Posted inBooks Religions Science

Knowledge must be based on facts

Recently I wrote about "Five criteria for a 'God Theory' that religions fail." One of philosopher L.R. Hamelin's criteria related to private knowledge. If her theory can be tested only by private revelation, not by observations available to everyone, she unjustifiably claims private knowledge. Someone left a comment on this post, wondering why private knowledge wasn't justifiable. This was my reply: Here's how I see the issue of "private revelation" and "private knowledge." Can knowledge be private? Only if we define knowledge in a way that makes it virtually (or completely) synonymous with subjective experience. But then it isn't really knowledge…
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Posted inReality

Replace beliefs with working hypotheses

Here's a great letter to the editor that I came across in the May 9, 2015 issue of New Scientist. From Ray NorrisAccording to Graham Lawton, "Beliefs, more than anything else, are what make us human" (4 April, p 28). I guess I'm not human, then, since I decided as a geeky astrophysics student many years ago to live in an evidence-based world in which beliefs are replaced by working hypotheses. At least, I think I did, unless somebody produces strong evidence to the contrary. Once you renounce beliefs, life seems very straightforward, and totally self-consistent. I don't believe in global…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Directionless, I feel like I’ve found my way

Nice title of this post, if I do say so myself. Which I did about a week ago -- choosing to use those words, "Directionless, I'm feel like I've found my way," as the name for my first essay written for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, where I'm now a contributing writer. You can check it out on a Society page. Or read it below. Directionless, I feel like I’ve found my way For thirty-five years I was on a spiritual path.  I felt like I knew where I was going: back to God. I felt like I knew how to…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Without the Adam and Eve myth, there’s no basis for believing in Jesus

I don't feel like I'm any sort of expert about Christianity, since I've never been very interested in this religion. No religion appeals to me now, but in the past I've been drawn more to Eastern mystical varieties than Western theistic types. Still, reading evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne's new book, "Faith Versus Fact," today, I was surprised by how ignorant I've been of a basic Christian fact: Without the Adam and Eve myth, there's no basis for believing in Jesus Since the whole notion of Adam and Eve is impossible to accept, this means the same is true of the…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Religious fundamentalists kill bloggers and other secular activists

There are plenty of reasons to reject religion. A big one is that fundamentalism makes people so crazy, they not only want to kill people who criticize religiosity, sometimes they actually do kill them.  Below is a piece by Sanal Edamaruku that I came across in New Scientist. Ananta Bijoy Das likely was killed by Muslim extremists. Edamaruku also writes about other secular activists who were killed by Hindu extremists. He himself was threatened by Christian extremists.  It isn't just one religion that produces murderous true believers. They all do. Lesson: stay away from religion.  Here's the opinion piece by…
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Posted inBooks God

Five criteria for a “God theory” that religions fail

Science rocks. Religion sucks.  I'm only a few chapters into a new book by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, "Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible." But it's pretty darn clear that those four words are a good summary of his thesis. Which I totally agree with.  Coyne has no patience for accommodationists who believe that science and religion are somehow complementary, offering up different ways of understanding the cosmos that, when combined, produce more knowledge than either science can alone. In a summary of what the book is about, Coyne writes: I also take up the notion of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Agnosticism: knowledge comes via experience and evidence

I came across the Spiritual Naturalism web site a few years ago, then blogged about it in "Spiritual Naturalism appeals to my churchless non-soul." Their definitions of "naturalism" and "spirituality" rang true to me. Naturalism is a view of the world that includes those things which we can observe or directly conclude from observations. Naturalists’ conception of reality consists of the natural world as outlined by the latest scientific understanding.  As for claims for which we have no evidence, we do not hold any beliefs in these and do not make any other claims about them. It is quite possible, even…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Praise no-God: Andrew Cohen has been revealed as a fraud

It's always a pleasure to see a "guru" revealed as a flawed human being. This has finally happened to Andrew Cohen, who for a long time played pretend-guru along with Ken Wilber.  David Lane has written an interesting piece about Cohen's much-deserved downfall, "The Liberation of Andrew Cohen: How Devoted Disciples Can Enlighten Their Guru." (By enlighten, Lane means "bringing to light," as noted in a comment.) Andrew Cohen didn’t resign on his own terms, nor did he come to the realization that he was a lousy master who created more harm than good. More remarkably, it was Cohen’s devoted…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Yah, man! I’m featured in the Jamaica Gleaner

A couple of firsts for me today: first time I've used Yah, man in a blog post, and first time I've read a piece about me in the Jamaica Gleaner.  Thank you, Glenville Ashby for making both possible.  Dr. Ashby is a columnist for the Gleaner who came across my Church of the Churchless blog somehow or other (i've forgotten the how that he told me).  He got in touch with me by email. Then, a few weeks ago, we talked by phone about my religious past and non-religious present.  Here's a link to the Gleaner story, "Church of the…
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Posted inReligions Science Universe

Given size of the universe, is creation really all about us?

