I am disgusted by the attack on the Bath Mosque (and by all crime, whatever its motives). The point about why this has caused outrage is not because the victims were practitioners of religion, but because when you are in a church or a mosque, the doors are left open for people to come in, so they are peculiarly vulnerable to attack. It's a violation of trust.
Also, I don't like the idea of something that is sacred to someone else being desecrated (whether or not I find it to be sacred). Add to that the fact that moderate Muslims are under attack from both the general public, who tar all Muslims with the brush of extremism, AND from the extremists for being too moderate, and you can imagine how isolated and vulnerable this sort of thing would make them feel.
Also I am saddened that this sort of incident undermines the efforts made by people of all faiths and none to live peaceably together in mutual respect and understanding. If someone came into my house and urinated in my sacred space, I'd feel very vulnerable and frightened.
8 comments:
when you are in a church or a mosque, the doors are left open for people to come in, so they are peculiarly vulnerable to attack. It's a violation of trust.
You know, I'd never considered that before. You make an excellent point.
I'm totally with you on desecrating something others consider sacred.
It might interest you to know that the conflict that I am embroiled in arises from the fact that Rev. Ray Drennan of the Unitarian Church of Montreal came into my house (at my invitation) and proceeded to verbally defecate all over me in my sacred space. I don't get frightened easily but I felt just a tad vulnerable when he contemptuously dismissed my revelatory religious as "your psychotic experience" and angrily demanded that I seek "professionalhelp" and followed this up by falsely and maliciously labeling Creation Day as "your cult". Perhaps now you can better understand why I refuse to take any crap from intiolarant and abusive U*Us, or those U*Us who tacitly or actively condone their abusive words and actions.
OK, now I understand your feelings.
But how did you try to tell others about your experience? I felt like telling every single anti-gay Christian that I met that Godde does love LGBT people exactly the way they are, but I had to realise evangelising people in a confrontational way doesn't help. It takes dialogue, patient and tolerant dialogue (e.g. the way Quakers do it, or the way the MCC and LGCM do it). Did he dismiss your revelation immediately, or was it after you had tried to 'convert' everyone to it? (I am not saying that's what you did, I'm just asking.)
Remember Yeshua said that the prophet is never recognised in his own community ;) They think, oh that's Johnny who who used to pull the girls' hair, how can he be a prophet?
Also the truth of your revelatory religious experience will more clearly be understood by others if it is not obscured by moaning about the UUs. Yeshua moaned about the Pharisees, and look what happened to him. You got off very lightly compared to him.
I'd be interested to hear what the original revelation was - and I promise to respect it as sacred to you, even if it doesn't ring true for me.
:But how did you try to tell others about your experience?
I presented my revelatory religious experience, and the messags that came through, it in a very calm, rational, positive manner. In fact, the reason that Rev. Ray Drennan was in my small apartment was because I had invited him their in order to show him an exposition of pictures on its walls that illustrated various aspects of the total solar eclipse relgious symbolism that my revelatory experience brought to my attention and further research expanded. Here is an example of a written communication that was sent out to many U*Us more than a year after Rev. Ray Drennan's demeaning and abusive attack on me. Interestingly enough U*U pagans were the only U*U group that responded positively enough to reproduce it and share it in one of their own publications.
:I felt like telling every single anti-gay Christian that I met that Godde does love LGBT people exactly the way they are, but I had to realise evangelising people in a confrontational way doesn't help.
I have not engaged in evangelising people in a confrontational way. Rev. Ray Drennan responded to my "evangelising" in a confrontational way because he is an arrogant fundamentalist atheist with a history of verbal abuse. He offensively verbally attacked other people with no provocation whatsoever, including one deceased person whose only crime was to have a Roman Catholic state funeral. . .
:It takes dialogue, patient and tolerant dialogue (e.g. the way Quakers do it, or the way the MCC and LGCM do it).
