Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Talking back to RSSB foolishness

Usually I read trash-talking comments on my blogs and then put them out of my mind. I enjoy responding to thoughtful people who have a different point of view. But I don't see much point in answering gibberish. Today, though, I'll make an exception. I'm in the mood to reply in kind to a guy who strongly challenged my churchlessness. I assume you won't mind me being (almost) equally blunt, Richard. You said it like you see it. Here's my own outlook on Radha Soami Satsang Beas, based on my thirty-eight years of experience with the organization. The content of…
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Posted inGod

No problem with God not being perfect

Perfection and God are two words that go hand in hand. Most people feel that an imperfect God would be no God at all. Some of the qualities usually associated with divinity are omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, omnibenevolence. Well, if a being was all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere, and had love for everyone and everything, I can see why this entity would be deserving of being called perfect. But why does "God," which I use as a synonym for ultimate reality, have to be perfect? What's perfect about perfection? I got thinking about this when I came to the first page (p.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Jesus’ body found in the trash! For real!

What a beautiful sight for churchless eyes: here's a photo of Jesus lying in a trash bin, pierced with a rusty nail and in the company of some banana peels (plus coffee grounds and other assorted discards). If you're not a Catholic, you may not recognize the Son of God. But if you're a believer, there he is, in the form of a communion wafer – which the faithful consider to be transformed into the body of Christ at holy communion. In a fascinating blog post, "The Great Desecration," biology professor P.Z. Myers relates how his wafer trashing has caused…
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Posted inReality

With nature, no need for God

God is all there is. Nature is all there is.God is infinite. Nature is infinite.God works in mysterious ways. Nature works in mysterious ways.God is omnipresent. Nature is omnipresent. You get the idea. And that's the simple essence of Richard Carrier's "Sense and Goodness Without God," though he takes 424 pages to explicate it. I've read a bit over half of Carrier's book, which I was drawn to buy after reading (and writing about) his From Taoist to Infidel essay. I'm enjoying it. A lot. Probably because Carrier thinks much like me, aside from the fact that he's much more…
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Posted inReligions

Religion is all about me, me, me

Narcissism and religiosity go hand in hand. With rare exceptions, a religious believer considers that the cosmos centers around them. (Buddhism, for example, would be an exception – but I don't consider authentic Buddhism to be a religion.) I got to thinking about this today after noticing a New York Times story, "Here's looking at me, kid." It featured a great graphical encapsulation of a narcissist: Which reminded me of me in my true believing days. Looking at life as the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) theology had taught me to do, I considered that much of what happened to…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

How marvelous: to be alive!

Religion, spirituality, mysticism, philosophy, theology – all this stuff can be pretty damn complicated. So many beliefs, thoughts, concepts, dogmas, imaginings, speculations. I've enjoyed throwing myself into this complex stew, and have even contributed to thickening it through some books, my Church of the Churchless musings, and countless conversations. But more and more, the essence of my attitude toward the big questions of life is…less and less. By which I mean: one intuitive direct experience is coming to overshadow all of the other religio-spiritual contents of my psyche. It feels much more real and true than these other meanderings of…
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Posted inMorality

More religious craziness: a fertilized egg is a person?

Just when I thought Christian fundamentalists couldn't do anything stranger than they already have (like believing the Bible is the literal word of God), up pops a newspaper story about a bizarre ballot initiative in Colorado. Read all about it in the Washingon Post's "Colorado voters will be asked when 'personhood' begins." Yeah, that's just the sort of thing that should be decided in the voting booth: when someone becomes a human rather than merely a bunch of embryonic cells. Don't get me wrong: I'll all for philosophical and moral discussions on this (and any other) deep questions. The thing…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Meditation as a work out

I've been meditating every day for a long time. About thirty-eight years. It never gets old. There's always something fresh going on in my head, which is both a delight and a frustration. For most of my meditating life, I've approached it with a spirit of devotion. Or at least, semi-devotion. Meaning, I viewed meditation as a means of approaching what It's All About. I felt that maybe "It," "All," and "About" pointed to God. Maybe Nature. Maybe something else. Whatever, the act of opening myself up to it seemed deserving of a bit of reverence. So I got into…
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Posted inScience

Repent! Believe in science!

Often a cartoon speaks more truth than thousands of words. Thanks to Pharyngula, here's a great example: The complete comic says even more. Yes indeed, "the truth will set you free." Which leaves religion out of the picture, because it puts barriers between us and reality – substituting wishful thinking for clear-eyed understanding of the universe. A recent comment conversation over on last year's "Atheists crush Christians at 'Does God Exist?' debate" post is a good example. I appreciate that "C," a Christian, was willing to enter into a dialogue with us churchless heathens (see his July 7, 2008 comment…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

What does it mean to be “spiritual”?