Religious belief involves lots of absurdities. For me, one of the biggest ones is the assumption that humans are the Big Deal of the universe.  Whether it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or some other major religion, theologies differ about how people are special in the eye of God, Brahman, or whatever, but they agree that members of a recently evolved species on Earth, Homo sapiens, occupy a central place in the cosmic scheme of things. This is really difficult for me to accept for various reasons. One is our modern understanding of the size of the universe. Consider... (1) Light…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Abandon all hope… and be more active

It's rare to view hope as something to be discarded rather than embraced. Don't we need hope? Isn't hope what keeps us going through tough times, with its power to present a vision of a better future? Maybe not. I found Derrick Jensen's Orion column, "Beyond Hope," to be beautifully written and quite persuasive.  Though his main focus is on the benefits of environmental activists giving up hope in favor of action, his piece has considerable general relevance. For example, most religions put a lot of emphasis on hope, which is almost synonymous with faith. Supposedly we should trust that…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Check out “You might be a Taoist”

Of all the "ism's" in the world, I consider Taoism (or Daoism) to be one of the most appealing. Partly this is because I've studied Tai Chi for about eleven years, which can be viewed as Taoism in motion. Not the religious sort of Taoism. The philosophical sort.  Back in 2013 I mentioned the You Might Be a Taoist site in a blog post comment. Today I saw that another commenter left a link to that site, which got me to looking at it again. The "you might be a Taoist if..." statements are pretty accurate, in my view (the…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Oh, no! Claiming Taoist enlightenment, I’m asked to define it

Damn! Somebody has made an entirely reasonable request of me -- to define the naturalistic Taoist/Daoist enlightenment that I talked about in "Daoist enlightenment: much ado about nothing," and indirectly claimed to be attaining in "How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me." In a comment on the first-linked post, Appreciative Reader said: What exactly is Daoist enlightenment, Brian? It may be no more than just a wild story with no basis in fact, but what exactly is the story? Daoism is something I know little enough about. Mostly what I’ve read in your blog here. I do know by now, I…
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Posted inFree will Taoism/Tai Chi

Great Taoist view of free will and determinism

Free will fascinates me. I don't believe it exists. Yet it sure seems like I have it. Of course, if the cosmos has determined that I shall believe in free will, even though it is an illusion, I have no choice but to feel like I have free will. (Type "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar to find my many blog posts on this subject that I couldn't help but write.) Today I was re-reading a chapter in one of my favorite books, Raymond Smullyan's "The Tao is Silent." Below are some excerpts from Is…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

How our non-easy-care yard enlightens me

I don't really believe in enlightenment. But I'd still like to be enlightened. Just seems like a cool state to be in. Akin to stoned, I suppose (a state of being I'm much more familiar with), but without having to imbibe psychoactive substances.  So I like to think that our yard is enlightening me, chore by chore. After 25 years of taking care of our non-easy-care property in rural south Salem, Oregon, I've had plenty of time to ponder the Meaning Of It All. For a long time I envisioned that what I was doing with all my mowing, fertilizing,…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Spiritual practice/meditation

Anthony de Mello — a heretic Catholic spiritual rebel

Recently I was driving around, channel surfing on satellite radio, and heard someone talk about Anthony de Mello, a Jesuit priest, who was chastised by the Catholic Church in 1998 for his belief in a "formless God." I hadn't thought about de Mello for quite a few years.  In 2006 I devoured (OK, not literally) several of his books, liking them a lot. Here's the de Mello-related blog posts that popped up when I asked the Great God Google in the right sidebar to point me to them. Be a spiritual rebelMeditation isn't dog trainingRevel in your selfishnessThe greatest heretic…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

With the physical, we can’t fool ourselves about the “spiritual”

So I was rolling along this afternoon in my Tai Chi class as we were doing the Yang Long Form, feeling good that I was in the flow, having left behind the garden chores and civic activism emailing that had occupied me for most of the day previously. "I'm really in the moment," I thought to myself.  At which point, unsurprisingly, I left the physical reality of the Long Form moment and entered a mental moment where I was praising myself for being in the moment. The effect wasn't horrible. Barely noticeable to others, in fact. Instead of doing the…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

Daoist enlightenment: much ado about nothing

One of the things I like most about my Tai Chi practice is Wu Chi (or Wuji). Basically, it means doing nothing. It's the ready, relaxed stance you're in before you do something.  Tai Chi, being Daoism (or Taoism) expressed in motion, reflects the more cosmic principles of Daoist philosophy. I wrote about Wu Chi in a 2005 "Wu chi, empty fullness" post about a year after I'd started practicing Tai Chi. I’ve become a big fan of wu chi, a Taoist term for the emptiness from which fullness flows. It is the source of all that exists. Not being anything…
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Posted inReligions

Religious belief and factual belief — different creatures

After more than ten years of blogging away at this here Church of the Churchless, I've ceased being surprised at how strongly religious believers hold onto their beliefs.  Partly because I understand the attraction of faith-based believing, since I was into this myself for thirty-five years. It feels good to consider that you are part of a special group that's especially beloved by God, and are privy to cosmic secrets unknown to others. And partly because I've seen so many examples of religious believers discounting good arguments, solid facts, and other reasonable evidence that should, one would think, cause them…
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