Posted on 11/15/2010 3:20:59 PM PST by chickadee
Esbensen, 53, who was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in 1996 and recently became head of a Madison congregation, does not believe in God or life after death. She calls herself a "humanist atheist." She thinks belief in deity has arguably done more to hurt than help the world.
"People who do not believe in God are actually kinder, gentler people," she says. A personal belief in God, for instance, was not needed for Esbensen to comfort the dying woman in Minnesota, to "say what she needed to hear."
This fall, Esbensen became minister of the Prairie Unitarian Universalist Society, 2010 Whenona Dr., near South Midvale and the Beltline. She splits her time between there and Lake Country Unitarian Universalist Church in Hartland, about 40 miles west of Milwaukee, where she's been a minister since 2009.
(Excerpt) Read more at thedailypage.com ...
Esbensen has found acceptance among fellow Unitarians, where humanists are a known quantity. But people from other faiths, when they learn she's an atheist, are often "a little puzzled and concerned." Most tragically, when she became a minister she lost her best friend, who felt this was not an appropriate role for a nonbeliever."That is so arrogant," clucks Esbensen. "There can be a lot of arrogance attached to people who believe in God."
You can't make this stuff up.
I once had a Presbyterian minister tell me that 70% of ministers admitted they did not believe Jesus is the Son of God.
Of course the Unitarians take it to a whole new level.
Yeah, like Joe Stalin, Fidel Castro, and Kim Jong-il.
I know a Unitarian. I couldn’t believe that they include Wicca, among other things, in their “church”.
Unitarianism is for people who want an excuse to dress up on Sunday.
Unitarian Universalist... This explains everything. This is the kingdom of RELATIVISM. I’m ok...you’re ok. My truth is fine, so is your truth, even if it is diametrically opposed to my truth. There is NO objective truth.
Unitarian Universalist: the epitome of “supreme lack of logic.”
Pray for these people...that their minds may become clear and unclouded.
Someone who knocks on your door for no apparent reason.
The UU’s are a bunch of yo-yos.
IIRC, I think Walter Mondale’s dad, who was a UU minister, was one of the signers of the first Humanist Manifesto.
It’s a church for people who don’t what the word church means.
Pete Stark, mentally ill Demonrat congressman from California, is an Atheist and Unitarian Universalist.
I’ve heard Unitarians complain that there was too much talk about God in church.
This is not a church, it is a tax status.
You know I just recently talked to someone who aquainted me with the whole goings on of Madyln Murray O’hair, prob one of the most famous atheists and an extremely vile person who got prayer taken out of school.
Honestly, WHY did they listen to one woman, instead of the majority of the public?
I mean, since prayer has been taken out of school, does anybody notice the country is getting better?
Wonderful! Thanks for the laugh.
This woman is a “minister” at two churches. What am I missing?
Today’s Sermon:
There’s No God, No Afterlife, Nothing Really Matters, It’s all going to die or be destroyed someday
Talk about something to give your life meaning, go to an “atheist pastor”!
“Unitarian Universalist minister”
Would it matter if she believed in God?
“UU” sounds a lot like yoyo.
Almost forgot. Obama’s atheist mother, communist grandfather, and typical white grandmother were Unitarian Universalists when they lived in Seattle.
It seems like a lot of atheists and progressives spend a lot of their lives thinking about who they dislike and ways to disenfranchise and mock those people that are not like them.
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