Hello to All (ritual, Deists, mysticism, attending, church)

[Chattan]

Hello Fellow UU's,

My name is Joe and I am from Oklahoma. I consider myself to be a Deist, specifically, an Integral Panendeist. Now, don't worry, I won't bore you with details about what an IP is as you would probably fall asleep.

I have a history in the UU church as I attended as a child. For numerous reasons, I stopped attending when I was young and only have recently begun to attend again. I am enjoying having a religious and spiritual community to be a part of and will soon join making it official.

However, I call myself a UU now as I see it as my religion. IP is my personal theology and methodology for approaching the sacred with UU being my community. Thus, UU is my religion. I have joined the forum here as I enjoy having discussions with other Deists and hope to have the same with my new (or old) community.

I know Davidium through Deism and we have had many great conversations and still do. David is one of the reason that I began to check out UUism as a viable option for myself and my family. I have followed his journey to becoming a UU minister and have been inspired by his passion (as well as I enjoy his sermons and writings not to mention that he is a sci-fi nut like me).

I hope that I can add to the discussions around here and be enriched by them as well.

Joe (aka: Chattan)

[Green Gaia]

Hello Joe! Welcome to the forum!

[michel]

Hi Joe,


Welcome to Religious Forums!


Please feel free to ask questions, if you have any. You might like to check out our article with links for our newer members; from there, there is also a link to the forum rules which you ought to look at.


I hope you like it here!

[robtex]

Joe great to meet you!! Great intro. Can I ask, what are your intersts and hobbies outside of religion/spirtuality?

[lilithu]

Hey Joe, namaste. Great introductory post!

I think I have some idea of what an integral pandeist is (not 100%) and rationally I agree with your theology more or less. At times, I call myself a panentheist or process theist. However, another side of me responds to the various schools of mysticism and to Christian liberation theology. I'm a little bit schizo, kinda like UU.

Welcome to the forums. I'm looking forward to us getting to know each other better in future threads.

[Ody]

Welcome to RF!

[Davidium]

Hey Joe!

Great to see you over here at Religious Forums!

Joe is one of my fellow Representatives to the Deist Alliance. Joe wont say it, but he is the founder of www.moderndeism.com and a wonderful Deist writer and theologian himself.

I am looking forward to some great conversations over here on UU, Joe. On Dynamic Deism I tend to focus mostly on my Deistic Theology. Here I tend to focus on my religion of Unitarian Universalism.

And who knows, perhaps I can con you into going to a UU conference with me sometime! That's how I met Lilithu!

Yours in Faith,

David

[Chattan]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

Robtex asked:

Joe great to meet you!! Great intro. Can I ask, what are your intersts and hobbies outside of religion/spirtuality?

I enjoy many things and with three kids I don't have time for most of it but I do try. Some of my interests are:

Martial Arts

The Study of Science

Science Fiction

Hiking

My Family (I know that this sounds silly but I do like spending time with my wife and kids)

I have some more but those are what I really have time for right now.

Lilithu stated:

I think I have some idea of what an integral pandeist is (not 100%) and rationally I agree with your theology more or less. At times, I call myself a panentheist or process theist. However, another side of me responds to the various schools of mysticism and to Christian liberation theology. I'm a little bit schizo, kinda like UU.

Doesn't sound schizo to me at all. Integral Panendeism is similar to Panentheism and Process Philosophy so we probably do agree quite a bit. I also respond to other views of the sacred and I think that is healthy to do.

Davidium stated:

Great to see you over here at Religious Forums!

Joe is one of my fellow Representatives to the Deist Alliance. Joe wont say it, but he is the founder of www.moderndeism.com and a wonderful Deist writer and theologian himself.

I am looking forward to some great conversations over here on UU, Joe. On Dynamic Deism I tend to focus mostly on my Deistic Theology. Here I tend to focus on my religion of Unitarian Universalism.

And who knows, perhaps I can con you into going to a UU conference with me sometime! That's how I met Lilithu!

As usual, David is being very nice and I thank him for the compliment. As I stated earlier, it was watching David's journey into UUism that led me back to here. I am very grateful for that as I did not realize that I needed that level of community. I am the founder of Modern Deism dot com and I hope that it helps to educated others about what Deism is and is not.

As with David, I plan to focus on UUism here as I spend time on two other Deist boards discussing Deistic theology (one being David's). I hope to attend a conference and maybe a GA in the future and it would be great to actual meet those I talk with there. Keep me informed.

Yours in Reason,

Joe

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by Chattan

Doesn't sound schizo to me at all. Integral Panendeism is similar to Panentheism and Process Philosophy so we probably do agree quite a bit. I also respond to other views of the sacred and I think that is healthy to do.

Hey Joe, namaste. I meant schizo in that, like UU in general, I feel a constant tension between reason and "emotion" for lack of a better word. By "emotion," I don't mean anger, joy, sorrow. I mean that which speaks to my conscience, that which evokes a visceral response of right and wrong, of gratitude and of indignation. So panentheism and process theology appeal to my reason, but liberation theology appeals to my emotion. And sometimes they clash. But yes, I think it's healthy to hold different, even conflicting views. Anything less is a distortion of reality.