Posted inScience

Science-bashers, read this before you comment

Yeah, I admit it: I"ve been getting a bit testy lately, blog-wise. (Summer-wise, life is great, what with a new camera and scooter to play with in the Oregon sunshine.)If you read through some of the exchanges between Phil and me on my "Who cares if God exists?" post, you'll find a touch (well, maybe a slam) of irritation in my comments on Phil's comments.You see, what gripes my churchless non-soul as much as anything is when science-bashers resort to spurious, irrational, shape-shifting arguments that can briefly sound good on the surface, but quickly break apart into Huh? fragments of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Faith — the embrace of mystery

"Faith." We use this word so often. Yet most of us haven't given much thought to what it means. I enjoyed browsing through a bunch of definitions of faith submitted by commenters to a New York Times online piece.This is the first submission.The suspension of reason and rationality for a dream.This is the second submission.Faith is knowing something should be true, being certain it is, and having no insight into one’s collisions with reality.Reality is wrong. Other people are wrong. Why can’t they see what I see? It’s all about failures to re-interpret one’s original misinterpretation of experience. Faith is…
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Posted inGod

Who cares if God exists?

Over on my "Nature is real, religion is illusion" post, today Phil asked a good question in a comment:Ending on a question note, would anyone on this blog significantly change the way they lived their lives, if it became proven, without shadow of doubt, that God existed? (or for that matter, proven without shadow of doubt that a God of any form did NOT exist?)I've been pondering along some similar lines recently, so was primed to offer up some answers. But first, the question needs quite a bit of work -- as others already have noted in their own comment…
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Posted inReligions

Faith-healing parents let child die: religion is guilty

Here's a passionate answer to those who ask, "What's wrong with letting religious people believe anything they want?"Because innocent children die! Religion is dangerous! It makes people act like idiots!Case closed. Religion is guilty.But there still will be a trial here in Oregon, where prosecutors have charged Carl and Raylene Worthington with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month old daughter, Ava.I hope they punish these horrible parents as harshly as the law allows. Which is more than six years in prison. Not enough, but hopefully that will discourage other religious fundamentalists from forcing innocent children to…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

Tai Chi vs. Shabd Yoga — I name a winner

I love questions. Especially those I can answer. Here's one that Todd Chambers asked me a few days ago via a comment on a post about giving up Buddhism and Zen.So Brian, on the subject of Tai Chi, I wanted to ask you if you could say which practice has seemed more rewarding for you: Shabda Yoga or Tai Chi? Or do you have a preference?Interesting question. I diligently practiced the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of Surat Shabd Yoga (a.k.a. Sant Mat) for over thirty years, including a whole lot of daily meditation. And for about five years I've…
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Posted inReality

Nature is real, religion is illusion

Here's one big change that churchlessness has produced in me: I no longer believe that this world -- where all of us are living now -- somehow is less real than an unseen theoretical heaven or higher realm of the cosmos.In fact, it's hard for me to accept that I ever believed this, because it doesn't make any sense. What would make someone turn away from what is right in front of them and try to embrace something imaginary that has no demonstrable evidence of its existence? Short answer: religion.Or, some sort of mental illness. In either case, the nature-denier…
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Posted inScience

No psychic abilities found in Twitter study

Darn, I was hoping that my occasional Twittering had some cosmic significance. But an article in New Scientist, "First Twitter experiment probes belief in the paranormal," describes a study that showed a lack of metaphysical ability among 7000 people who signed up for a scientific use of Twitter.The formal part of the study, which took place over four days, tested both whether the group as a whole was psychic and whether believers outperformed disbelievers. On each day I travelled to a randomly selected location and asked everyone to send tweets describing their thoughts and impressions about the location. In the…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Punjab “deras” point to continuing caste tensions

A friend, Randy, sent me a link to an article about "Deras, Caste Conflicts and Recent Violence in Punjab." It's interesting. Twice I've visited Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in the Punjab area of India. It's the headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an organization that practices a form of neo-Sikhism. Meaning, a living guru is worshipped, not the Adi Granth Sahib, a book (which traditional Sikhs revere in somewhat the same sense as Christians look upon the Bible, as God's word).I wasn't aware how many "deras" there are in the Punjab. The article says:In Punjab, the number of Deras are…
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Posted inBuddhism

