Byron Carrier – Page 16 – Earthly Religion

Father’s Day Interview

September 4, 2013
Byron Carrier

I was interviewed by my dear friend, Aletha Nowitzky, on her Saturday morning (10 - 11AM) radio show "Tasty Topics and Tantalizing Tunes" on KSKQ in Ashland, Oregon. (A low-power local station, but you can listen live on line.) She posted the show on their archive. Take a listen; it does a good job of exploring fatherhood, especially from my dad and for my three sons: http://www.kskq.org/index.php/145-tasty-topics-and-tantalizing-tunes/2048-tasty-topics-and-tantalizing-tunes-hosted-by-aletha-nowitzky-6-15-2013-an-innerview-with-ashland-dad-brad-carrier-in-honor-of-father-s-day

February 5, 2013
Byron Carrier

Better than Guns "Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important. . . Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying. Too many children. We must do something. It will be hard, but the time is now. You must act. Be bold, be courageous, Americans are counting on you. Thank you." Gabby Gifford I do not mock Gabby here; I join her in desperate vulnerability. We’re all vulnerable. We’re vulnerable to a whole host of problems before and beyond guns –…

February 15, 2012
Byron Carrier

Thinking I spend too much time reading essays, opinions, and information, I dove into a big, fat novel, Tom Clancy’s Debt of Honor. 766 pages later, I wondered why. If I cared about radar technology, war-game theory, economic analysis, etc. I might have a debt of gratitude to Mr. Clancy. He did a fine job of bringing me the inside scoop on how these things work and how various forces and personalities might use them to launch and end a war. But even in the…

February 10, 2012
Byron Carrier

Why add another religion to the world’s crowded supply? What would be different about God’s Goods? How would it help? Why participate and contribute? Background I don’t expect that you have to believe in God or the Bible to benefit from reconsidering what the Bible’s opening pages say. Or you can believe in both, in which case, what those opening pages say is even more pertinent. How they’re seen and what is said about them is vitally important to our entire world. Even bible-resenting atheists…

January 26, 2012
Byron Carrier

I’m from Michigan, in what is still called the Midwest – located in the mid east section of our country. Odd. Once, it was in the far west, for few had ventured past the east coast. A similar misnomer applies to the so-called northern California, by which they mean central California, where San Francisco is. Redding and Shasta are in the real northern California. But old words have a way of sticking, be they about geography or religion. Our religion may have been defined in…

January 26, 2012
Byron Carrier

Are Unitarian Universalists Christian? Some are. Some aren’t. The question is as old as the religions themselves, going back to their forming and founding. The answer depends on who gets to answer. If orthodox (that is, “conforming to approved doctrine”) Christians get to determine, then no, we’re not. We’re heretics, which word comes from “those who choose,” because we choose to see and say our truth, our Christianity, as our religion. That’s older than the Protestant Reformation, for the early Christians differed too, some claiming…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

These letters are acronyms for four kinds of drugs that I would like to explore in this sermon. Basically, I will recommend them as possibly problematic but potentially beneficial for persons and society. On the whole, and especially compared with the Counter Culture, I have not found a lot of interest in entheogens or other drugs in our UU culture. UU’s have concern for civil liberties, curtailing a needless and excessive police/prison state, the right for people to live their own lives as long as…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

(I believe in human wholeness – not fragmentation, not partiality, not alienation. Does this include sex? Yes! What the Creator built in we should not shame and alienate. The topic is vast, the approaches to it are many, and the feelings about it can be prone to upheaval. What I offer here is limited, provocative, reasonable, and sincere. I appreciate my liberal congregation, which took this in thoughtful stride. The version they heard was about half as long as what here follows.) “Oh, God!”…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

The most unusual wedding I ever performed was of a woman to herself. On the shore of Lake Michigan I pronounced this lovely, creative creature One, adding, “What God hath joined together, let no one rent asunder.” Of course, this was a spiritual ceremony, not a legal contract, though the marriage issue could be stretched to consider calling such a union a marriage. Or should it? Just what is a marriage, who qualifies, and who decides? Let us consider marriage, gay marriage, and the…

January 25, 2012
Byron Carrier

“These things abide: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor. 13:13) “Love, oh love, you crazy love.” Love is the cause and core of being human. Lusty love, luscious love, languid love, lively love, lovely love, we yearn for love, go wild in love, grow stale in love, grant our love, give it, get it, grasp it, lose it, find it, make it, grow it, get saved by it. Annoying love, obsessive love, exploring love, ignoring love, deploring love,…

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The dream of an Earthly Religion…

Earthly: our precious natural earth which allows us our bodies, lives, cultures and future.

Religion: from the old root words religare and religio, meaning “to bind back to the root and be whole again.” This does not assume we need to believe in God or the Bible. Rather, we should be well-related with our own bodies, each other, natural life, and natural existence as it actually is. If there is connection with divinity or God, it is in and through our bodies and beings that we relate primarily, not via scriptures, traditions, rituals, or supposed religious authorities. In short, by religion we mean “relating well with reality.”

The emphasis here is on the earthly. It is not an afterlife or an instead-of-life that interests us. Living well here on earth together does.

While we take our religious perspective and work seriously, we don’t want it to be stuffy. Too often, religions can be alien to the human condition rather than affirming of it. They can be demeaning and demoralizing, dull and bossy, ponderously pretentious. We lean more towards the fun and sexy, natural and lively, human and humane, thoughtful and pertinent.

Reality: the obvious and inescapable stuff of physical existence. We intend to enjoy and tend our lives in these bodies, for our time, in our cultures, for our singular and interrelated ecosystem. There may be more, but there is AT LEAST THIS of which we are born, in which we live, and into which we will die.

God or no-God is not the point; Earth is. Both believers and non-believers are welcome here, for we all share a common source, opportunity, and responsibility: life as it is and could be. This ranges from simply improving one’s own life to your helping save and restore Eden’s, not just to “sustain” it, but veering it to thrive as never before. If you value your life, each other’s, and Earth’s – welcome!

Learn more…

Father’s Day Interview

Better than Guns

Debt of Honor (Book Review)

Emerging Vision of God’s Goods

You and the UU

Are UU’s Christian?

THC, MDMA, LSD, DMT, etc.

Sex? Yes!

Marriage, Gay Marriage and the Human Family

Loving More and More Loving