Hong Kong Liberal Religious Forum

Natural faith
How Darwinian evolution has transformed liberal religion.
By William R. Murry
Spring 2009, Feb 15, 2009
UU World
http://uuworld.org/ideas/articles/128946.shtml


...In Reinventing the Sacred, scientist Stuart Kauffman suggests we "rename God, not as the Generator of the universe, but as the creativity in the natural universe itself." He regards nature's creativity as "so worthy of awe, gratitude, and respect that it is God enough for many of us. God, a fully natural God, is the very creativity in the universe." Kauffman's view is consistent with the thinking of many UUs today.

...The Humanist Manifesto of 1933, signed by fifteen Unitarian ministers and one Universalist minister, expressed the view that 'man [sic] is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process,' clearly a reference to evolution. Religious humanism today remains firmly in the Darwinian camp.

Darwinian thinking is one of the major reasons most UUs are naturalists as opposed to supernaturalists. Although few of us may be aware of it in those terms, most UUs, whether theistic or non-theistic, do not believe in the existence of a supernatural realm, and that is one of the things that makes us unique among Western religions. ...

...Darwin's idea also fosters a deeper, nature-centered spirituality by shifting the focus away from the supernatural to nature itself—its amazing fecundity and diversity and the remarkable process Darwin called natural selection and descent with modification. In a post-Darwinian world, emotions such as awe and wonder and reverence evoked by the natural world are often identified as religious emotions. A natural spirituality is the result.

...Many religious liberals feel nature's beauty to be a source of moral vigor and spiritual refreshment. Just to look at a bird or a tree and to try to imagine how it came to be and how it acquired its marvelous abilities is enough to fill one's mind with astonishment. Our connection to nature is a profound spiritual experience that evokes awe, reverence, and respect for all living things. The late Carl Sagan recognized the spiritual value of nature when he wrote: "A religion that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths."

...As a religious movement committed to "truth wherever it may be found," we Unitarian Universalists cannot help but embrace the tremendous increase in knowledge and understanding made possible by Darwin's revolutionary idea.