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This is a talk given on the 22nd April, 2012 by Rex A E Hunt, who is a retired Uniting Church minister, Founding director of The Centre for Progressive Religious Thought, and Chair, Common Dreams Conference for Religious Progressives.

It was Christmas Eve in December 1968. Apollo 8 was orbiting the moon, the American astronauts busy photographing possible landing sites for the missions that would follow.

On the fourth orbit, Commander Frank Borman decided to roll the craft away from the moon and tilt its windows toward the horizon – he needed a navigational fix.  What he got, instead, was a sudden view of the earth, rising.  “Oh my God,” he said.  “Here’s the earth coming up.”  Crew member Bill Anders grabbed a camera and took the photograph that became the iconic image perhaps of all time” (McKibben 2010:2)

The space agency NASA gave the image the code name AS8-14-2383, but we now know it as “Earthrise”, a picture “of a blue-and-white marble floating amid the vast backdrop of space, set against the barren edge of the lifeless moon” (McKibben 2010:2). This image, along with another of Earth from space, called “Blue Marble”, and taken by crew on board Apollo 17 four years later, has appeared in TV mini-series, scientific publications and school text books, on greeting cards, a postage stamp, and advertising posters, not to mention having their own pages on Wikipedia!

As the other Apollo 8 Crew member, Jim Lovell, put it: “the earth… suddenly appeared as ‘a grand oasis’” (McKibben 2010:2).
But author and environmental activist Bill McKibben has pointed out: “…we no longer live on that planet” (McKibben 2010:2).

To read his thought-provoking talk, click here.

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.’

To read the talk, click here.

(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,