Varieties of Belief in the Religious Naturalism Big Tent Religious Naturalism is a pluralistic paradigm as it is multifaceted. It contains, as most beliefs do, a diversity of opinions. In doing so it is a very tolerant ‘Big Tent’ concept. Its adherents maintain an autonomous participation in the development of their common community of thought. It is neither dogma nor authoritarian. RN is more cosmopolitan than most beliefs due to its tolerance for concepts about deity. These range from a naturalistic concept of God to a soft atheism. The mid-point of this spectrum of belief is a non-theistic stance akin to agnosticism. Loyal Rue, two time Templeton award winner and author, writes that the central core and unifying commonality of Religious Naturalism is “Nature is the sacred object of humanity’s ultimate concern” – Nature being the Universe, life, the whole shebang of Existence. non-theistic RN This middle ground sector of RN approaches the concept of God as an unanswerable question. Thus there is no reason even to dwell on it. An enormous amount of human thought has been spent over thousands of years on trying to answer the question - Is there a God or is there not? No universally accepted truth, one way or the other, has materialized, so why waste more time. A person can live their life without answering this arguable question. Sure, there is an uncertainty in doing this, but objectively, life is an uncertainty. Masking this uncertainty with a god concept comforts some people. Some however find this an undesirable self-deception and accept the unknowing as one of the attributes of a vast, mysterious Universe. It becomes part of the spirituality they see in it. This acceptance of uncertainty may in time become the key distinct attribute of Religious Naturalism. Most religions try to eliminate not knowing. People generally desire dogmatic certainty, unchanging doctrine. They seek a frozen truth rather than see it as being relative, evolving and emergent. Uncertainty on the other hand for many is exhilarating, sparking their curiosity, making the future more interesting. And it is more honest. It is as things are. Authors who can probably be considered non-theistic are Ursula Goodenough, Donald Crosby, Willem Drees, Jerome Stone, Chet Raymo and Loyal Rue. neo-Theistic RN One sector of Religious Naturalism contains those who maintain a god concept of some kind. Or they may simply use god language to express their feelings about what is. Many of these people have evolved out of traditional religious beliefs and may still be active in churches of various denominations. Most of them can be called religious liberals and definitely not fundamentalists. Their god concept is a naturalistic one. That is, their concept of deity is not supernatural as most god concepts are. What ever they see as God, must be in or of this world. They may conceive of God as the creative process within the universe (Gordon Kaufman – God as Creativity, Paul Tillich, Ralph Burhoe, Karl Peters). Or they may think of God as the totality of the universe (Spinoza). Modern pantheists such as Einstein and Carl Sagan could be placed here. Some current process theologians may also be members of this sector. not-Theistic RN  Those in this sector of Religious Naturalism are atheistic (a soft atheism - not combative). They deny a concept of God in any form or by any definition. Never the less, they admit to a strong personal spirituality. There are aspects of the world that they consider sacred worth of reverence and respect. They have a religious feeling for morality and love for the environment. They perceive the same awe, wonder and mystery in the natural world that other RNs do. The French philosopher Andre Conte-Spoonville in his Little Book of Atheistic Spirituality expresses a godless spirituality as grand and noble as any theistic one. Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism, neither of which are theistic, also have rich spiritualities. Such spiritualities qualify a person to legitimately call themselves religious. Other sectors of RN The sectors above are categorized by their position on the God question. There are others ways to differentiate them. Jerome Stone classifies them by groups of people using their position on God by a different but similar criteria than above. Other ways are by what they consider sacred, by communities or by culture. In recent years some church or synagogue congregations have adopted a Religious Naturalist approach. Reconstructionist Jews and some local Unitarian Universalists churches are examples. To these perhaps may be added the Fellowship of Religious Humanists and some individual Quakers. Some of the tenets of Progressive Christianity are very similar to those of Religious Naturalism. A question – can such diversity prevail? American culture is going out of an era of individualism. Some thinking now questions if this fills the human genetic prescription. Humanity has survived due to its social fabric of unity - family, town, state and country. The autonomous individual must now give way to the congregational man to preserve these unities. This site believes RN can prevail as long as it keeps its tolerant pluralistic backbone and respect for the self-contained individual. That it continues to blend personal wholeness and well being with social coherence and tranquility that are imperatives for any sustainable religious tradition. The evolution of RN has been due to the emergence of flexible minds. A fluid mind flows easily everywhere and to the lowest spot. It is easily manipulated. On the other extreme, the rigid mind is narrow and frozen in place. It will not consider or accept contrary opinions or changes. It results in fundamentalism. The flexible mind advocates a moderate outlook that sits between these two. People with flexible minds have clear, well thought out positions but also open minds. They are capable of changing their minds when given good reason to do so. They do not take themselves too seriously and can laugh at themselves. Dogmatic people cannot easily do these things. Change does not represent a treat to a flexible mind (Susana de Castro). Mind growth is a more exhilarating way of living than frozen in place with dogma, tradition and authoritarian pulpits. To succeed in the years ahead, Religious Naturalism will need to continue to cultivate flexible minds in autonomous individuals (theme of the 2009 IRAS conference). It must maintain its pluralism and promote rationality with feelings. It should form communities that are elastic and tolerant. It must be a player rather than a spectator working to minimize the human population that is exceeding the carrying capacity of the Earth. Loyal Rue in Religion is not about God says religion is about controlling human nature. If this be the case, then the beliefs of Religious Naturalists are indeed religion as they are big on managing their moral and ecological behavior.