Posted inGod

Intelligence analysts assess the evidence for God

I wish this would happen – competent, professional, skilled intelligence analysts sitting around a table, sifting through factual evidence for the existence of God, in the same fashion as was done recently with the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concerning Iran's nuclear weapons program. I'd love to be able to listen to the discussion. And see what evidence would be considered worthy of supporting a "Yes, God exists" assessment. It'd be slim to non-existent, for sure. Just as the evidence for Iraq having weapons of mass destruction was. Yet the United States intelligence community got that wrong. So why should anybody…
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Posted inPolitics

Mitt Romney’s weird religion is relevant to voters

If someone who was running as a serious candidate to become president of the United States said, "I believe in the Tooth Fairy," wouldn't that be a reason to question his qualifications to lead our country? I sure do. That's why I answered my own question on my other blog the way I did. To the query "Mormon Mitt Romney believes in really weird stuff. So?" I said: We currently have a faith-based presidency. George Bush has absolute faith that Jesus Christ is the son of God who died for our sins. He also has absolute faith that invading Iraq…
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Posted inUniverse

No beginning, no end. The universe simply is.

Why would you need religion, mysticism, or spirituality to expand your mind? Or, blow it. Science works just fine. Much better, in fact, because science starts with is rather than what could be. If you're going to expand or blow your mind, you might as well be standing on a solid foundation before you explode into mindlessness. Take the question of the universe's beginning and end. Most of us assume that the universe began at some point. After all, the Bible tells us so in Genesis. And if we're scientifically minded, wasn't the Big Bang the beginning of time and…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Liberalists vs. fundamentalists in Sant Mat

Reminding me of myself when I was less than half of my current pushing 60, today disgustingly young Adam sent me an email about his take on Sant Mat. I replied, and got his permission to share his thoughts. Below is Adam's message, followed by my reply. I like how Adam differentiates between "liberalism" and "fundamentalism." The question in my mind (and Sam Harris') is how distinct these approaches to spirituality really are. Adam thinks that it's possible to separate out the crazily dogmatic aspects of an organized religion, while still remaining true to the group's core principles. In my…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Don’t be a metaphor of yourself

I love metaphors. And I hate metaphors. Yes, a rose is a ruby reflection of ever-blossoming reality. And truer still, rose is a rose is a rose. When it comes to religion, just about all we're offered is metaphors. God is like… Fill in the dots. Our father, our mother, our lover. Heaven is like… Disneyland without the long lines. Everything good without the bad. More and more I want the real deal without the metaphorical wrappings. Either say it like it is, plain and simple, or admit that you're just a metaphor-monger. I still read a lot of philosophical,…
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Posted inReality

The positivity of unbelief

Unchurched, nonbeliever, atheist. Those prefixes – un, non, a – imply an undeserved negativity. Consider "atheist." That simply means, not a theist. To most people this is something bad. If you don't believe in an unknown, unseen god, there's something wrong with you. But there's no term for those who don't believe in unicorns or the Tooth Fairy. Except, "those who don't believe in unicorns or the Tooth Fairy." A commitment to understanding reality as it really is usually is viewed as a good thing. But not when it comes to belief in god. Then those who want their reality…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Another RSSB initiate bites the dust

It’s always a pleasure to hear from another heretic. Yesterday Fred, a fellow disillusioned initiate of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, sent me an email titled “Another one bites the dust.”

Well, Fred says he’s back to sipping red wine. So his un-conversion isn’t as dryly uncomfortable as that title implies.

In fact, when you read his thoughtful message you’ll see that he’s doing just fine. Real fine, in fact.

Apart from his observations about RSSB, I enjoyed Fred’s description of an orgasmic meditation session. He asked me for meditation pointers, but obviously I should be kneeling at his feet (oops, that doesn’t sound quite right, given the context).

I’ve offered up the message in three formats. It can be read as a continuation to this post. It also can be downloaded in Word or PDF format by clicking on the links below.

Word: Download note_to_brian.doc

PDF: Download note_to_brian.pdf

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Posted inScience

Paul Davies’ “Cosmic Jackpot” comes up empty

Where do the laws of nature come from? Great question. Here's an equally good one: Where do the laws of nature reside? I've always wondered about this. Science has found that the universe is remarkably well-ordered. Mathematics describes its fundamental laws (such as gravity and electromagnetism) so perfectly, Paul Dirac said, "If there is a God, he's a great mathematician." But how does every bit of matter know how to obey the law of gravity? Where's the software, the program, that controls the hardware of the universe? Or are these even meaningful questions? I used to think that they were.…
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Posted inMorality

Grace & mercy or cause & effect?

