The point of UU is to have certain differences from traditional religion. UU encourages questioning traditional religion, but it discourages questioning of UU’s own positions.
EA encourages questioning of EA’s principles. I could get hundreds of upvotes by writing a post about why ITN is a bad framework and should be ditched, whereas you’d get tarred and feathered for suggesting that a UU congregation should drop one of their seven principles.
I didn’t knew about the seven principles of UU. Apparently those are:
1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Those seem quite a bit more fundamental than the ITN framework is for EA, and I’m sure there are more fundamental principles of EA that you would in fact get the same reaction if you said they should be ditched. (In fact, they would probably be basically the same ones?)
I agree there is some overlap between these principles and EA principles. But I still think the EAs are more willing to debate them. For instance, the first implies torture is never justified (and this is a common view in UU), but some EAs will debate the cases where it could be justified. Also, maximizing utility does not necessarily push you to justice and equity. Spiritual growth does not apply to most of EA. And EAs generally question environmental/biodiversity principles.
I very much expect a speaker at an EA conference talking about the benefits of torture would be quickly shown the door. More to the point, this goes double for a speaker saying EAs should ditch the “doing good impartially based on reason and evidence” thing and instead pick a Great Leader to never criticize and embark on a crusade to genocide the inferior races.
The point of UU is to have certain differences from traditional religion. UU encourages questioning traditional religion, but it discourages questioning of UU’s own positions.
EA encourages questioning of EA’s principles. I could get hundreds of upvotes by writing a post about why ITN is a bad framework and should be ditched, whereas you’d get tarred and feathered for suggesting that a UU congregation should drop one of their seven principles.
I didn’t knew about the seven principles of UU. Apparently those are:
1st Principle: The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
2nd Principle: Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
3rd Principle: Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
4th Principle: A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
5th Principle: The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
6th Principle: The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
7th Principle: Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.
Those seem quite a bit more fundamental than the ITN framework is for EA, and I’m sure there are more fundamental principles of EA that you would in fact get the same reaction if you said they should be ditched. (In fact, they would probably be basically the same ones?)
I agree there is some overlap between these principles and EA principles. But I still think the EAs are more willing to debate them. For instance, the first implies torture is never justified (and this is a common view in UU), but some EAs will debate the cases where it could be justified. Also, maximizing utility does not necessarily push you to justice and equity. Spiritual growth does not apply to most of EA. And EAs generally question environmental/biodiversity principles.
I very much expect a speaker at an EA conference talking about the benefits of torture would be quickly shown the door. More to the point, this goes double for a speaker saying EAs should ditch the “doing good impartially based on reason and evidence” thing and instead pick a Great Leader to never criticize and embark on a crusade to genocide the inferior races.