Church that makes sense

'We believe that facing this real and known world with integrity is preferable to yearning for an imaginary and unknown one later on'
'We welcome you . whoever you are, whatever your tradition , gender, race, sexual orientation or age'
' We uphold the free serach for truth. We will not be bound by a statement of belief. We do not ask anyone to subscribe to a creed. We say ours is a non - creedal religion. Ours is a free faith'
' We seek to act as a moral force in the world, believing that ethical living is the supreme witness of religion'
' We know that relationships with one another, with diverse peoples, races and nations should be governed by justice, equity and compassion'
' We do not have to think alike to love alike'
' We often say our religion is a religion of deeds more than creeds'
' My life- my argument'

It was such a refreshing feeling to be at the Unitarian Universal Church at Schenectady , New York today. This was my first visit. I had read about this Church but never took the effort to visit.
I did not know what to dress and chose business casual. It was good to see many in jeans and shirts. The sight of children running around and laughing made it more human than ' godly'.
It took a while to get here , for me.

While I admire the courage and intellectual fervor of ' new atheists' like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Chris Hitches , I could not help but feel that , in their anger against organized religion and its forms of dysfunctional manifestations, they were missing all the beauty , serenity, peace , joy, music , comfort and meaning they provide. To be clinical and listen to Gregorian Chants or beautiful Sufi Music and Bhajans by Bhimesen Joshi and ignore the source of such beauty seems crazy.

At the sametime , the prescriptive , overly ritualistic and exclusive nature of most religious traditions and their insistence and heavy reliance on stories composed thousands of years ago to draw meaningful guidance for today's realities seems intellectual surrender to the lowest common denominator.

To have a Church of ' deeds' and not ' creeds' is beautiful .

To demand intellectual meaning in spiritual quest is a rightful demand. To demand true - not perfunctory- openness to the human experience in all its manifestations is a rightful demand. To demand that one should not be asked to give up one's own traditions and all the emotional and spiritual sustenance that provides in order to ' belong' is a rightful demand. The desire to belong a community of fellow- human beings who beleive in all this is a privilege.

This may sound like the passion of a new convert. I have no intention of ever converting to anything that I don't beleive in or can move past when I want to. The great thing about my own Hindu tradition is that there is nothing like ' converting ' to it. You are born one or just make up your mind one day and become one and be free to get out of the wholething whenever you feel like it!!

Let's see how this goes. I went in with some scepticism and came out with a greater level of comfort. Doesn't happen often!!