Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Meditation isn’t mystical. It’s about awareness of actual reality.

For about 35 years I had some deluded notions about meditation. Back then I embraced a teaching that said meditation was about concentrating at the eye center (third eye, basically) so one's mind/soul could enter higher realms of mystical consciousness. Now I realize that this wasn't what genuine meditation really is all about. A book that I've gotten back to reading, "Altered Traits:  Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body" has helped me understand this.  I bought this book in September 2017, wrote a rather critical blog post about it in April 2018 ("Awareness is a process,…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Praying shouldn’t be part of government meetings

My wife, Laurel, is an avid atheist -- even more so in some respects than I am. She started a MeetUp group here in Salem, Oregon: Freethinking Atheists of Salem. Here's the description of the group. Are you too logical/rational to believe in religions, conspiracy theories, and beliefs not supported by modern science, yet miss the fellowship church-goers enjoy? Let's meet up monthly for coffee to converse with like-minded people who also share minority status as "nonbelievers" in a predominantly religious believing world. Let's share what we learn about science, the challenges of being atheists, and support each other in…
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Posted inReligions

Give up feeling special. You’re not. Religions are lying.

People feel special for all sorts of reasons. For example... Ego. "I'm especially good-looking/intelligent/talented/etc. etc."Love of country. "I'm a citizen of the greatest nation in the world."Luck. "I won the lottery and now I'm set for life."Upbringing. "My parents always told me I was special." But religions are one of the biggest purveyors of specialness. Which makes them especially dangerous. Why? Because feeling special sets us apart from all of those other non-special people who are so obviously inferior. Of course, the weird thing is that most religions teach that their devotees have a special relationship with God or a…
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Posted inGod

Breaking news about God! (don’t get excited, there isn’t any)

If you listen to CNN for more than a few minutes, especially if Wolf Blitzer is the anchor, you're guaranteed to hear "Breaking news!"  Of course, usually it isn't genuine breaking news that hasn't been reported before, but rather fairly fresh news that I'd heard before, though not a whole lot. When was the last time, though, that you recall hearing breaking news about God?  I'll provide the answer: never. Not once in my lifetime, all 70 years of it, has there been a credible story about some new divine revelation from the Big Guy/Gal upstairs in heaven.  For some…
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Posted inBooks

Wabi Sabi shows us how to live a perfectly imperfect life

Chasing after perfection is a perfect way to drive yourself crazy. Or at least, to become deeply disappointed -- since perfection doesnt exist. Not in people, for sure. And likely nowhere else, either.  Yet religions hold up perfection as an attainable ideal. For example, they speak of having perfect faith, as if this was possible. And I'm well aware of Eastern religions that consider a perfect living guru is the next best thing to a perfect god. So when I heard about a book that describes the wisdom of embracing imperfection, I immediately ordered it. I'm just a short ways…
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Posted inFundamentalism Politics

Salem Women’s March 2019 had some crazy religious counter-protestors

Last Saturday there was another Women's March here in Salem, Oregon. As I did with the 2017 and 2018 marches, I took a bunch of photos, then shared them in an Adobe Spark web page that you can peruse by clicking on the image below.  There were some Christian fundamentalist counter-protestors at the event on the Capitol Mall. I'll share a photo of their signs, along with my commentary on one of the signs below the Adobe Spark link. Or you can view the photo and my comment on it by clicking on the Women's March Salem 2019 link. Caution:…
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Posted inFundamentalism India

More religious craziness, Hindu temple variety

Every religion has its own brand of craziness. None is exempt. Why? Because the very notion of supernaturalism is crazy, since there is zero, repeat zero, demonstrable evidence that gods, angels, souls, heaven, hell, or any other supernatural entity exists. When I was younger I used to believe that Hinduism was a bit more appealing than, say, Christianity, because it wasn't as dogmatic a religion. However, as I began reading about Hindu nationalism in India, I came to realize that many fundamentalist Hindus are just as crazy as their counterparts in other religions. Case in point: a New York Times…
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Posted inBooks Mystics

Mystical experiences aren’t objective reality. They’re experiences.

