Posted inAtheism Christianity/Jesus

Here’s some thoughtful messages to me from a churchless Christian

John is a Church of the Churchless visitor who exchanges emails with me from time to time. He's my type of Christian: the non-believing kind. Meaning, he still has some connections to Christianity through his still-believing wife, and John doesn't trumpet his atheist de-conversion to his friends and family. With his permission I've shared some of his messages before. Now I'm doing it again. John writes well and has a nice way of putting things. Thoughtful, down-to-earth, light hearted. Here's a couple of recent messages from John. I added the links to the blog posts he mentions. Hey Brian. I…
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Posted inAlan Watts Christianity/Jesus

I ponder the new Pope and the present moment

This morning I turned our TV on, wanting to watch some news while I did my physical therapy exercises, to find that CNN's attention was focused on the Vatican following white smoke coming from a chimney -- the sign, along with bells, that a new Pope has been elected by the cardinals. I found this fascinating in a theatrical sense. Meaning, since I'm not at all religious and don't believe in God, who the Pope is only matters to me in a "political" fashion. I liked Pope Francis because he genuinely cared about the poor and downtrodden, a moral quality…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Reality Religions

Truth is religion’s weakness, no matter what Ross Douthat says in “Believe”

I've finished reading Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. He failed to make his case with me, because I'm still not religious. Not surprisingly, there were few discussions of truth in the book. This is religion's glaring weakness, no matter what faith appeals to you. The key question, how do we know it is true?, can't be answered persuasively by any religion, notably including Christianity (Douthat is proudly Catholic). So Douthat recommends what he calls "true'ish" belief. Basically this means that if you believe in some sort of divinity inhabiting some sort of supernatural realm, you're closer…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Some scholars view the Gospels, and Jesus, as familiar stories about demigods

For me, the Abrahamic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam -- are the most difficult both to read and to understand. The Bible's Old and New Testaments, along with the Koran, just don't appeal to me. There's no coherent philosophy or even theology that is readily apparent.  Obviously observant Christians, Jews, and Muslims find much inspiration in their holy books. But when I've read them, they seem boring and poorly organized. Which isn't to say that Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist writings are exemplars of clear writing. They aren't.  However, while I have to work at it, these Eastern religions (or philosophies)…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Personal/Stories

Here’s our 2024 Holiday Greetings letter

I'm not a Christian, but I have no problem with saying "Merry Christmas." After all, tomorrow is as much a secular day devoted to giving and receiving presents as it is a celebration of Jesus' supposed birthday. The problem with this celebration is that it's virtually certain Jesus wasn't born on December 25. Wikipedia says: In the third century, the precise date of Jesus's birth was a subject of great interest, with early Christian writers suggesting various dates in March, April and May. Steven Hijmans of the University of Alberta writes that "cosmic symbolism" inspired the Church leadership in Rome…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

The greatest sin is certainty

If I believed that the universe communicates with us, I'd view what happened during some television watching a little while ago as being a message to me from the universe. But since I don't have such a belief, I'll go with coincidence. My last blog post was called "A clear mind sees a foggy world. A foggy mind sees a clear world." I found this wonderful notion in Tim Urban's book, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. Urban does a masterful job arguing against zealotry, where a person is so sure that a belief they hold is correct, they're…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB gurus meet with Pope Francis. I comment on a report of their meeting.

Today in a comment someone shared a link to a story on the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) web site  about the two RSSB gurus -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Jasdeep Singh Gill -- meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on October 5. (Dhillon apparently is still the chief guru, while Gill has taken on some of the guru responsibilities but not all of them, being the guru-in-waiting.) I found RSSB's description of the meeting to be theologically problematic. Below are my comments on the story, in boldface. The RSSB story is in regular type. Baba Gurinder Singh and…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Why Christians believe in the resurrection is why other people believe in gurus

Recently I got an email from Gary Mason, a former evangelical Christian turned religious skeptic, who shared with me a marvelous approach to arguing against anyone who believes there is solid evidence for Jesus' resurrection. The post is titled "Best Method to Defeat Evangelical Apologists: The Ghost Buster Counter-Apologetics Technique."  Since I've never believed in the resurrection, though I dabbled with believing in the historical Jesus briefly during my college days when I got involved with a crazed Greek yoga teacher who blended West and East in his Christananda ashram (the 1960s were weird), at first I thought Mason's post…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

How Radha Soami Satsang Beas is similar to Christian dogmatism

I was almost going to skip the book review section in the March 11, 2024 issue of The New Yorker. I could see that it discussed books about Genesis, and I find the Bible about as interesting as hockey. Namely, not at all. But after deciding to see what the review had to say about Marilynne Robinson's writings on Genesis and other parts of the Bible, which are prolific, I began to see parallels between Christian dogmatism and the India-based group headed up by a guru that I was a member of for 35 years -- Radha Soami Satsang Beas…
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Posted inBuddhism Christianity/Jesus

Here’s my Christmas letter and blog post about not liking the holiday season

Well, here in Oregon, Christmas day is almost over. Per usual, it didn't mean much to me and my wife. Since neither of us are Christians -- not even close, since we're atheists -- the whole birth of Jesus thing is totally meaningless to Laurel and me. We had five friends over for dinner last night, Christmas Eve. That was pleasant. Good conversation and a great vegetarian meal prepared almost entirely by my wife. My main contribution was washing a lot of dishes, a task that I'm well qualified for (as opposed to cooking). Here's our 2023 Christmas Letter, otherwise…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

