Home
   Weather
   Sports
   Opinion
   Obituaries
   Special Sections
   Forums
   Archive
   Search
   Front Page
   Subscription
     Services
   @ugusta Help

   City Guide
   Classifieds
   Employment
   Coupons
   Autos
   Real Estate
   Yellow Pages
   Maps
   Directions

   Applause
   Dining
   Movies
   Travel
   Television
   Lottery
   Horoscopes

   Net Music
   Quick Cooking
   Remote
   Your Health
   Fitness Files
   JobSmart
   Food & Recipes
   Newspapers
    in Education

   Xtreme
   Citizen Activist
   Augusta Golf
   Augusta
     Magazine
   Business
     Chronicle

   F.A.Q.
   Advertise
   Chronicle Staff
   Chronicle Jobs
   Internet Service

 The Chronicle welcomes you online! Please feel free to respond to these editorials or letters to the editor by sending your letters to the editor.

We condense letters; most, as published, won't exceed 300 words. A letter must include the writer's name and city, which will be published, and an address and telephone number for verification, which will not be published. Writers may be limited to one letter every 30 days. Open letters, letters to third parties and poetry are not considered. Letters from people living outside the Chronicle's circulation area usually are not considered.

Rips Universalist critics' intolerance

Web posted September 3, 2000

 Have a thought? Go to the @ugusta Forums.

Editor, The Chronicle

I'm a recently transplanted Midwesterner who wonders why I didn't come here sooner. The South is calmer, friendlier and more beautiful.

The one exception to the peace I've found on my small South Carolina farm is the intolerance I often read in The Chronicle's letters to the editor.

Even as a newcomer, I must respond to Larry Kirkland's Aug. 22 attack on the community where I have at last found a church home. In the Augusta Unitarian Universalist church I've found a spiritual presence I didn't feel in Christian churches I've attended.

There are atheists, agnostics and humanists. But there are also practicing Buddhists, Taoists and non-dogmatic Christians like me. Politically there are Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians and some independents.

Sometimes I feel surrounded by political liberals. Are they socialists? As a religious principal, UUs seek social justice for every human being regardless of their religion, race or sexual orientation. If that is socialism, then I am a socialist too, as I revere the social justice teachings of Jesus.

I have been blessed with many travel opportunities, so I'm not convinced by dogma, which implies that God sentences billions of good people to eternal damnation because they don't accept church teachings or because they were born in the wrong place or time.

I left the Christian church because I couldn't reconcile scientific fact with a combination of historical stories and myths, and I was unwilling to leave my brains out of my faith.

I've found good-hearted people everywhere have similar value systems. They believe in the community of the world and the ultimate sanctity of life. I've found the UU community advocates compassion for all people and tolerance of all wholesome beliefs, and it accepts me without telling me what ``The Truth'' is. The UU church I know is a church, temple, synagogue, cathedral and mosque, all housed in a small, simple building filled with abundant love, where all who come with open minds and loving hearts are welcome.

Pixie Keating, Aiken