Where Buddhism & science coincide — and divide

As noted before, I used to be a lot more attracted to Buddhism than I am now. My churchless scientific leanings cause me to shy away from faith-based religiosity, and I've learned that while Buddhism talks a pretty good "spiritual science" game, the actual playing is lacking.Owen Flanagan, a philosopher, explains why in his "The Really Hard Problem," a book I'm enjoying.The really hard problem is how meaning is possible in the material world. To me it's obvious how this is done: each of us makes our own meaning, right here and right now. No metaphysics required.However, religions want us…
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Posted inScience

Subjectivity is the experience of objectivity

Wow, this post title runs the risk of winning a blogosphere Yawn! award. But hang in there, reader -- this subject of subjectivity and objectivity actually is darn interesting.And as intimate to you and me as what we're doing at this very moment. Which, in my case, includes sipping coffee from a yellow cup and watching the letters I type on my laptop's keyboard appear on the screen. I'm experiencing those things, along with much more -- such as hearing my wife open a desk drawer and shuffle through some papers. Now, there seems to be a big difference between…
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Posted inBuddhism

On giving up Buddhism and Zen

My churchlessness must be heading into even deeper irreligious territory, because lately I've been enjoying criticisms of some minimally churchy spiritual systems -- such as Buddhism -- that I used to identify with.The problem I'm having with Buddhism is that it really doesn't deliver on the promise I often have heard from Buddhists: "You don't need to believe anything; just study your own mind and observe what is experienced in meditation."Well, that sounds good. But actually there's a pretty extensive list of preconceptions in this supposedly conceptionless faith.Reincarnation or rebirth. Karma. Non-existence of the self. The four noble truths (including…
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Posted inReality

Searching for the reality in nonduality

I've been enjoying a comment conversation that's been happening on my "Mind in the Balance" post. The basic theme is whether nondualism is just another belief system, like any other philosophy or religion, or a genuinely unique direct realization of reality.Might as well throw some of my own ideas into the discussion stew. First off, though, I've got to admit that while I understand the notion of "dualism" pretty well, "nondualism" has never lodged in a comprehension niche within my mind.Of course, nondualists like Ramana and Nisargadatta -- whose teachings I'm familiar with via a number of books I've read…
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Posted inReligions

Letting go completely of religion…tough to do

When I showed my wife, Laurel, what book I'd bought at the wonderful Paulina Springs Book Company in Sisters, Oregon, she said, "Gosh, you've become as enthusiastic a believer in atheism as you were a believer in what you believed before."Well, that's a lot of "beliefs" in one sentence. And I have to disagree with one of them, because I don't consider that I believe in atheism.Rather, to me atheism is the default position that everyone should accept, absent demonstrable evidence for theism. It is the absence of a belief in God, just as aunicornism is what we could term…
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Posted inReality

Meaning of life is made, not discovered

I love books that lead me to look upon something familiar in a fresh way. Like, life's meaning. I've spent a lot of time pondering the meaning of life. And, searching for it.Now that I've read about half of Eric Maisel's "The Atheist's Way" (highly recommended), I realize that my pondering is on the right track. The searching, not so much. In fact, Maisel has done a good job of convincing me that viewing the meaning of one's life as something to be discovered leads nowhere. Unless you want to adopt someone else's values, rather than your own.Before you can…
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Posted inBuddhism

“Mind in the Balance” unfairly slams science

Bummer. I thought I was going to enjoy B. Alan Wallace's "Mind in the Balance," since the subtitle points to an intriguing subject: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity.But the book turned out to be a disappointment, largely because Wallace is disturbingly anti-science and pro-religion, which shows that Buddhists can believe with blind faith in weird stuff just as other religious fundamentalists do.Right away I saw inklings of this. A sentence on page 1 had me nodding agreeably with Wallace:What's been hidden is meditation's role as a precision tool for exploring consciousness and the universe scientifically -- that is, using…
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