Ask the Patriarch 147
A New Acronym?
from: Ron Joseph
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The Church's name is far to long to type out each time you mention it so I would suggest an easily identifiable acronym.
Here is my reasoning and I would hope you would see the... errrrr... light. My brother had his life and savings wiped out by Elizabeth Claire Prophet of the Church Universal & Triumphant (Acronym- CUT).
I have dedicated my life to evening out the score in a hopefully humanistic and enlightened way, Just knowing that the 'ascended master' herself is in a care home in Bozeman Mont. suffering from advanced Alzheimer's is almost enough, however not quite, but I almost digress, sort of.
If we used the Acronym, UNCUT it would be sort of fitting. The UNiversal Church Triumphant etc, get it??? Wow, I think I may have hit on something here, perhaps don't you think? Anyway, maybe this can be a discussion topic or you can just officially adopt the acronym (with suitable credits of course).
I am in the process of joining the discussion group and any other affiliations of UNCUT (please forgive me if I force the use of the acronym, but see how easy it is to just slip in?).
Yours, your loyal acolyte and reverend,
Ron Joseph
The Patriarch replies:
Ron:
I understand why a person might be strongly opposed to an organization such as CUT and might look for ways to expand the opposition. However, I am not prepared to go with UNCUT as a formal acronym for The Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic
This summer, I just invested in a vanity plate containing our long standing and well established acronym UCTAA which I currently sport proudly on my car.
Also, I recently obtained uctaa.net and uctaa.com to go along with uctaa.org, the latter of which was our original URL and now hosts the discussion group.
To switch acronyms now would be a costly process, not to mention the time it would take to establish a connection with the new acronym.
Further, the equivalent three UNCUT domain names are not currently available. Also, if I was to drive around with UNCUT as my licence plate, people would be more likely to assume I was an uncircumcised[1] gay porn star (not that there's anything wrong with that) than to think I was making a statement about the Church Universal and Triumphant, or about agnosticism.
In any event, while Prophet's operation may have had a subliminal impact on the name I chose for the Church, being against CUT[2] is not the primary focus. AA for Apathetic Agnosticism appears nowhere in your acronym.
I regard our clergy, once ordained, as independent agents who are free to promote the cause in whatever reasonable way they see fit. I have no objection to you (or anyone else) using UNCUT as an acronym for your own agnostic ministry.
Footnotes:
- By the way, this is an issue on which I recently have changed my mind. On the Clergy Resource site (and possibly somewhere on this site) I have stated I am opposed to the circumcision of baby boys. Recent studies have shown that male circumcision may aid in inhibiting the transmission of AIDS. Accordingly, I think it may be a reasonable decision for parents to arrange for the medical circumcision under local anaesthetic of a newborn son.
- Interestingly, under the existing acronym, I get the occasional request to join the UCTAA group on yahoo from individuals thinking the group is either a CUT group or an anti-CUT group.