Ourselves, Our Community. Our world.   

Lighting the Chalice: 

By Oberlin UU Fellowship, Oberlin, OH

We light this chalice to find inner peace,

love for each other, and faith in ourselves.

Also, to be welcoming to whomever we meet

and kind to all living creatures. So gather around

this light of hope as we share this time together.

Opening Words: ­­­

We gather here as individual people

By Barbara Hamilton-Holway

We gather here as individual people:

young and old;

male and female;

temporarily able and disabled;

gay, lesbian, bisexual and straight people,

all the colors of the human race;

theist, atheist, agnostic;

Christian, Buddhist, feminist, humanist.

We gather here as a community of people who are more than categories.

We gather here—each ministering to the other, meeting one another's strength, encouraging wholeness.

We give thanks for this extraordinary blessing—the gathering together of separate, unique individuals as one whole, one body, our church.

Here may our minds stretch, our hearts open, our spirits deepen.

Here may we acknowledge our brokenness and be ever stirred by love's infinite possibilities.

Come, let us worship.

Hymn #226: People Look East

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sJoyBvgTQk 

1. People, look east. The time is near 

Of the crowning of the year.

Make your house fair as you are able,

Trim the hearth and set the table.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the guest, is on the way.

 

2. Furrows, be glad. Though earth is bare,

One more seed is planted there:

Give up your strength the seed to nourish,

That in course the flower may flourish.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the rose, is on the way. 

 

 

3. Stars, keep the watch. When night is dim

One more light the bowl shall brim,

Shining beyond the frosty weather,

Bright as sun and moon together.

People, look east and sing today:

Love, the star, is on the way. 

Covenant: 

Love is the spirit of this church, and service its law

This is our great covenant:

To dwell together in peace,

To seek truth in love,

And to help one another. 

Greeting each other  (Those present in person can leave our seats for this, if we wish.) 

Joys and Concerns (with lighting of candles of caring) 

Story: 

The Beautiful Tiger

By Christopher Buice

There once was a beautiful and powerful tiger.

One day she was captured by a mean and cruel man who put her into a cage. The man kept the cage in the jungle not far from his house. Everyday he would bring out a bowl of water and some food for the lonely tiger.

Sometimes the tiger would see her own reflection in the bowl of water and she would say, “My, I must be a beautiful tiger.”

When the man heard her say this he would lie and tell her, “No, you are not a beautiful tiger. You’re very ugly. You’re a pitiful creature.”

Sadly, the tiger would believe the man.

Some days, after she ate her food, she would walk back and forth in her small cage and feel energy and power moving through her body, and she would say, “My, I must be a powerful tiger.”

When the man heard her say this, he would lie and tell her, “No, you are weak and puny. You’re a pitiful creature.”

Sadly, the tiger would believe the man.

Then one day, when the man was nowhere around, a lion happened to walk by the cage. The lion saw the tiger inside and spoke to her, “Beautiful and powerful tiger, what are you doing lying about in that cage?”

“Do not make fun of me,” replied the tiger. “I know that I am neither beautiful nor powerful.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” said the lion. “You are surely the most beautiful and powerful tiger I have ever seen. I am only surprised to see you lying here when you are clearly strong enough to break out of that cage.”

“You really think I could break out of here?” asked the tiger.

“Quite easily, I should think,” replied the lion

The tiger was not so sure at first. She had been told so many times that she was a weak and pitiful creature.

But suddenly it seemed that she could feel energy and strength moving through her body. She began to pace back and forth in her cage and then, almost without thought, she leapt against the cage door and it flew open without any resistance.

Once outside she seemed dazed. “That cage didn’t even have a lock on it,” she said. “I spent so much of my life stuck in there and the door wasn’t even locked.

The lion looked at her with soft brown eyes and said, “Those kinds of traps don’t need locks, for it is the lies we believe in that keep us in our cages...and it is the truth that sets us free.”

Meditation: 

Unitarian Universalist Confession

By Mary Edes

Here we are gathered, Humanist, and Christian, Non-theist, Buddhist, and Jew, Pagan, and Seeker—a Unitarian Universalist congregation. Let us confess what we know to be true.

We are quick to proclaim our faith, but slow to live the teachings of that faith as it has been handed down to us, across every generation—from prophets, preachers, and sages, scientists, historians, and poets, great thinkers of every age, from ordinary women and men who would have us understand what it is to be, and what it is to love the neighbor.

