Sermons & Talks

by James J. Geary January 27, 2008 Good morning. The title of my talk is Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Maybe a better title would have been “Creationists Don't Give Up." I'm sure you understand that I can only touch on a few of the recent highlights of this protracted debate between evolutionists and creationists. It's been going on for nearly a century and a half. Intelligent design is just the latest effort of the creationists. UU minister Forrest Church, in a sp

Rev. Emma Chattin January 20, 2008 First Reading ~ From Isaiah 43:18, 19 “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. Second Reading From Zaid Hassan in The... Axioms of Social Change Problems are tough because they are complex in three ways. They are dynamically complex, which means that the cause and effect are far apart in spac

A Walk in the Park with Doubting Thomas: the stormy epiphany by Tom Endress December 2, 2007 During the past several months, several HUU members and attenders have talked about significant spiritual experiences in their lives. Some short, some long. I am commandeering a whole morning, possibly two, for mine because the spiritual experience I am about to describe, as best I can, occurred early in my adult life. I have spent almost a half century trying to understand that

Judith Hollowood November 25, 2007 “If we choose to let conjecture run wild, " Darwin wrote in his personal notebooks, “then animals ¦-our slaves in the most laborious works, our companions in our amusements-they may partake of our origin in one common ancestor-we may all be melted together." From these cautious early thoughts, Charles Darwin went on to develop the theory that most educated Western thinkers believe to explain the proliferation and variety of life on earth

It's All About Relationship - (The Pieces of a Puzzle) (talk given at the Harrisonburg UU October 14, 2007) by Rev. Emma Chattin “Cultivate your own relationship with God, but don't impose it on others. You're fortunate if your behavior and your belief are coherent. But if you're not sure, if you notice that you are acting in ways inconsistent with what you believe ”some days trying to impose your opinions on others, other days just trying to please them ”then you know tha

Harrisonburg Unitarian Universalists Sunday service, Sept. 30, 2007 By Robin McNallie Recently, we have seen a spate of books produced by what The Nation has dubbed “the New Atheists." These include Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion , Sam Harris's The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation , Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell , and Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great . We might also add to these Susan Jacoby's Free Thinkers , written several years ago. I must co

A sermon preached at Harrisonburg UUA, August 19, 2007 by Rev. John Irvine A perched hawk can often be seen cocking its head and looking up at the sky with one eye. It may be estimating the catchability of a bird that could serve as its lunch. More likely, it is cautiously watching another hawk flying over that might dive on it and make it lunch. When I have looked up to see what the hawk is watching, I have often been unable to spot anything up there. Yet the hawk keeps fo

Presented by Lincoln Gray July 8, 2007 This talk was presented as a part of Our Spiritual Journeys service. I am proud to be the 12th great grandson of Roger Williams (claimed as a spiritual leader by the Unitarians). I knew my great-grandmother, a Williams who married a Gray, and heard the stories. Roger was a Puritan who came to the Massachusetts Bay colony in the 1600's seeking religious freedom. He soon ran afoul of the local leaders because he believed in too much r