Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death is real. Religion shouldn’t deny it.

My sister died yesterday. Unexpectedly. Shockingly. And really. On my other blog I said what needed saying a few hours after I learned of Carol Ann's death. Now, I want to add on to how this experience has affected me.Basically, it's made me more appreciative of genuineness. When my brother-in-law phoned with the news, he told it like it was: "Your sister is dead." I took it the same way. Face to face with the truth, no turning away.Deep into our conversation, Bob said that he knew Carol Ann wanted to be cremated. He wasn't sure, though, what to do…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Liberation: freedom from craving to be perfect

Authoritarian religion draws its power from an understandable desire: for perfection. This craving leads people to bow down before supposedly holy books, holy people, and holy dogmas that, they believe, will give them what they can't find in this imperfect world.Such is the central theme of Stephen Bachelor's terrific foreword to "American Guru," a book about Andrew Cohen's abuse of his students/disciples. (I'll have more to say about this book when I've finished it; it's a disturbing tale of guru worship gone bad.)I like Stephen Bachelor a lot. He's a secular Buddhist who does a great job of sifting the…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Getting real is geniune spirituality

Spirit. Matter. Heaven. Hell. Soul. Body. Words... If they don't point to something real, they're interesting expressions of human cognition. But the mind can come up with all sorts of abstractions. If these aren't grounded in anything other than more concepts, clinging to them leads us into a airy-fairy world of our own imagining.I love this quote from Thoreau's Walden.No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religious mindset supports skepticism about science

Over on my other blog, where I've been writing about global warming recently (here, here, and here), someone commented that he was surprised I'm so accepting of the scientific consensus on climate change when I'm so skeptical of religious claims.Well, I was surprised that he was surprised. It makes sense to me to have lots of faith in the scientific method, and virtually no faith in religious dogma.Skepticism is a virtue. I have no problem with people being skeptical of a purported scientific fact -- such as that our planet is warming and humans are responsible for it -- if,…
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Posted inScience

Evolution shows the grandeur of life

This morning I finished Richard Dawkins "The Greatest Show on Earth," a fascinating book that demonstrates why evolution is almost certainly true and intelligent design /creationism is almost certainly false. (In science, there are no 100% certainties.)I've been reading a few pages every day before I meditate. Now, I find more inspiration in science books than in spiritual books. Reality is uplifting.Dawkins' final chapter was especially enjoyable. He goes through the last paragraph of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" (first edition) line by line.Thus, from the point of view of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

I’ve got a death wish: not to die

Death isn't to die for. At least, that's how my churchless psyche looks at mortality. I like being alive. Being dead -- that has a disturbing ring of nothingness to it. If it was up to me, I'd pass on the whole dying thing. And who wouldn't? Almost no one, aside from those who find life so painful, not existing seems preferable.This is a big reason why religions, philosophies, and belief systems that promise continued life after death are so popular. The Bible says that Jesus removed the sting of death.Hey, if there was convincing proof of this, I'd sign…
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Posted inReality

Cioran’s “A Short History of Decay” — existentially bracing

Some books are like last night's 20 degree dog walk, much of it facing into a brisk wind. I hated it and I loved it. My overriding perception during the two miles was: This is marvelously real. And fucking cold!

E.M. Cioran's "A Short History of Decay" struck me the same way — like an icy splash of reality. A book that demolishes so thoroughly, it leaves you on firm ground. 

After coming across quotations from it, and being intrigued, I found a used copy of the first (1975) English translation online. Cioran, a Romanian philosopher, wrote "A Short History of Decay" in French. It was published in 1949.

The back flap captures my reaction to the book perfectly.

"I regarded A Short History of Decay," the author recently wrote, "as an experiment in annihilation; or perhaps more precisely, a negative approach to life. But to my surprise, the great majority of its readers apparently found it invigorating. This is what me aware of the vital quality of Destruction."

Yes, this is a bleak book. Yet also a strangely uplifting one. Many passages resonated with my churchlessness.

Cioran's style has been called aphoristic. So it's possible to get a good sense of "A Short History of Decay" from this selection of passages that made me grab my yellow highlighter after being shocked by the author's jolt of existentiality.

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Posted inGod Morality

Religious believers’ inferences about God are egocentric

Wow, what a non-surprise! Religious believers consider that God favors whatever moral positions they do. Egocentricity rules.Such is the finding of research conducted at the University of Chicago. The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God’s standards. “The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing,” they conclude. “This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”Well, this seems obvious. It's difficult to see how…
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Posted inFundamentalism Spiritual practice/meditation

New Age beliefs aren’t as bad as fundamentalism

I like Roger Ebert's take on religion. He has a nuanced, properly skeptical attitude toward God and matters metaphysical. During in all the endless discussions on several threads of this blog about evolution, intelligent design, God and the afterworld, now numbering altogether around 3,500 comments, I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist--which I am. If I were to say I don't believe God exists, that wouldn't mean I believe God doesn't exist. Nor does it mean I don't know, which implies that I…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Religion isn’t horrible, just horribly misguided