We are quick to judge one another, but slow to act for justice, equity and compassion in human relations. We are quick to ignore or smooth over broken places among us, too fearful to work for peace and healing. We are quick to share our knowledge, but slow to temper that knowledge with the love and wisdom that leads us always closer to the truth.

In small and large ways we are overwhelmed by all we cannot do.

For all the times we fail to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, when we do not affirm and promote the goal of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all, when we live as though interdependence were a personal choice and not a fact of our existence, we ask forgiveness of one another and we vow to begin again, in this and every moment.

Sermon: 

I am not a theist. 

When I say this, I’m speaking of philosophy, not personal feelings. 

Both theists and atheists are assuming something ahead of time (a priori). 

The theist assumes that there is a God. 

The atheist assumes that there is no God. 

Agnostics admit that they are not sure whether there is a God or not. 

For myself, I’m not interested in assuming anything ahead of time, before we even begin to think or speak about the ideas surrounding the concept of God. 

If you have heard me say that I’m a Christian agnostic, and you may well have heard exactly that,, what it means to me is this: I do not believe that I have any final answers. 

Again, that is a matter of philosophy, of understanding, not personal choice. 

I have made my own personal choice, and that choice is that I do believe that God is real. 

That will probably not come as a surprise to anyone. 

Contrary to most theists, atheists and some agnostics, I make no claim to any special relationship with the truth about God, or about much of anything else. 

The truth about matters of faith, about the things we believe or do not believe, is that we know much less than we think we know. 

As the great line from Hamlet says, “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” 

Agnostics tell us that it is impossible to know whether there is a God or not, so they decide not to make a choice at all regarding their thoughts about the existence of God. 

When we want to talk about things we don’t know for certain, we often use metaphors to help us express the things we think or the things we want to say. 

Sometimes extended metaphors develop into stories known as myths. 

One of the metaphors we like to use about important things like decision making is that we are being guided by some divine or supernatural power. 

That metaphor often develops into stories that are really myths. 

I recently heard Margaret Atwood speak about writing the Handmaid’s Tale. 

She started the Handmaid’s Tale in the early 80’s. 

It seemed much too far-fetched to her at the time. 

She then began a different novel. 

The different novel didn’t work out. 

She pointed out that the powers from which she gets her inspiration told her that she could not write anything else until she wrote the Handmaid’s Tale. 

In an offhand way she said that she doesn't really believe in powers that inspire her. 

Her reference to the powers in which she does not believe is a perfect example of the kind of metaphor of which I am speaking. 

We all use metaphors like that from time to time. 

We might say something like, “The powers that be inspired me to say something.” 

We get into trouble when we forget that such statements are, in fact, metaphors. 

People sometimes try to turn such metaphors into doctrines that everyone is required to believe. 

The simple fact is: 

A metaphor is a figure of speech intended to help us make sense of some of life’s experiences and our feelings about them and our experiences and feelings about them can seem too difficult to pin down. 

Metaphors in turn can be combined to make wonderful stories. 

Fairy Tales are like that, and so are many Bible stories. 

There is no lack of faith or understanding in making such a statement. 

Quite the contrary, our UU faith is deeply affirmed by the recognition of so many familiar stories as metaphors. 

One of my UU friends, whose ideas I often cite in my preaching, says that UU’s are almost all Christian, more than any other time, at Easter and Christmas. 

As Christmas draws near, I often reflect on his concept. 

It’s true to varying degrees for different people. 

Some of us are at least a little bit Christian most of the time. 

Some of us are more so. 

Some of us are hardly ever Christian at all. 

My point is that the major Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter are cultural holidays as well as holy days, and, to varying degrees, most people are drawn into the cultural aspects. 

These feelings need not be a source of discomfort. 

In many ways, they are just a part of being human. 

Since Christmas is the nearer holiday, I want to think together about some of the mythology that surrounds it. 

I’m not thinking mainly of cultural myths like Santa Claus or Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. 

I’m thinking of the metaphors and myths that surround the birth of Jesus. 

As most of my hearers are probably well aware, when I speak of myths, I’m not speaking as though myths are untruths. 

Myths often represent greater truths than ordinary ideas. 

It’s just that they cannot be taken literally, as history, or at face value. 

The story of the birth of Jesus is a good example. 

The overarching point of all the Infancy Narratives (as they are called) is that they describe the birth of an important, history changing person. 