Following up on my previous post about John Dewey's marvelous little book, "A Common Faith," here's some of what Dewey has to say about mystical experiences. I've boldfaced some passages that particularly appeal to me. Dewey's main point, which I totally agree with, is that by themselves, mystical experiences prove nothing about God or the supernatural. The possible causes of those experiences must be carefully studied before any conclusions can be drawn about them, especially given the wide variety of mystical experiences, many or most of which have no commonality. Dewey writes: It is more to the point, however, to…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Religions forget that we humans are animals

Calling someone animalistic isn't an insult. It is a fact. We humans are animals. Just unusual ones, since members of no other animal species can write articles (or blog posts) about the fact that they're animals. Thus our bodies do what other animal bodies do.  Pee. Poop. Breathe. Have sex. Play. Feel. Sleep. Eat. Drink. And so on.  Sure, we also think about all kinds of stuff. The structures we build are more impressive than a termite hill. Our social relationships are more complex than a wolf pack.  Yet the fact remains, we are animals. One reason I've come to…
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Posted inUncategorized

Psilocybin points to the “snow globe” theory of shaken-up consciousness

When is it good to be shaken up? Not physically. Psychologically.  It seems that being all shook up typically is viewed as something to be avoided, since it means "greatly disturbed or upset." As in, watching that scary movie left me all shook up (shaken is the proper word, with shook being slang). But I've been reading Michael Pollan's new book about psychedelics, "How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Dying, Consciousness, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence." In it he speaks of how sometimes our overly rigid psyche needs to be shaken up like…
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Posted inBuddhism

Sand mandalas are a symbol of impermanence, that nothing lasts

Today the Daily Calm guided meditation by Tamara Levitt on my iPhone app was about mandalas. I've transcribed the last portion of what Levitt said, because I found it inspiring.  It's so true. Nothing lasts. Everything is impermanent. Our wanting to make the impermanent permanent isn't the only source of suffering, but it certainly contributes to our dissatisfaction with life.  The image below came from a web page about sand mandalas. It describes the process used to create them in the Buddhist tradition. Here's the transcript: Today we’ll be discussing the transient nature of all things. In Buddhism there is…
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Posted inUncategorized

Life demands some judicious denial of reality

Today I stopped for lunch at Lifesource Natural Foods here in Salem, Oregon -- where a fairly healthy slice of pesto pizza captured my stomach's attention.  There was only one table unoccupied in the eating area, so I grabbed it. Not long after, a woman appeared, lunch plate in hand, and asked if she could sit with me. Naturally I said, "sure." At first both of us started to look at our phones, the usual way to pass time these days, since simply eating without any distraction would be too damn boring. But then she glanced at my pizza slice…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Each of us is much more than our religious beliefs (or lack thereof)

Many things amuse me when I peruse comments on this Church of the Churchless blog by religiously-minded people. One class of comments that generates an especially large smile is Brian, you spend all of your time bashing religion, so you're obviously obsessed.  When I see someone saying this, I know that just as they're prone to drawing inaccurate conclusions about the cosmos from biased beliefs, they also draw false conclusions about me from a very limited body of evidence -- my posts on this blog.  Actually, almost everybody is a complex mix of varied interests that include much more than…
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Posted inBooks

Why John Dewey likes the notion of “religious,” but not religions

Often finding books is akin to a secular miracle for me. I'll be reading a book, then see a minor mention of another book in it, pass that mention by, then decide to flip back a few pages and revisit the mention again -- which sometimes leads me to a literary gem I never would have discovered on my own.  Such was the case with John Dewey's "A Common Faith." It's  a short (80 pages, plus an introduction by someone else) sharing of lectures Dewey gave at Yale in 1934 on the subject of religion. We tend to think of…
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