While on a dog walk yesterday, I ran into a neighbor who I don't talk to very often. He started off our conversation in an appealing fashion:"I read your blog regularly." Nice! But then he said, "Being a confirmed atheist, it's a bit too kind to religion for me. I prefer PZ Myers' blog."Well, I told him that I also enjoy Pharyngula. Every day I take a look at Myers' posts that attack religion and support science. Hopefully without sounding too defensive, I did some defending of my own attitude toward spirituality."Yes, I'm not as rabid toward religion as Myers…
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Posted inGod Wu Project

“God” isn’t the best name for God

God. Just three letters in this word. But they sure pack a punch. Countless people have died in the name of "God." Countless good works have been performed. Countless arguments have ensued over what this word signifies.Dahlia Lithwick dives into this fascinating linguistic tangle in a Newsweek article, "Jesus vs. Allah -- the fight over God's secular title."Pop quiz: which of the following names represents a non-sectarian, universal deity? Allah, Dios, Gott, Dieu, Elohim, Gud, or Jesus?If you answered "none of the above," you are right as a matter of fact but not law. If you answered "Allah," you are…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science and religion share a sense of purpose

What makes life meaningful? How is it that we can wake up in the morning and feel like jumping out of bed, rather than hiding beneath the covers? A sense of purpose. Our life seems like it has a direction. We have a reason for being. Goals, intentions, to-do's.In the "Faith" chapter of his book, On Being Certain, Robert Burton, M.D. (a neurologist) says:By now it should be apparent that deeply felt purpose and meaning are exactly that -- profound mental sensations. Though the underlying brain mechanisms that create these sensations aren't known, the biggest clue comes from those who've…
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Posted inScience Universe

Let’s give thanks to the big bang, plus…

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Almost everybody is into thankfulness, whether sincere or feigned.Myself, I'm thankful that I was able to get a HP wireless printer working with my wife's new iMac this afternoon. It was touch and go for a while but I finally figured it out.My philosophical problem, though, is who or what I should offer my thanks to. This quandary is common to every exclamation of gratitude, including religious ones such as  "Thank you, Jesus" or "Thank you, God." Where the heck do you stop?I read some reviews of the Photosmart C4780 that pointed…
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Posted inHumor

Duhism Thanksgiving wisdom

The Duhist sage Bob Tzu captures the spiritual meaning of Thanksgiving perfectly:On this holiday spent with the family, I'm reminded to be thankful to the creator of mind-numbing alcoholic beverages.
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Posted inMorality

Service and charity don’t need God to be authentic

Back in my true believing days, I used to enjoy feeling that what I was doing was an act of service to my guru. This, of course, is a decidedly Eastern perspective. Western religions don't have living perfect masters, who often are considered to God in human form.But Christians seem to feel much the same when they perform charitable acts in the name of Jesus. Just as I did, they get enjoyment from acting with the thought that someone they love is being pleased.Now that I've entered my churchless phase, I don't believe in the value of seva (an Indian…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Godless rituals for the churchless

Religion isn't all bad. That was the not-so-surprising consensus at the monthly meeting of the Salon discussion group that my wife and I helped start up here in Salem about seventeen years ago.The members are almost all godless Prius-driving, expresso-sipping, organic food-eating progressives like us. Religiosity comes in for regular bashing, but since we're into open-mindedness and diversity, believers are embraced so long as they don't try to press their faith onto others.Last night a woman talked about how much she liked taking some Christian children out to lunch at a fast food restaurant. She'd just met them. When they…
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Posted inGod Science

There are no signs of God. So why believe?

You'd think that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and/or omnibenevolent being would leave some evident trace, given all this omni'ness. Yet God, whether considered from an impersonal Eastern perspective or a personal Western viewpoint, has left no demonstrable signs of his/her/it's existence.Why? A theologian would answer, "It isn't possible to know the mind of God, or comprehend the essence of divinity." Well, OK. But if this is the case, let's do away with religions, mystic paths, spiritual philosophies, and the like, and simply admit that if God is real, this is a mysterious ultimate reality never to be known.Since true believers…
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Posted inPlotinus Taoism/Tai Chi

Time…the essence of enlightenment?

Einstein showed that we live in spacetime, a continuum comprised of the familiar three dimensions of space and the much more mysterious dimension of time.Nobody knows what time is really all about. Not scientists, not philosophers, not mystics. And certainly not theologians. We have a sense of it passing. But the theory of relativity proves that this sense differs for people in different circumstances.Two events, simultaneous for some observer, may not be simultaneous for another observer if the observers are in relative motion. Moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock.Astronomers look up into the…
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Posted inPlotinus Science

Ken Wilber is wrong about Plotinus

I've got a love-hate thing going with Ken Wilber, a prolific writer and creative thinker who relentlessly preaches the marvels of an Integral approach to understanding reality.Sometimes I like what Wilber says (see here and here). Sometimes I don't (see here and here).His misunderstanding of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, is especially irritating to me. I wrote a book about Plotinus, "Return to the One." I spent several years reading just about every book in English that describes and analyzes Plotinus' teachings. So when I saw how Ken Wilber mangled Plotinus in an attempt to demonstrate that Plotinus' outlook is…
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