The arrival of the Wise Men represents the idea that it is the birth of someone who is important, not only for his own family or nation, but for all the world. 

We hear a lot about how Jesus changed history. 

That alone is not the point. 

It’s more that his place in history was a turning point, a story that leads people to value themselves and others more and more. 

To try to make the stories literal truth is to miss the point entirely. 

Maybe the greatest point is that Jesus is valuable, not only for those who believe certain ideas about him, but even more, that his story can bring hope to all kinds of people, regardless of what they believe. 

All too often, Christians take the stories around Christmas as literal, historical truth, and pay much less attention to the underlying universal, hope-filled message. 

Maybe Mahatma Gandhi (whose title of Mahatma means Great Soul) said it best, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.” 

I definitely understand that sentiment. 

By speaking of Christ and Christianity, I’m not trying to press the issue of personal faith; neither am I trying to impose that context as the way I’m presenting this service. 

Rather, it is simply the religious context in which most of us live, and I’m using it as my example of metaphor and myth and the ways that we may make use of them in our own understanding. 

I grieve that a particular kind of Christianity is seeking to dominate our society today. 

In writing The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood has provided a powerful story that communicates a warning of a path we could take as a society if we allow that particular kind of Christianity to dominate. 

Obviously we hope that our society will choose a different direction. 

The recent election brings hope to my heart that we are already choosing a path away from Gilead, the terrifying, mythical America of The Handmaid’s Tale. 

In the context of the evolution of religion in our time, the simplest and most important thing I can say about atheists and agnostics is: 

Whether you believe in God or not, you can be a person of UU faith, fully representing our traditions and ways of understanding the world. 

The faith of too many Christians could not fit at all in a UU context. 

The negative kind of Christianity seeks to impose its teachings upon others, whether they agree with the teachings or not. 

If we do not agree to the imposition of their teachings, we are supposedly limiting their religious freedom. 

The interesting thing about all that is this: 

Religious freedom means that we are at liberty to believe whatever we want and to practice whatever religion we wish, so long as we do no harm to others in the process. 

Therein lies the key, no harm to others: 

Freedom of religion means freedom to practice your own faith. 

It does not mean that we have the freedom to impose our religion on anyone else. 

If you choose to believe in God, that is your prerogative. 

If you choose not to believe in God, that is equally your prerogative. 

If you believe that you have the right to force your opinion about God (or anything else) on other people, that is not your prerogative. 

You do not have any right to do so. 

Christians,, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Indigenous faith practitioners, Wiccans, and all kinds of others have the freedom to practice their own religions without constraint by law. 

Atheists and agnostics are equally free not to practice any religion at all. 

No one of us has the right to apply coercion of any kind against others in order to try to convince them of one faith or lack of faith rather than another. 

We are free to believe or not, according to our own choices.

Because I am a Unitarian UNIVERSALIST, I believe that every person’s choice to believe or not is as valid as my own, and I have the responsibility to defend their right to make their own choice.

I want to close today’s sermon with a Koan, a special kind of Buddhist saying that joins two seemingly contradictory statements in a way that opens our minds to new possibilities, expanding our consciousness. 

At least that is the intent of a Koan. 

The Koan for today is the best representation of my own understanding of atheism vs. theism: 

God does not exist. 

Therefore, God is. 

Amen 

Let it be 

So mote it be 

Blessed be

Congregational Response 

Offering Information 

Charity of the Month:

 

St Vincent de Paul

 

Providing support and compassion.

We offer services that help people return

to a life of self-sufficiency.

“The Hand Up – Not Hand Out” principle

guides us as we help to

“Clothe the Naked, Feed the Hungry,

and Shelter the Homeless.”

NIUU

P.O. Box 221

CDA ID 83816

Extinguishing the Chalice : 

Flame in Our Hearts

By Vanessa Williams 

Like the flame of the chalice,

may the flame in our hearts burn,

remaining unextinguished.

May it ignite our energies, our drive, our resolve,

to dream, to build, and live into the world

that good which exists, for now, only in our imaginings. 

Closing words: 

Blessed with Questions 

By: Ma Theresa “Tet” Gustilo Gallardo 

Some came here to be blessed with answers in a tumultuous world.

Let us hope too, however, that many of us have been blessed with questions

to direct us with a clarity of mind to steer our logic towards kindness and justice always.

Closing Circle