“Losers rule” helps explain both the Old and NewTestaments

Being an atheist, it's difficult for me to decide which is the weirdest and most unbelievable religion, because they're all weird and unbelievable. Since I don't know a lot about Judaism, I was drawn to a piece by Adam Gopnik in the August 28, 2023 issue of The New Yorker, How the Authors of the Bible Spun Triumph from Defeat. Based on a review of a book by Jacob Wright, "Why the Bible Began," the article aided my understanding of what makes Judaism so strange. Gopnik says that the Jews were notable losers. The Jews were the great sufferers of the ancient…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Christian Nationalism defeated in Pennsylvania, but still scary

Politics is divisive and arouses strong emotions. Religions are divisive and arouse strong emotions. Mix politics with religion, and not surprisingly the worst qualities of each can combine in a toxic combination. Such is evident in countries around the world where dogmatic religion fuses with narrow-minded nationalism. Iran. India. Saudi Arabia. Israel. There are others, including the United States. This was personified in the recent midterm election here in the United States by Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania.  Fortunately, Mastriano lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro by a large margin: 56% to 42%. But in the runup…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Spiritual practice/meditation

“Open Mind, Open Heart” is an intriguing book about Christian meditation

It's probably surprising to others, and definitely surprising to me, that as churchless as I am, one of my favorite meditation books is Open Mind, Open Heart by Thomas Keating, a Catholic priest, monk, and abbot.  (There's a new edition of the book, but I'm familiar with the old one, and the new one is more difficult to read typographically, from Amazon reviews I've read.) I've written some blog posts about the book, which I bought in 2005. Support for the churchless Seeing clearly now Let go. Then let go of letting go. Let it go. So simple.    The…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

Leaving dogma behind is like discarding a confining diving suit

I've read a couple of chapters in David McRaney's book, "How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion."  One chapter I skipped ahead to read, because I was curious to learn how some people enmeshed in the hateful Westboro Baptist Church were able to leave this Christian cult.  (The book says Westboro members would do things like protesting the funeral of Matthew Shepard, "a young gay man who was beaten, tortured, and left for dead in a remote portion of Wyoming by two men who offered him a ride home from a bar. At his funeral, the…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

How the heck could God create humans in her own image?

Today I was planning to write about another subject, but after responding to a commenter who embraces the idea that humans are made in the image of God (who I prefer to view as a nonexistent female, hence this blog post title), I went with that notion. I'm not sure why Andrew Stephens shared the links in his comment. I'm assuming he uses Musk and Harari as examples of godless secularists, which probably is accurate. Personally, I admire both of these men, being a happy user of Musk's groundbreaking Starlink satellite internet system and having enjoyed each of Harari's brilliantly…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Christian nationalism a threat to American democracy

Most Christians are normal people who happen to believe in Jesus as their savior. I've got no problem with that, though I think they're wrong about Jesus, plus the rest of their Christian dogma. Religions can be false (all are, in my atheist opinion) but not dangerous. However, Christian nationalists are a distinct threat to American democracy, as evidenced by Doug Mastriano winning the Republican nomination for Pennsylvania governor in last Tuesday's primary election. A day after the election, Greg Sargent, a columnist for the Washington Post, wrote "Say it clearly: Republicans just nominated a pro-Trump insurrectionist." In his piece…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Personal/Stories

I get a mysterious package. Ideas about it welcomed.

Almost everybody likes a good mystery. I sure do. My fiction book reading is almost entirely in the genre of spy/espionage/counterterrorism novels, which involve a lot of intrigue. So I thought I'd outsource to readers of this blog the contents of a mysterious package that arrived in the mail yesterday. If you have an idea about the meaning of what was sent to me, share it in a comment on this post. Here's the envelope I got.  What caught my attention right away was the address and return address both being my address. My razor-sharp mind concluded, Whoever sent this…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Businesses shouldn’t assume their customers are Christian

Before Thanksgiving my wife and I got a mailing from Kaufman Homes, a business here in Salem, Oregon.  We use Kaufman's Home Maintenance, a quarterly service where a Kaufman handyman guy checks a bunch of things in your house and does minor repairs as needed. I like that I no longer have to maneuver through the crawl space under our house to change the filters on our two heat pump air handlers. That was never fun, and it got less fun the older I became. What surprised us was the decidedly Christian message Kaufman Homes sent to their customers. This…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

No, communion isn’t about the body and blood of Jesus

I speak from experience as a lapsed Catholic when I say that communion involves swallowing a wafer and some wine, not the body and blood of Jesus. OK, that experience was brief, since after I had my first communion, thankfully my mother let me decide whether to continue on to be confirmed as a Catholic -- which I definitely didn't want to do, since the black-clad nuns were scary, the mass was in Latin, the wood we had to kneel on was damn hard, and my Presbyterian boyhood friends got to enjoy their more pleasant Sunday School while I was…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Satan and Kal

Here's a guest blog post from Bob Russo, who sent this essay to me a while back. I recently discovered it in the depths of my email inbox, liked it, and asked Russo if it would be OK to share it on Church of the Churchless. He said, "sure." Enjoy some thoughts about Satan and Kal. "Kal" is how the so-called Negative Power is viewed by an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat. Growing up within the crystalline and dualistic (heaven and hell; Jesus and Satan) landscape of Catholicism and having the Pope to…
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