The idea of this article dates back maybe ten years to a sermon given at the local Unitarian-Universalist church here ins Wooster, Ohio, by the pastor, Rev. Strawn. Did you know that more people have died in the last 2,000 years because of religious differences in active religious warfare than from any other single cause? And this is despite Jesus’ wish at the Last Supper “that they all may be one.” In other words, (you know in your heart, now) we must lay aside our differences and and tolerate and accept each other, and cease trying to force everyone to believe just as one person or one church or even one denomination does, in all the doctrines and dogmas which have been put forth. We must (as Pope Francis put it a few years ago) come to know that God is patiently waiting for us to accept his love, with open arms, “NOT as people say we must be, but just as we are.” I have my own ideas about some of the more important beliefs, and teach those ideas here, put forward not as any sort of doctrine at all, but only as a sort of (hopefully informed) exploration, which however I have arrived at through 37 years of on and off study of comparitive religion. Read More …