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Beliefs

Imagine a religion where people with different beliefs worship as one faith … Where religious inspiration comes from not one but many spiritual sources … Where there’s a home for people who simply can’t accept what they’ve always been asked to believe.

Unitarian Universalism is a faith tradition that encourages each individual to develop a personal faith. It draws from many different religions, in the belief that no one religion has all the answers and that most have something to teach us. The ultimate determination of what is sacred is found for each of us by our own direct experience.

From Judeo-Christian heritage, we take the teachings of the Bible and Jesus.
From Buddhism we take the power of meditation.
From Judaism we take the belief that working together we can achieve peace and justice.
From Native American and other earth-centered traditions we take respect for the earth and reverence for natural cycles.
From Humanism, we take the belief in reason and science.

Unitarian Universalism is a way of being religious rather than embracing a specific religious doctrine. For us, religion is an ongoing search for meaning, purpose, value and spiritual depth in one’s life. We believe that individuals are entitled to make their own search, and that not all persons are going to share the same beliefs. We believe there is wisdom and value in most all religions, but that no one religion has all the answers. We believe in an inner harmony that will lead to ethical action.

Unitarian Universalists believe individuals have the responsibility to search for and form their own beliefs, and as a result, they may believe different things. What holds UUs together is not common belief, but common experience and a common approach to life.

Unitarian Universalists use our Principles and Purposes to define our shared values and to inform our decisions and actions. We believe in the Golden Rule, loving our neighbors as ourselves, working for a better world, searching for truth with an open mind, using reason to help us explore religious ideas, and granting everyone the right to choose their own beliefs.

An excellent book about Unitarian Universalism is A Chosen Faith by John A. Buehrens and Forrest Church, Beacon Press. (Source: UUA)

Is UU Right for You?

If you believe religion should be more than a narrow statement of faith, that it should have more than one answer, and that the mystery of creation can be acknowledged without having to be named, maybe UU is right for you. To find out, you can compare your beliefs with those of Unitarian Universalists by visiting the Are You a UU? page or reading the Personal Credos of UUs past and present.

For more fun, visit Beliefnet’s Belief-O-Matic™ to test your own spiritual beliefs against those of established faiths, including UUism. Belief-O-Matic will ask you 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, etc., and then will tell you what religion (if any) your beliefs come closest to.