Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Without the Adam and Eve myth, there’s no basis for believing in Jesus

I don't feel like I'm any sort of expert about Christianity, since I've never been very interested in this religion. No religion appeals to me now, but in the past I've been drawn more to Eastern mystical varieties than Western theistic types. Still, reading evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne's new book, "Faith Versus Fact," today, I was surprised by how ignorant I've been of a basic Christian fact: Without the Adam and Eve myth, there's no basis for believing in Jesus Since the whole notion of Adam and Eve is impossible to accept, this means the same is true of the…
34
Posted inFundamentalism

Religious fundamentalists kill bloggers and other secular activists

There are plenty of reasons to reject religion. A big one is that fundamentalism makes people so crazy, they not only want to kill people who criticize religiosity, sometimes they actually do kill them.  Below is a piece by Sanal Edamaruku that I came across in New Scientist. Ananta Bijoy Das likely was killed by Muslim extremists. Edamaruku also writes about other secular activists who were killed by Hindu extremists. He himself was threatened by Christian extremists.  It isn't just one religion that produces murderous true believers. They all do. Lesson: stay away from religion.  Here's the opinion piece by…
5
Posted inBooks God

Five criteria for a “God theory” that religions fail

Science rocks. Religion sucks.  I'm only a few chapters into a new book by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, "Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible." But it's pretty darn clear that those four words are a good summary of his thesis. Which I totally agree with.  Coyne has no patience for accommodationists who believe that science and religion are somehow complementary, offering up different ways of understanding the cosmos that, when combined, produce more knowledge than either science can alone. In a summary of what the book is about, Coyne writes: I also take up the notion of…
18
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Agnosticism: knowledge comes via experience and evidence

I came across the Spiritual Naturalism web site a few years ago, then blogged about it in "Spiritual Naturalism appeals to my churchless non-soul." Their definitions of "naturalism" and "spirituality" rang true to me. Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which we can observe or directly conclude from observations. Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding.  As for claims for which we have no evidence, we do not hold any beliefs in these and do not make any other claims about them. It is quite possible, even…
3
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Praise no-God: Andrew Cohen has been revealed as a fraud

It's always a pleasure to see a "guru" revealed as a flawed human being. This has finally happened to Andrew Cohen, who for a long time played pretend-guru along with Ken Wilber.  David Lane has written an interesting piece about Cohen's much-deserved downfall, "The Liberation of Andrew Cohen: How Devoted Disciples Can Enlighten Their Guru." (By enlighten, Lane means "bringing to light," as noted in a comment.) Andrew Cohen didn’t resign on his own terms, nor did he come to the realization that he was a lousy master who created more harm than good. More remarkably, it was Cohen’s devoted…
5
Posted inPersonal/Stories

Yah, man! I’m featured in the Jamaica Gleaner

A couple of firsts for me today: first time I've used Yah, man in a blog post, and first time I've read a piece about me in the Jamaica Gleaner.  Thank you, Glenville Ashby for making both possible.  Dr. Ashby is a columnist for the Gleaner who came across my Church of the Churchless blog somehow or other (i've forgotten the how that he told me).  He got in touch with me by email. Then, a few weeks ago, we talked by phone about my religious past and non-religious present.  Here's a link to the Gleaner story, "Church of the…
8
Posted inReligions Science Universe

Given size of the universe, is creation really all about us?

Religious belief involves lots of absurdities. For me, one of the biggest ones is the assumption that humans are the Big Deal of the universe.  Whether it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or some other major religion, theologies differ about how people are special in the eye of God, Brahman, or whatever, but they agree that members of a recently evolved species on Earth, Homo sapiens, occupy a central place in the cosmic scheme of things. This is really difficult for me to accept for various reasons. One is our modern understanding of the size of the universe. Consider... (1) Light…
3
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Abandon all hope… and be more active

It's rare to view hope as something to be discarded rather than embraced. Don't we need hope? Isn't hope what keeps us going through tough times, with its power to present a vision of a better future? Maybe not. I found Derrick Jensen's Orion column, "Beyond Hope," to be beautifully written and quite persuasive.  Though his main focus is on the benefits of environmental activists giving up hope in favor of action, his piece has considerable general relevance. For example, most religions put a lot of emphasis on hope, which is almost synonymous with faith. Supposedly we should trust that…
5
Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Check out “You might be a Taoist”

Of all the "ism's" in the world, I consider Taoism (or Daoism) to be one of the most appealing. Partly this is because I've studied Tai Chi for about eleven years, which can be viewed as Taoism in motion. Not the religious sort of Taoism. The philosophical sort.  Back in 2013 I mentioned the You Might Be a Taoist site in a blog post comment. Today I saw that another commenter left a link to that site, which got me to looking at it again. The "you might be a Taoist if..." statements are pretty accurate, in my view (the…
7
Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Oh, no! Claiming Taoist enlightenment, I’m asked to define it

Damn! Somebody has made an entirely reasonable request of me -- to define the naturalistic Taoist/Daoist enlightenment that I talked about in "Daoist enlightenment: much ado about nothing," and indirectly claimed to be attaining in "How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me." In a comment on the first-linked post, Appreciative Reader said: What exactly is Daoist enlightenment, Brian? It may be no more than just a wild story with no basis in fact, but what exactly is the story? Daoism is something I know little enough about. Mostly what I’ve read in your blog here. I do know by now, I…
12
Posted inFree will Taoism/Tai Chi

Great Taoist view of free will and determinism

Free will fascinates me. I don't believe it exists. Yet it sure seems like I have it. Of course, if the cosmos has determined that I shall believe in free will, even though it is an illusion, I have no choice but to feel like I have free will. (Type "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar to find my many blog posts on this subject that I couldn't help but write.) Today I was re-reading a chapter in one of my favorite books, Raymond Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent." Below are some excerpts from Is…
2
Posted inPersonal/Stories

How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me

I don't really believe in enlightenment. But I'd still like to be enlightened. Just seems like a cool state to be in. Akin to stoned, I suppose (a state of being I'm much more familiar with), but without having to imbibe psychoactive substances.  So I like to think that our yard is enlightening me, chore by chore. After 25 years of taking care of our non-easy-care property in rural south Salem, Oregon, I've had plenty of time to ponder the Meaning Of It All. For a long time I envisioned that what I was doing with all my mowing, fertilizing,…
8