Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

All religions are not alike. Radha Soami sects are wrong about “shabd.”

I'm always (well, usually) glad to admit when I've been wrong about something. So I'm pleased to say that during my true believing days, which stretched into over 30 years, I was decidedly wrong about the world's major religions having a common denominator. Namely, an all-pervading conscious spiritual energy known in India as shabd. Various "Radha Soami" sects claim it is possible to return to God by connecting one's individual soul-consciousness with this universal divine-consciousness -- which manifests as inner sound and light.  Wikipedia says: Shabd is referring to spiritual current which can be perceived in meditation as inner light and…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

How an atheist can find “spiritual” inspiration

A few days ago I was talking with somebody about finding "spiritual" uplift without believing in God or any other supernatural entity. I put that word, spiritual, in quotation marks because I no longer consider that there's some sort of other-worldly spirit or soul. Not in me. Not in anybody else. Not in the cosmos. Yet I'm still attracted to the notion of spirituality. In a thoroughly secular sense. Meaning, well... it's all about meaning. Whatever inspires us to carry on through tough times; whatever propels us forward on our life journey when we're not sure if we can take…
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Posted inReality Religions

Tempting as it is to pray, health problems should be managed without God

I've got some semi-serious health problems. Meaning, they aren't fatal or debilitating. But they're damn annoying. The details aren't necessary to know for the purposes of this post, though I've blogged about what I'm going through here.  It's been interesting to see how my atheist mind has been dealing with the stress I've been feeling. Back in 2006 I wrote a couple of posts on the subject of turning to God during difficult times. The first was "Atheists in foxholes do exist." It concluded with: Religious belief or faith is almost always individualistic. That’s a paradox, considering that humility and loss…
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Posted inReality

When should a subjective spiritual experience be trusted as reflecting objective reality?

I love the title of this blog post, because it is such a damn fine question. During the thirteen years this Church of the Churchless blog has existed, I'd say that this question has been at the root of more posts and comments than any other existential issue. After all, consider how relatively easy it is to assess the validity of (1) objective experiences of physical reality, and (2) subjective experiences of physical reality.  As an example of (1), if someone claims that they saw a giraffe in their back yard, we've got to consider the circumstances. Perhaps they live…
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