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My values:

Brief reflections on each of the seven principles taken from the statements of various UU ministers in The Seven Principles in Word and Worship (ed. Ellen Brandenburg) add a greater understanding of their depth.

1. “Reverence and respect for human nature is at the core of Unitarian Universalist faith. We believe that all the dimensions of our being carry the potential to do good.”
2. “Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations points us toward …. the larger community. It gets at collective responsibility. It reminds us that treating people as human beings is not simply something we do one-on-one, but something that has systemic implications and can inform our entire cultural way of being.”
3. “Spiritual growth isn’t about a vertical ascent to heaven but about growth in every dimension at once. It’s spirituality in 3-D.”
4. “As responsible religious seekers, we recognize that we are privileged to be free, to have resources to pursue life beyond mere survival, to continually search for truth and meaning, to exist beyond bonds of dogma and oppression, and to wrestle freely with truth and meaning as they evolve.”
5. “In our religious lives, the democratic process requires trust in the development of each individual conscience — a belief that such development is possible for each of us, as well as a commitment to cultivate our own conscience.”
6. “I want us to believe — and to live as if we believe — that a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all is possible.”
7. “Our seventh Principle may be our Unitarian Universalist way of coming to fully embrace something greater than ourselves. The interdependent web — expressed as the spirit of life, the ground of all being, the oneness of all existence, the community-forming power, the process of life, the creative force, even God — can help us develop that social understanding of ourselves that we and our culture so desperately need. It is a source of meaning to which we can dedicate our lives.”

I agree that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or belief in a deity. It does not, however, assume that humans are either inherently good or evil, nor does it present humans as being superior to nature. Rather, the humanist life stance that I emphasize is the unique responsibility facing humanity and the ethical consequences of human decisions. Fundamental to the concept of secular humanism that know to be true is the strongly held viewpoint that ideology—be it religious or political—must be thoroughly examined by each individual and not simply accepted or rejected on faith. I am a secular Unitarian Universalist.

I am a Humanist Unitarian Universalist (https://americanhumanist.org/paths/unitarianism/) and I am also a Buddhist Unitarian Universalist (https://americanhumanist.org/paths/buddhism/.)

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