That's a great question. I ask it of myself frequently. Even though I don't have a firm answer, I've continued on with using the words "spiritual" and "spirituality" a lot – in talking with people, in writing on this blog, in musings within my own mind. I used to think that spiritual was opposed to material, that it had something to do with an ethereal soul, an aspect of ourselves that is disconnected (potentially, at least) from physical reality. But this would mean that you'd have to leave this world to be genuinely spiritual. Since everyone on Earth is, obviously,…
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Posted inBooks

Single gesture, whole of reality

What's in a word, a movement, an expression? Everything. Potentially, at least. This is the intriguing premise of "The Beauty of Gesture: The Invisible Keyboard of Piano and Tai Chi," by Catherine David. To be present in every step means that the forward motion of one's foot, if experienced fully, embodies the whole of reality at a given time. Being a Tai Chi practitioner myself, I understand what David is saying. The key word here is "fully." When I'm moving through a Tai Chi form, often my mind is only partially engaged in what I'm doing. So my reality is…
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Posted inGod

Desiring God isn’t a proof of God

Oh, my God! I'm absolutely loving "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality." So much so, this morning I finished it, fueled by a strong cup of pre-meditation coffee and the joy of reading good writing. As I said before, Andre Comte-Sponville has a wonderful approach to spirituality. I started to say "in spite of the fact that he's a philosophy professor," but there's no spite involved here. Comte-Sponville's book springs as much from his life experience as his philosophical experience (assuming there's a difference between life and philosophy, which, really, there isn't – living includes everything). There's so much that…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Getting real at a coffeehouse Sunday “service”

I don't go to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of church (satsang) anymore. But in a way, I still attend a service. And it's a lot more real and satisfying than the one way "sermons" I used to listen to, and give, back in my true believing days. Yesterday I got together, as usual, with my Sunday coffeehouse conversing bunch. Most have had, or still have, a connection with RSSB. We're not dogmatic, though, and that makes all the difference. Most of the time it was just me, Lynette, and Hans huddled at a table, sipping expresso and munching…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

“From Taoist to Infidel” – sounds like me

It's too damn hot here in Oregon today (100 degrees!) to slave over a hot laptop trying to cook up a blog post. So, thanks to Marcel Cairo, my favorite after life medium (also, the only one I know), I've got a readymade Church of the Churchless sharing for this over-heated Saturday. Marcel emailed me a link to Richard Carrier's "From Taoist to Infidel," titling his message It could be you. Yes, indeed. I saw a lot of myself in this essay. And I'll bet a lot of visitors to this blog will see themselves similarly reflected in Richard's journey…
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Posted inPlotinus

Platonic Zen exercises

Not many people find a connection between Zen and Platonism. I do, though these themes are more implicit than explicit in my book about the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus. So it was a pleasure to hear from someone who resonates with a Greek'ish blend of rationality and mysticism. That would be Nicholas Coleman, head of religious education at Wesley College in Melbourne, who wrote to me recently. He had kind things to say about "Return to the One," which attracted me to him right off the bat. Thank you very much for writing Return to the One. The margins of my…
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Posted inPolitics

Dobson’s illogical attack on Obama

"Illogical" and "fundamentalist" are so closely associated, it isn't big news when a closed-minded evangelist says stuff that makes me go Huh? But James Dobson has broken new ground in crazy ass theological reasoning, as described in a CNN story: "Evangelist accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible." Dobson is righteously pissed at Obama for making terrific religious sense. In comments aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. In the speech, Obama suggested…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi Wu Project

Lowering our spiritual center of gravity

I was walking along the Metolius river in central Oregon, semi-lost in thought. Which isn't unusual for me. Like most people, I spend a lot of my day focused on what's going on inside my head. That's as far from earth level as my six foot bodily consciousness can rise. Since I've been reading "Tajiquan Theory" in the morning before I meditate, some Taoist lessons came to mind. Breathe. Focus on your abdominal center, the lower dan tian. Simply be aware. Without thought. I've heard this in each of the Tai Chi classes that I've been taking for three and…
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Posted inGod

Are you God? Take the test.

Lots of people believe that God can manifest in a human form. So, why not yours or mine? Speaking for myself (though if I'm God, I'm really speaking for everybody), I'm hugely attracted to the notion that I'm worthy of worship. Unfortunately, other people aren't as attuned to my potential divinity. Notably, my wife. For eighteen years I've been trying to convince her that the way I load the dishwasher is The Way It Should Be, by divine decree. For some reason she can't recognize my husbandly perfection. So today I was excited to see a post on the Radhasoami…
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Posted inReligions

Faith healing is child abuse

Religions are dangerous. Nowhere is this more obvious than in cases of child abuse. The Catholic Church is #1 in this area, but to me killing children in the name of faith healing is even more abhorrent. You can recover from sexual abuse. You can't recover from dying. Yesterday an Oregon boy died of a urinary tract blockage. A radio news report I heard this afternoon said it's an exceedingly painful way to die. A catheter probably would have saved him. I hope his Followers of Christ parents rot in hell. I don't believe in hell, but if it exists,…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Feeling the spirit…via body or soul?

Here I am, someone who's pursued spiritual practices for almost forty years, and I can't tell you what "spirit" is. Go figure. But seemingly such figuring is impossible, because whatever spirit is (assuming that word means anything at all), there's general consensus among mystics, meditators, and metaphysicians that it's something beyond the bounds of rationality, explanation, experimentation. Just like life, consciousness, and existence – which to me are pretty much synonymous with spirit. Meaning, the foundational aspect of the cosmos, that which there is no deeper which'er. Or, that'er. For those inclined to going off the deep end, a club…
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