Earthly Religion | Earthly Religion

Women, Wonder, and War

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

From Texas to Tehran, societies scurry to placate the power of those posing as pious – instead of affirming and advancing inherent intelligence and integrity. Modernity fears its own success. Instead of claiming and furthering the steady progress of science and the Enlightenment, it falls prey to those resentful of both. Fundamentalist advices to “have faith” or to “submit” turn us from knowledge, freedom, and responsibility, towards gullibility and obeisance. Decent souls, questing for what is good, flock to church and mosque only to be…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

Have you noticed that the three great monotheistic religions of the world are also the three great problem makers in the world? Is God the problem? Does God want these vast forces to wage war with the others? We’re told lately that society has gotten too secular, too wayward, and that we should return to our religions and have more faith. But should we? Haven’t religions often been the source of problems – from stifling knowledge to torturing non-believers? Haven’t religions insisted on preposterous claims…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

A personal message from founder, Brad Carrier, regarding labor: I’ve built dry-stack rock retaining walls for ten years and owned the business for eight. On one level, it’s just work for pay. I can work by the hour, or by the bid. But I’d rather work on creative projects that serve the general betterment of persons or society, taking whatever compensation it brings me. Like any job, it is work for money, but such labor is not my main calling – ministry (Unitarian Universalist and…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

When I met Shri Bhagwan Rajneesh in a posh hotel in Bombay I wanted to punch him in the nose. I had gone to India sick of the west’s view of earth as merely a place for a divine drama that leads to an afterlife. In India I found its counterpart: a yearning for an instead-of life. Rajneesh sported a Rolex as he knocked the communists for wanting worldly improvements. He assured us the body isn’t real and neither is this world; they’re merely…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

I have a small scar on my hip, a little reminder: “You can’t toy with the ocean.” I was body surfing in Laguna Beach, riding the big waves in, using my chest as if a surfboard. I had a wonderful day. What fun! I wanted it to go on. The waves seemed to be changing, as if to say, “Go in,” but I was greedy for one more ride. I got that ride and then some. A huge wave sped me towards shore, but it…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

Nude Sermon: Deeper than Shame is Glory Intro This sermon comes in response to Ashland’s recent ban on nudity in public places. Thanks to Eric Navickas and Carol Voisin for trying to defend nudity, difficult and edgy though that cause was. Eric’s reasoning and passion inspired me to contribute my art to this event. Thanks to Amy Godard for opening MAda Shell Gallery for nude art, music, and sermon. Though I came to Ashland in 1986 to be the first minister of the RVUUF (for…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

God’s Goods is not primarily about God. God’s Goods is about the goods “God” “created” and called “good,” and it is about the violation of those goods by the three theistic religions. God’s Goods is not a Christian religion, nor even primarily theistic. It is a humanistic, naturalistic, deistic religious perspective that seeks to reconnect humanity to its natural origin, home, responsibilities, and possibilities. God, for Better or Worse Cultures generate god-images which then orient and guide those cultures. Humans may be seen as the…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

Faith in the Larger Liberty: American Deism Picture this: Our president in the White House takes scissors to Bible, cutting out of the New Testament all that makes Jesus more God than human. Out goes the virgin birth story, the miracles, even the resurrection. When preachers object, he calls them “soothsayers and necromancers.” To top it off, he is having an extended affair with his half-black servant, fathering children with her. Such a scandal would leave Fox News sputtering, unsure how to begin the spin.…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

First off, let’s admit we all need to eat something. All living things take something in and let something out. Whether through a cell membrane or a mouth and anus, we need to eat and expel to live. There is no shame in that. Even the sun eats and expels to exist. We are made of the cooled matter of an old star explosion. We are lighted, warmed, and powered by our current star, and we will be eaten by it farther in the…

January 24, 2012
Byron Carrier

It ain’t necessarily so, no it ain’t necessarily so. The things that you’re liable to read in the Bible It ain’t necessarily so. Mathusala lived nine hundred years, yea, Mathusala lived nine hundred years. But who calls that livin’ when no gal will give in to No man what’s nine hundred years. I’m glad to be in a religious tradition where both aspects of this naughty song can be sung in church: the Bible might not be true, and a sex joke. Both…

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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…

Women, Wonder, and War

The Problem of Religion and the Promise of Creation

Labor and Mysticism

The Purpose of Life is to Give Life Purpose

The Infinite Ocean

Nude Sermon

God’s Goods and the So-called Goods and Evils

American Deism

Eat Well

From Dysfunctional to Funfunctional