And that is how I have always tried to present it to people. The purpose of my meeting in my apartment was to have some patient and tolerant dialogue with Rev. Ray Drennan after he had displayed impatiance and intolerance in a previous meeting with him. I felt that if I could show him pictures that clearly illustrated and validated what I was talking about that he might respond to it better. I was mistaken. He came into the meeting angry because I had filed a complaint about the anti-democratic manner in which the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal had banned a second celebration of Creation Day from being celebrated in the Unitarian Church of Montreal even though it had been successfully celebrated a year earlier and had received unanimous approval and support from the UCM's religious education committee.
:Did he dismiss your revelation immediately, or was it after you had tried to 'convert' everyone to it? (I am not saying that's what you did, I'm just asking.)
He dismissed my revelation immediately, repeatedly, insultingly and abusively within days of being ordained as the new minister of the Unitarian Church of Montreal. I never tried to "convert" anyone. I have only sought to share my revelation with people and allow them to make up their own minds after some reasonable persuasion of course. Rev. Ray Drennan and other fundamentalist atheist U*Us could not stand me weven openly shariong my revelation with anyone, hence the banning of Creation Day.
:Remember Yeshua said that the prophet is never recognised in his own community ;)
No kidding. . .
:They think, oh that's Johnny who who used to pull the girls' hair, how can he be a prophet?
Well I was already a prophet before I joined tthe Unitarian Church of Montreal and had no previous interactions with it. I joined it because of what U*Us claim in their now evidently fraudulent religious propaganda. A Christian Unitarian minister, Rev. David B. Parke, was interim minister of the UCM when I decided to join it. He was there for two years and was genuinely welcoming and supportive and managed to keep the fundamentalist atheist "Humanist" U*Us at bay while he was there. That changed immediately upon the arrival of Rev. Ray Drennan who can be justifiably described as a wolf in shepherd's clothing. . .
:Also the truth of your revelatory religious experience will more clearly be understood by others if it is not obscured by moaning about the UUs.
That is generally why I try to keep my sharing of my revelation separate from my well justified "moaning" about utterly conscienceless U*Us.
:Yeshua moaned about the Pharisees, and look what happened to him. You got off very lightly compared to him.
Well for starters I have had the good sense not to physically assault anyone in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal. Not that I am inclined to physical violence in any case. Yeshua on the other hand assaulted a bunch of people in front of the Temple in Jerusalem just a few days before the Roman "secular authorities" came to arrest him. I look forward to rationally demonstrating to a judge that I pose less of a threat of committing "a serious personal injury offence" to Rev. Diane Rollert or any other U*U than Jesus. . . ;-)
:I'd be interested to hear what the original revelation was - and I promise to respect it as sacred to you, even if it doesn't ring true for me.
Well the CUUPS page I linked to will provide plenty of information about what the revelation is. If you wantb to know more feel free to ask a few questions.
Ah, fundamentalist atheists. Kind of like Dawkins?
So then you complained about the response you got from the atheists and your complaint was not upheld, is that it?
If atheists are going to get involved in religion, they'll have to learn to play nicely with those of us who believe in the Divine.
At the moment there's too many atheists getting excited by Dawkins and Hitchens and their ilk, and too much media focus on fundamentalist religionists; until a more balanced picture of religion is presented by the media, we ain't gonna get anywhere.
:Ah, fundamentalist atheists. Kind of like Dawkins?
Very much like Richard Dawkins. Right down to the foot-in-mouth disease. . .
:So then you complained about the response you got from the atheists and your complaint was not upheld, is that it?
Correct. I filed a formal complaint against Rev. Ray Drennan with the Board of the Unitarian Church of Montreal and sent copies to the presidents of the UUA and CUC asking them to ensure that my complaint was propeerly responded to since I had good reason to believe that the Board of the UCM would arbitrarily dismiss it. President John Buehrens effectively dismissed it but passed my complaint on to the UUA's Ministerial Fellowship Committee to cover his U*U. Rev. Diane Miller then pronounced that Rev. Ray Drennan's behaviour, as it was described in considerable detail in my original letter of grievance, "seemed to us to be within the appropriate guidelines of ministerial leadership."
