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This is the talk given by the Eric Stevenson on the 11th March, 2012.

Last Sunday after Fellowship, Davey, Colin and I had an important conversation with a visitor looking for a religious sea change. He had submitted his world view to the Religious Preference web site and Unitarian came up for his recommended religion of choice. But he could not see what it was in a religion without doctrines and dogmas that would sustain his private search for, and practice of a post modern spirituality. We looked to Davey who has been a Unitarian since birth in his big UU congregation in the States. Davey’s answer was definitive! The Unitarian commitment to the life changes involved in progressive religious thought is not only a private one. It is shared It is the sharing that makes us tick.

But there is something else that draws Aussie Unitarians together. I suspect that most Australian Unitarians (and some American ones I know!) are not dyed–in-the-wool like Davey. Most of us have had the experience of leaving a traditional congregation for a free thinking one, or at least of having changed from the doctrinaire religious belief in which they were brain washed. We have left that world behind and all now embrace the name “Spirit of
Life”. What does that imply? As we have stated in our Opening Words this automatically commits us to a living, developing, growing, evolving and consequently changing spiritual journey. That is why I felt so at home when I came here. I was in the process of leaving a congregation in which the Spirit was old and grey. If it wasn’t already dead it was dying! The doctrinal system was a closed book. An exploration of a divergent world view was a no-no!
The raising of doubt about authoritarian beliefs was a no-no. How then did we arrived here?

To read the complete talk, click here.

This is the talk given by the Rev. Steve Wilson on the 22nd of January, 2012.

Is there really religion beyond faith, and if so what?
Is faith in God/a Goddess, Jesus or something similar, …something bigger,… essential for an effective, practical, valuable, contemporary religious/spiritual life?  Is belief in something bigger… essential to religion? Honestly, seriously, is some leap of faith required?  And what does it look like when you don’t feel like you can?
It is a great question. And I ask it because we as humans –here in the 21st Century-knowing all that we now know, and all that we don’t know…have never been in this position before.  And I ask it, because it is our question to train and churn on.  It is …. OUR  question to get right. I ask it because we can’t save religion from itself, and irrelevancy unless we address this question honestly and well.

To read the complete talk, click here.

An Abridged Version of an Address Delivered at The Spirit of Life Unitarian Fellowship  on the 4th  December 2011.
By The Rev. Dr Ian Ellis-Jones

‘Everything arises from the mind.’
– Buddha Shakyamuni.

The great esotericist Manly Palmer Hall once wrote, ‘In Buddhism we have what is probably the oldest and most perfectly integrated system of what we now call psychology.’ I think Hall is right. Certainly, there were others before Buddha Shakyamuni whose teachings were psychological in nature, but I don’t know of any other person before the Buddha who had expounded such a clear, coherent, logical and empirically-based set of psychological principles and techniques.

Yes, first and foremost, Buddhism is applied psychology, the aim of which, in the words of the Venerable Ajahn Chah, is to ‘cure disease of the mind.’ The Venerable Narada Maha Thera said something similar when he described Buddhism as ‘a system of deliverance from the ills of life.’ Alan Watts saw Buddhism as ‘something more nearly resembling psychotherapy,’ as opposed to its being a religion or philosophy ‘as these [terms] are understood in the West.’

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(Presentation for the service on Sunday 20th  November, 2011 by Eric Stevenson.)

Our  mission therefore is so to live in hope that life, being finely tuned, will always be recognisable and valued and demonstrable among us. We are inspired by the hope that it will always be possible for us and our friends to passionately foster an enhanced sense of reverence for and admiration of all life and to promote it and live it to the full.  Our challenge, despite the threat of depression and disillusionment is to spend ourselves in preserving, cultivating, loving  and celebrating it within ourselves and all of nature.

Click here to read the full text,

Gordon Livingstone MD on Hope in “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart” Hachette Press, 2004
“As we contemplate the inevitable losses that we have had to integrate into our lives, the way we grieve, and the meaning that we assign to our experience determine how we face the future. The challenge is to remain hopeful.
Many people choose a religious basis for their hope.  The idea that we live under the guiding hand of a merciful God and are promised life everlasting is a great comfort that answers for many believers the universal question, and shortest poem of human existence: “I, why?”  Religion also provides a way of dealing with the uncertainty and apparent randomness of serious loss since it ascribes purpose to all human events and we are relieved of the burden of understanding by a simple acknowledgement that God’s ways are both inscrutable and ultimately benign.
Those like me, unable or unwilling to relinquish our scepticism about easy answers to large questions, are left with the difficult task of living with uncertainty.  Not for us is the comfort of religious formulations.  Instead we must struggle to establish some basis for meaning for our lives that does not depend on a belief in a system that requires continual worship of a deity that created us and gave us a set of instructions, which, if followed will defeat the death that is our common fate.“
Albert Schweitzer says, “Life in all its forms is sacred.  It is therefore to be revered and respected, not just in ourselves but in all living things.  This right thinking about life leads to reverence for life, which leads to responsibility for life, which equates with active love and devotion towards life.  That being so, my valuing of life becomes the ground for determining what is the best good. i.e. the best good is everything I do which contributes to the furtherance and fullest development of life in all its forms.
Michael Duffy in News Review SMH August 20/21, 2011, IN TRUTH WE’RE NATURAL BORN LIARS….If it were true religious belief is a product of evolution this could explain several features of modern life.  One is the apparent rise of mental illness, including depression.  David Tacey (in God’s and Diseases, Harper Collins} suggests the loss of religious belief is responsible for the rise in these problems.  …..We turn our backs on it (religious surrender) at our peril.  e.g the idea of the after life, so important in many religions.  If “the mind is unable to affirm any such life , we end up in a stalemate which is a source of neurosis in modern times.”  Duffy concludes, A crude secular version might go like this ; on the one hand our heads, thanks to modernity tell us there is no god,; on the other our hearts,thanks to evolution  insist we believe in god.   Some of us find no difficulty making a choice, and go with head or heart even if for some atheists the choice is a bleak one.  But others of us cannot make a choice.  .. Our minds tell us our heart is lying but the lie refuses to leave us.

Caroline Jones, “An Authentic Life”
“The choice is ours.  If we want to live life to the full, we must find some context for suffering and as constructive way to deal with it.  We need a reservoir of reason and courage to accompany us on our trials.  Whichever ….. philosophy of life we choose to be our guiding light needs to have the integrity to carry us through…..with a sense of hope.“