Groups

  • Unitarian Community
    Name:
    Unitarian Community
    Status: Member
    Description: A meeting place where all who worship the One God will feel welcomed and loved. Many draw a circle to shut us out; We are called Heretics, rebels, outcasts, and more. The Unitarian Community though has the wit to know; We'll draw a circle to take them in. It does not matter whether you affirm or deny, the One is still the One. We have Faith that the ONE is for All of Us
  • Evolving Church
    Name:
    Evolving Church
    Status: Member
    Description: Where the emerging church comes to terms with evolving knowledge! Where post-modernism grows up to tackle pre-futurism. This group is interested in the reassessemt of Christian influence & culture from a post-christian stand-point to give us a post-Christian and post-theistic naturalist framework upon which to build our bridges to the future without simply forgetting our past....This group is 'Beliefnet Evolving Church.'
  • Mysticism in World Religions
    Name:
    Mysticism in World Religions
    Status: Member
    Description: Every religion is made up of two wings, the orthodoxy and mysticism. The word orthodox from the Greek means “having the right opinion” from orthos = right, true or staight, and doxa =opinion, praise, related to dokein which means thinking. Accordingly the word orthodoxy typically means adhering to the accepted or traditional and established faith, especially in religion. The word mysticism (from the Greek mystikos, an initiate of a mystry religion). This initiate is in the pursuit of communion with, identity with or conscious awareness of an ultimate Reality, Divinity, Spiritual Truth or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture that experience or awareness. Mystic traditions generally form sub-currents within larger religious traditions - such as Kabbalah within Judaism , Sufism, within Islam, Vedanta within Hinduism, Christian mysticism within Christianity, Zen (Ch’an) within mainstream Buddhism and Taoism. The term '"mysticism'" is used to refer to beliefs and practices which go beyond the liturgical and devotional forms of worship of mainstream faith, often by seeking out inner or esoteric meanings of conventional religious doctrine. For example, Kabbalah (based in Judaism) seeks out deeper interpretations of the Torah, Sufism (in Islam) extends and amplifies the teachings of the Quran in the spirit of universal love, Vedanta reaches for the inner teachings of Hindu philosophy encapsulated in the Vedas. Mystics hold that there is a deeper or more fundamental state of existence beneath the observable, day-to day world of phenomena, and that in fact the ordinary world is superficial or epiphenomenal. This group, is for the mystics from every religion in order to reach this One and Universal fundamental state of existence in All the religions of the World.
  • Beliefnet Circle of Reason
    Name:
    Beliefnet Circle of Reason
    Category: General Discussion
    Status: Member
    Description: Beliefnet Circle of Reason (BCOR) is a virtual "local circle" of The Circle of Reason (www.circleofreason.org) -- a fellowship of the religious and non-religious who believe communal commitment to reason will transform the world. We are a truly ecumenical site to find, recruit, converse with and encourage -- from all walks of life, all biologies, all beliefs, all societies -- those who are your own kinsmen and kinswomen - the reasoning kind!