:If atheists are going to get involved in religion, they'll have to learn to play nicely with those of us who believe in the Divine.
One would hope so, and I have no problem interacting with atheists of goodwill, but most regrettably the U*U "religion" has more than its fair share of intolerant and abusive fundamentalist atheists who seem to relish insulting and abusing God believe people. I am by no means the only person to have encountered such inhuman "Humanists" in U*U "churches".
:At the moment there's too many atheists getting excited by Dawkins and Hitchens and their ilk, and too much media focus on fundamentalist religionists; until a more balanced picture of religion is presented by the media, we ain't gonna get anywhere.
Agreed. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and their ilk are not doing moderate atheists any favors with their insulting attacks on religion. Every now and then I take the time to take a swipe and Dawkins and his friends when I think they deserve it. I consider it to be a deplorable degeneration of Unitarianism that dogmatic fundamentalist atheists much like Richard Dawkins can be and are ordained as a U*U ministers.
Are you saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that the UUA deals with complaints, or do you think you were just unlucky?
However, it must be borne in mind that one man's reasonable exercise of ministerial leadership is another man's desecration of the sacred... just as you thought you were being reasonable in posting your comment on my original post, and I reacted badly because you pricked my happy bubble.
I think the whole thing comes back to the idea of tolerance and intolerance - it sounds as if it was forgotten that atheists can be just as intolerant as believers.
So how many appeals did you go through before resorting to picketing the church in Montreal? I'm not sure that I'd be too happy about running the gamut of a protester every time I went to church, to be honest. (I guess that's the point.)
:Are you saying that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way that the UUA deals with complaints, or do you think you were just unlucky?
I don't think I was unlucky. . .
:However, it must be borne in mind that one man's reasonable exercise of ministerial leadership is another man's desecration of the sacred...
There is nothing even remotely reasonable in belittling and maligning my monotheistic religious as being nothing but "silliness and fantasy", contemptuously dismissingh my revelatory religious experience as "your psychotic experience" and angrily demanding that I immediately seek "professional help", or labeling Creation Day as "your cult".
:just as you thought you were being reasonable in posting your comment on my original post, and I reacted badly because you pricked my happy bubble.
I think that it was reasonable for me to point out that U*Us do not always practicve what they preach. If I remember correctly I did so in a somewhat humourous manner by referring to "The Life of Robin". . .
:I think the whole thing comes back to the idea of tolerance and intolerance - it sounds as if it was forgotten that atheists can be just as intolerant as believers.
Who forgot? Certainly not me. The anti-religious intolerance and bigotry of Rev. Ray Drennan and rather too many other like-minded fundamentalist atheist U*Us is a serious problem on U*Uism on this side of the pond.
:So how many appeals did you go through before resorting to picketing the church in Montreal?
There were no appeals. The UUA and Unitarian Church of Montreal decided that the matter was closed very early on. I continued to write letters of grievance that were all dismissed or ignored. I was thrown out of the UCM for six months in 1997 for delivering a letter of grievance to the Board that they did not care to responsibly deal with. Upon my return I made it clear that there was still an unresolved problem. I gave the UCM several more months to do something, and when they made it clear that they would continue to do nothing to redress my serious grievances which were now aggravated by the unjust punitive expulsion, I began my peaceful public protest in front of the Unitarian Church of Montreal in May of 1998, more than two years after filing my initial complaint against Rev. Drennan.
:I'm not sure that I'd be too happy about running the gamut of a protester every time I went to church, to be honest. (I guess that's the point.)
Exactly. But Montreal U*Us have none-the-less quite "happily" ignored my legitimate protest, which one insightful U*U minister once referred to as my "alternative spiritual practice", for almost a decade now. I look forward to celebrating the tenth anniversary of my public protest against U*U injustices, abuses and hypocrisy next May.
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