Posted inDeath/Rebirth Science

Physicist Sean Carroll debunks unscientific religious myth-making

My wife is a member of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, so we get the organization's excellent newsletter. On paper, even! I just got around to reading the August 2015 issue. It had an excellent piece by physicist Sean Carroll -- the address he gave after winning FFRF's "Emperor Has No Clothes Award."  You can read "Physicist Carroll: Atoms and Eve incompatible" on the FFRF web site. Or via this PDF file: Download Physicist Carroll: Atoms and Eve incompatible - Freedom From Religion Foundation Only the paper version had two interesting graphics. So I took photos of them to share…
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Posted inBuddhism Wu Project

In Buddhism, ultimate truth is an absence, not a presence

Yeah, I'm on an emptiness roll, Buddhism style. Three blog posts in a row on this fascinating subject (see here and here for #1 and #2). Having finished Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness," I ordered a roughly similar Newland book, "Appearance & Reality." Both books are giving me new insights into what Buddhism is all about.  There's very little religious supernaturalism in them, a big reason why they appeal to me. I'm fine with philosophical Buddhism, which by and large is compatible with modern scientific understandings of reality. Once we get into rebirth, omniscience, and additional other-worldly stuff, though, I…
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Posted inBuddhism

Buddhism: the illusion of life is believing in a fixed reality

For many years -- decades, really -- I believed that the everyday world in which we live was an illusion. Meaning, there was an unseen truly real realm beyond the bounds of ordinary consciousness.  Changeable matter and mind weren't part of this ultimate reality. Only the eternal unchanging soul, our true self, was able to be aware of it.  Now, I understand that I had things completely backward. Such is how science comprehends the world. Also, Buddhism. As noted in my previous post, the Buddhist notion of "emptiness" is that nothing -- including us, and even emptiness itself -- has…
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Posted inBuddhism

Emptiness is ultimate reality: nothing, including us, has an intrinsic nature

I run hot and cold about Buddhism, depending on what sort of Buddhist writing I'm reading. Religious Buddhism turns me off, but I like philosophical Buddhism that doesn't fall prey to unfounded supernaturalism.  Recently I've been re-reading Guy Newland's "Introduction to Emptiness." It's a clear and persuasive description of the core notion in Mahayana Buddhism, emptiness.  In the first few pages of his book, Newland explains what emptiness is all about. First, he speaks of the suffering that arises because we wrongly believe that we are something we're not. We suffer unnecessarily because we do not know ourselves. Like addicts…
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Posted inFundamentalism

“Imagine” is the solace I needed today

After hearing about today's attacks in Paris, I considered writing a blog post about religious fundamentalism. But then I realized that John Lennon had already said everything I wanted to say. And in a much better way.------------------------------- Imagine Imagine there's no heavenIt's easy if you tryNo hell below usAbove us only skyImagine all the peopleLiving for today... Imagine there's no countriesIt isn't hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion tooImagine all the peopleLiving life in peace... You may say I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only oneI hope someday you'll join usAnd the world will be as one…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality

Asked to say something about love, I’m pretty much speechless

Yesterday I got an email message: Dear Mr. Hines , Your blog is very honest and nothing is more beautiful save love itself. Please tell us more about self-less and mutual love  and your views on the subject. Sincerely, __________ Reading those words, I realized that I haven't written much explicitly about love during the eleven years this blog has existed. This will be post # 2,140. When I used the search box in the right sidebar to see what popped up when I put in "love," almost all of the Google results for my two blogs were on my more…
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Posted inScience

Beauty is enhanced by science, not diminished

Here's a great video of physicist Richard Feynman speaking about science and beauty, combined with some gorgeous images.  Feynman makes some excellent points.  I've never understood why some wrongly believe that scientists, and the scientifically-minded (I include myself in this group), don't appreciate the beauty in life as much as other people do.  Feynman points out that scientists look upon the world in the same way as everybody else. But they also have a deeper factual understanding of certain aspects of reality. This enhances, rather than diminishes, the scientific appreciation of beauty.
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death is scary. How we deal with the fear… often even scarier.

I've got no problem admitting that I'm afraid of dying. I've grappled with a primal fear of nonexistence. I've asked our attorney, when drawing up our wills (or living trusts) to substitute the word "gerbils" for "dies" when speaking about me, as in When Brian gerbils, his possessions will go to...  But my fear of death has moderated quite a bit as I've grown older. (I'm 67 now.) I'm still more than a little interested in the subject of death, though. So when I heard about a book called "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in…
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Posted inReality

Why we believe in things we know aren’t true

It's a well-worn saying here in the United States: "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."  We all deny reality. We all prefer to feel good about a falsity rather than embrace a harsh truth. But some people struggle against our human inclination to believe in things that aren't true, while others make little or no effort to resist the lure of denial.  A piece in the New York Times, "Believing What You Don't Believe," casts light on what's going on here.  How is it that people can believe something that they know is not true? For example, Kansas City…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Coach’s praying on field deserved a Satanic response

When religious fundamentalism runs amok, I love it when the overly-righteous get an unwelcome reflection of their own dogmatism. Here in the Pacific Northwest (I live in Oregon), local newspapers have been running stories about a high school football coach in Washington state, Joe Kennedy, who likes to overtly pray on the field.  Pleasingly, he was sacked on the Unconstitutional Goal Line. An assistant football coach at a Washington high school who prayed at games after he was told to stop praying was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday night. The Bremerton School District placed Bremerton High School assistant football coach…
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