Mar 26, 2010 -- 10:00PM, Wolfhoundgrowl wrote:

How many of us agnostics are religious in some way?

I'm Quakerly

Gun to my head and forced to subscribe to a religion, I'd pick the Unitarian Universalists.  Unless I was allowed to get away with claiming to be a Pagan.  Otherwise, they all have too much supernatural going on for me to feel any sense of affinity.

Quakers, or the Society of Friends, have a unique doctrine of the Inner Light.  They believe that one should follow one's convictions, which are every bit as important as scripture.

With respect to the Native Americans and Manifest Destiny, Quakers are associated with the state of Pennsylvania, a former colony granted to William Penn, a well-to-do Quaker who was concerned that Quakers were getting mistreated in New Jersey.  The king gave him the land behind New Jersey, which was the only colony in Colonial America that didn't have direct access to the sea.  Penn's Woods, as the name suggests, put Quakers into direct contact with the Native Americans, who could have slaughtered them had they not had great respect for these odd white people who taught each other to live in harmony, both with nature and with each other.  The Quaker refusal to go to war, especially with the Native Americans, was one reason the colony was later taken over, in terms of leadership, by non-Quakers.  Pennsylvania did, however, prove to be an unusually open society with tremendous religious diversity for the time.  In addition to Quakers, it became home of the German Baptists - which included Mennonites and the Amish - as well as Jews.

Mar 31, 2010 -- 7:08PM, Myownpath wrote:

I visited a Quaker church and attended a "meeting." I do not see how anyone agnostic or atheist could be a Quaker. Unitarian yes.

I've never attended a Quaker meeting.  My "easy pass" for these guys is based on things I've read about them.  They seem like nice people.  I don't know how an atheist or agnostic would want to be a Quaker - unless they were so fond of the people or the style of worship were worth being counted among a group of lovable theists.  The Quakers have a reputation as being extraordinarily nonjudgmental, relative to other Christians.  These people don't believe in any human authority.  They don't even believe that scripture trumps personal conviction.  The inner light is a religious concept but it's so generic I could see it secularized.  Quakers were early abolitionists.  Quakers were also historically among the first to fight for the rights of gays.  Quakers don't believe in war or in capital punishment.  These are an easy group of people to get along with, so it doesn't surprise me that they've come to the attention of any atheist or agnostic.  I don't think Quaker beliefs are completely compatible with atheism or agnosticism, but I think Quakers are probably compatible with skeptics.  Certainly, the best fit is with Unitarians, another group I'd like to visit, if just to squeeze some flesh among nice people.