Over my 59 years I've heard a lot of talk about grace. God's grace. Guru's grace. The word – "grace" – sounds good, maybe because it's what would be said before family Thanksgiving get-togethers. Someone would utter, "Let's say grace." We would. Then we could eat. In this sense grace was a predictable prelude to something desirable. But in spirituality and religion grace is much more mysterious. An Indian word, "mauj," sort of sums it up. It means the will of God or the guru, which often is considered to be one and the same, as in this passage (#23).…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Thanks to thankfulness on Thanksgiving

Last year I thought I'd said about all there was for to me say about "Who should I thank on Thanksgiving?" Existence. You can't get down to a deeper level of thankfulness than that. I am. Oh yes. Thank you, thank you, thank you. If I wasn't, there'd be no thanking. Or anything else. Well, there's always something more to say. Just not a whole lot. About thankfulness. Right now. Yesterday I was given some notes that described recent talks given by the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh. Glancing through them I was struck by a…
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Posted inComments

Here’s how to follow a comment conversation

Good news from TypePad, the host of this blog: it's now possible to be notified when a new comment has been added to a Church of the Churchless post. I've described this new blog feature here. I've also offered up some tips about Google Reader, which I've found to be a good way of keeping track of web site and blog content, including comments on posts. For quite a while it's bothered me that TypePad only allows bloggers like me (who don't customize their blogs via their own programming) to only show the most recent 10 comments in the sidebar.…
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Posted inUncategorized

Comments on Church of the Churchless posts

Comments are often the best part of a blog post. This is how blog visitors get to communicate with other visitors and the author of the post. Recently TypePad, which hosts this blog, added some new comment features. Here's the best one: you now can subscribe to a comment feed. If you're not familiar with Internet feeds, here's an overview. Basically they're a way of keeping up on what's happening with a web site or blog without actually visiting the site/blog. The comment section of every Church of the Churchless post now begins with: "You can follow this conversation by…
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Posted inReligions

What is religion?

Some people want to be called "religious." To them, this term is a honor. Others don't. They see religions as relics of a pre-scientific superstitious age. I'm in the call me what you want, so long as it isn't "religious" category. It's difficult, though, to pin down what is, and isn't, a religion. Wikipedia takes a stab at it. Unsatisfyingly, in my opinion. Too many definitions fit just about any strongly held systematized belief or passion, as when someone says "Golf is my religion." So when I browsed through the table of contents for Christopher Hitchens' "The Portable Atheist: Essential…
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Posted inHumor

Flying Spaghetti Monster gaining religious credibility

It's good to see that Pastafarianism, the glorious revelation of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is back in the news. I was an early embracer of this alternative to both evolution and intelligent design, praising this witty rebuke to creationism several years ago. And supporting the cause by buying a Kansas Museum of Science t-shirt. Bobby Henderson is the prophet through whom the Flying Spaghetti Monster (blessed be His Noodly Appendage) speaks. His open letter to the Kansas School Board first revealed the gospel of Pastafarianism to a spaghetti-starved world. I'm proud that Henderson is a recent physics…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

When the old sermon doesn’t soar anymore

What seems to be the final newsletter that I'll be getting from my old "church," Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), came in the mail yesterday. RSSB no longer is going to mail the newsletters. You'll have to go to meetings (satsangs) to get the information – some of which is about upcoming meetings, so go figure. I'll miss getting this publication, which comes from the Western Regional Office headed up by Vince Savarese. I read it mostly to gauge my reaction to reading it. Like lots of other people who have become more churchless over the years, I used to…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Taoism and the Trinity

Ron Gardner, compiler of an excellent spiritual reading list, just gave me some feedback about four Taoism books that I recommended to him. I found his email so interesting, I wanted to share it. By "interesting," I don't mean that I understand it completely. But I get where he's coming from, to use a wonderfully imprecise '60s term. It just isn't where I come from. Which is absolutely, completely, marvelously fine. I can't tell you how many times I've said or written something that seemed to be so compelling, so inspiring, so truthful, so eloquent, that after my saying or…
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Posted inWu Project

Nowhere to go, nothing to do, no one to become

More and more, I'm into specifics when it comes to spirituality. I've spent a lifetime floating in the philosophical, theological, and metaphysical heavens. Now, show me the meat! (or, tofu) I still enjoy airy-fairy speculation. Heck, what would this blog be without it? Both the posts and comments would be exceedingly brief, that's for sure. But whenever I get a new spiritual, religious, or philosophical book these days, I thumb through it right off the bat, looking for details. Especially if it deals at all with meditation. What does the author say we (or even just he/she) should do in…
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Posted inReligions

Religion needs to dance – freely

Mark Morford, a columnist for SF Gate, gets it just right in his "Does your religion dance? Behold, the most dangerous issue facing modern faith: it's inability to evolve, nakedly." If you've never read Morford, his free-floating stream of consciousness writing style takes some getting used to. But what he says, and how he says it, sound just fine to me in this piece. We as a culture just might be suffering a slow, painful death by spiritual stagnation, by ideological stasis, by cosmic rigor mortis. It has become painfully, lethally obvious in the age of George W. Bush and…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Time to fire our gurus

Thanks to my friend Randy, I got turned on to Tijn Touber's thoughtful piece, "D.I.Y. Guru." (For the acronym impaired, like me, D.I.Y. stands for "do it yourself"). I liked it. It fits with my understanding of how we should regard a guru – as someone begging to be fired. So it's time to fire our gurus (facts, truths, religious persuasions, principles, dogmas) so the guru in ourselves can emerge. It's time to become as great as the gurus we followed--just as authentic, unique and obstinate. This is not an act of aggression or disrespect. On the contrary, it is…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Loosening the bounds of “I am…”

Who am I? Well, that depends. Yesterday I had an opinion piece published in our local newspaper. A few days ago an editorial page assistant phoned me and asked how I wanted to be described at the end of the piece. I said, "Retired writer, blogger, and land use activist would be fine." She must not have heard the "b" in "blogger" because I ended up as a "logger." Some readers must have wondered how an Oregon logger became such a strong supporter of an environment-friendly ballot measure. But what's in a name? I wasn't bothered. Heck, I have a…
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