Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Finding meaning in meaninglessness

I was a true believing existentialist my sophomore year in college. I devoured Sartre, Camus, all those guys who I could picture sitting in a Parisian coffee house, smoking unfiltered cigarettes, sipping thick expresso, and waving their hands animatedly as they agreed, in so many ways, that Life, it is so totally fucked! (in a French accent and with more of a literary twist to the sentiment, naturally). That's just how I felt. So I got a tremendous amount of meaning out of all the meaninglessness that I absorbed from existentialist writings. That's what held me together through some pretty…
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Posted inUncategorized

Diving off the dock of fundamentalism

Why not jump all the way in? The water of openness is so inviting. Non-dogmatic, fresh, cleansing. Why continue to just dangle feet over the dock of fundamentalism instead of leaping free and taking the plunge? Because unexamined assumptions hold us back. We non-believers actually believe in more than we're aware of. Decrying religious absolutism, we've got some absolutes of our own enshrined in our psyches. This is one of the disconcerting (but in a pleasing way, like when you're shoved off a place you didn't really want to be at) messages I've gotten from Robert Burton's "On Being Certain,"…
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Posted inScience

Knowing that you know: impossible

It's strange, but the most familiar sensation we have also is the most mysterious: knowing. I know this. And yet, I don't. Just like everything else that I know. Or you know. Or anybody knows. We don't know how we know. Which means we can't trust what we know – not with 100% certainty. So this should squash fundamentalism of every variety. Except…people can't control their knowing. Reason, facts, information, persuasion: our sense of knowing isn't influenced by any of that. Our knowing can't be trusted. Yet it's what we rely upon at every moment. Go figure. (But you can't,…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Benefits of blogging and bitching

Yesterday I got an email from a Church of the Churchless visitor who offered me some advice: It seems to me like you spend more time writing on this blogging thing than is healthy for anybody to do….We all get disillusioned with something, but we can move on or we can waste our time bitching about our disillusionment in cyberspace all day. Well, I beg to differ. I'm not in cyberspace all day. Though when our well pump stopped working this afternoon, and I had to find a way to get it fixed at the start of the Memorial Day…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Meditation – an ever present “church”

I meditated before I became a true believer. I meditated all during my faith-filled years. And I continue to meditate now that I'm in my churchless phase. For me, meditation is an opportunity to open myself up to…whatever. The motto of the X-Files (American TV show) was "The truth is out there." Also, in here: consciousness. Where you don't need anyone else – no preacher, guru, rabbi, priest – to show you the way. Nor do you need to go some place – a church, temple, mosque – to be on the way. Which might well be no way. I…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Struggling to label my belief in unbelief

Sometimes silence says more than words. Recently an old friend asked me, "Do you still consider yourself to be a satsangi?" I stared into the depths of my Starbucks latte. I started to speak, then closed my lips. The question spiraled deeper into my psyche. I waited to see if it'd hit bottom. Satsangi – I knew what my friend meant by the word. An initiated member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a mystic-religious group with headquarters in India and branches around the world. But the term is used much more broadly. Wikipedia associates it with another belief system. And…
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Posted inHumor

Believe! In witticisms about belief.

I learn a lot in the bathroom, thanks largely to Funny Times – which habitually resides in a drawer within convenient reach of my white pondering place. The May issue features quotes about belief in the Curmudgeon column (using content from "The Big Curmudgeon"). I liked these quotations, because I believe them. The others obviously are wrong, so I left them out. --------------------------- The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. – George Bernard Shaw Men become civilized, not…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Morality thrives without belief in immortality

Why would believing in life after death make us act more morally? Religions argue that if people didn't anticipate some sort of afterlife – the nature of which depends on behavior in this life – there'd be little motivation to do the right thing here on Earth. To my mind, there's an even better argument in the other direction: a belief in immortality creates an atmosphere where life as it is here and now is disrespected, disparaged, and downplayed. That's immoral. A plane crashes. There's a disaster in a coal mine. A stray bomb kills innocent children. Religious believers say…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Proof of life after death? Not yet.

If truth can't be found on Google, it must not exist. That's my cyberspace-centric view of reality. So here's the result of my hour or so of Googling the question: is there persuasive scientific evidence of life after death? Short answer: no. As some commenters (one of whom was me) on my "Life is a mystery. Afterlife, ditto" post observed, if such evidence existed, it'd be trumpeted to the heavens – plus the front pages. Now, quite a few people believe that scientists and the media are censoring evidence of life after death. Such as this guy. There are two…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Life is a mystery. Afterlife, ditto.

I like how Zen talks about the need for a "great ball of doubt." It seems like I should have enjoyed a satori by now, my doubt is so balled up. Some days more than others. This was a good doubting day. I just had an interview with my Zen master, who, conveniently, is myself (makes it easy to get appointments). He reviewed the enigmatic koans that life presented me on this Sunday, along with my responses. I think he was pleased. But I can't say for sure. That doubt thing, you know. Sundays usually follow a fairly predictable routine…
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Posted inScience

Being absolutely right, you’re wrong

You can't have "right" without "wrong." So if what you say is absolutely 100% certain, no doubt about it – that can't be true. The Taoists figured this out a long time ago. Yin requires yang. Up needs down. Truth depends on falsity. Much more recently, Karl Popper made falsifiability the cornerstone of what distinguishes a scientific theory. I echoed his ideas in "If a religion can't be wrong, it surely is." I keep coming back to this notion, because both intuitively and logically it appeals to me. Sure, something may be real, yet improvable or indescribable. Existence, for example.…
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Posted inReality

I know I’m right about uncertainty

Ooh! It feels so good to have my view of life confirmed. Today someone sent me a link to "On Being Certain," which talks about a book with the same name by Robert Burton, M.D. It's subtitle is believing you are right even when you're not. Nice! Not that it applies to me. Because I know I'm right about uncertainty. Why, I've read marvelous blog posts about this subject, each of which, I'm pleased to say, was written by me (see here, here, here, and here). And now I learn from a description of Burton's book that science shows I've…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita

Start with mystery closest to home

I've been enjoying recent Church of the Churchless comment conversations, here, here, and here (plus a few other post places). In this regard, I want to mention that I keep on telling TypePad, which hosts this blog, that they need to improve their comment features. It bugs me that only the ten most recent comments are shown on the left sidebar, and that it isn't possible for visitors to search through previous comments (I can, but others can't). TypePad assures me that they'll get around to this. Someday. Guess I need to have faith. Which brings me to a thought…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Critics are our best spiritual friends

The worst thing about belief? In one way or another, it's always unbelievable. The best thing about belief? When the unbelievable is stripped away, you're likely to be pointed toward truth. So strippers – no, not that kind (sadly) – are all-important on a spiritual journey. Without them, religious or other sorts of dogma are accepted uncritically, leaving us wandering in a maze where every path leads anywhere you believe it will. The Indian guru I began to follow in 1971, Charan Singh, was fond of saying: "Critics are our best friends." His disciples would nod, seemingly taking the words…
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Posted inPolitics

Curse the National Day of Prayer

Here on the West Coast there's still a few hours left to take part in the National Day of Prayer (May 1). My recommendation: swear at it. That's the tack one of my favorite web sites, Pharyngula, took. In the midst of a post on this ridiculous religious observance I found a well-spoken pithy piece of advice. "Fuck the National Day of Prayer." Now, that might seem a bit harsh. What's wrong with warm fuzzy prayer? Well, nothing. So long as you're into having one-sided conversations with imaginary people. But a few minutes of browsing the official web site of…
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