Posted inGod

If rape and life is God’s will, why isn’t everything?

In addition to increasing the chance that Democrats will maintain control of the United States Senate by winning an open seat in Indiana, Republican senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock opened up an interesting line of theological questioning with his instantly infamous rape comment. In a Senate debate Tuesday night, Richard Mourdock, the Indiana state treasurer, tried to distinguish himself from two opponents who also oppose abortion, explaining why he does not accept an exception for pregnancies conceived by rape. “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God,” Mr. Mourdock said. “And…
2
Posted inGod Politics

Goddamn it — “God” is back in Democratic Party platform

Jeez, I was beginning to think that the Democratic Party to which I belong really was a coven of atheistic religion-haters who got their kicks from burning the Bible while high on illicit drugs (that'd be a good thing, of course). My hopefulness arose from reading that "God" had been dropped from the 2012 Democratic platform. The Christian Broadcast Network reported: Guess what? God’s name has been removed from the Democratic National Committee platform. This is the paragraph that was in the 2008 platform: “We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and…
No Comments
Posted inGod Reality

Sam Harris: “atheist” makes as much sense as “aunicornist”

Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith," is a famous atheist. But he isn't fond of having that word describe him. After all, people who don't believe in unicorns aren't called "aunicornists." They're just people who recognize that evidence is lacking for the existence of a mythical creature that resembles a horse, but has a single twisting horn on its forehead. Likewise, what need is there for "atheist"? Why not simply call people who believe in God, "theists," while having no special word for those who don't? So says Harris in a well-written and well-argued essay, The Problem With…
7
Posted inGod Spiritual practice/meditation

Babbling about God like a baby: what else can we do?

Recently a comment conversation on one of this blog's posts brought up "babbling." Someone used the word to describe another commenter who was describing how God, spirituality, and such seemed to her. She didn't like being called a babbler. But I don't see this as an insult, at least not when what's being babbled about, such as God or the supernatural, is purely personal -- subjective, intuitive, emotional, experiential, non-symbolic.  Babies babble. Babbling is the first sign of human language. These vocalizations do not generally contain meaning or refer to anything specific. People who have had an ineffable experience of something…
3
Posted inGod Religions

Arguments for God aren’t convincing. So is “I feel Him.”

Resurrected! Glory be!  That's how my churchless self reacted when I opened a drawer full of forgotten books and re-discovered "Irreligion" by John Allen Paulos. I'd read this short book before, as evidenced by my highlighting, but decided to read it again after flipping through a few pages and thinking Oh, my God! So true! Paulos, a mathematics professor, demolishes the most common arguments for God. His logic is impeccable, so far as I can tell. And his writing is entertaining, often simultaneously amusing and thought-provoking. For example: To the question "What will any of my concerns matter in one…
11
Posted inGod

Why have faith in a God who fucks things up?

Today a gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded 59 in a Colorado movie theatre. My wife watched news coverage of the disaster this evening. She told me that a man was interviewed who praised God for saving his life. Maybe it was this guy, Zach Golditch, a football player in an adjoining theatre who was shot when a bullet went through a wall. And then at 8:57 a.m., he tweeted, "Thank you God for the gift of life! i promise it will not go to waste." Don't take this too personally, Zach, but I think you're an idiot.…
247
Posted inGod

God-man useless compared to Human-man

Came across this great comic in a Daily Kos post. Reminded me of some ridiculous "God is in control of everything" stuff a Christian was quoted as saying in my previous post. If God-man is so powerful, why does Human-man fail to find him helping out?
No Comments
Posted inFundamentalism God

Why a Christian woman denies global warming

My wife, Laurel, has been engaging in an exchange of emails with a Christian woman who used to do the same thing with Laurel's sister -- try to convince a religious skeptic that the Bible is God's inerrant truth. Which, of course, is complete bullshit.  As is this woman's response, after Laurel noted that viewers of Fox News are horribly misinformed about the reality of global warming. She replied: It is because I am a Christian that I don't believe in global warming.   My wife then emailed her: I am curious why being a Christian causes you to reject…
2
Posted inGod Humor

If God was real and could see us now

Cosmic! The next morning after I blog about my communication with God, where I learned that this non-existent divine being is deeply irritated with us humans, a cartoon pops up in my Facebook feed with similar message.  
6
Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Surrender to a lower power. Or equal. Not higher.

I used to believe in surrendering to a higher power. And not only to my wife -- but also to a spiritual, supernatural, metaphysical higher power. No more. Don't see any reason to. Now I'm much more comfortable with surrendering to lower and equal powers. Which, I suspect, actually are the only varieties powers come in. In fact, we could be talking singular here. Power. Not powers. There's no higher or lower. Just varying manifestations of One Energy, One Nature, One Cosmos, One Reality. But religions, spiritual systems, mystical philosophies, and other advocates of surrendering to a higher power would…
5
Posted inGod Religions Science

Analytical thinking weakens religious belief

This is one of those scientific findings that cause me to say, "Well, yeah, of course!": analytical thinking leads people away from religious believing. TIME magazine has a good summary of the not-unexpected research conclusions. We all fly both ways, on the complementary wings of intuition and analysis. These basically correspond to "fast thinking" and "slow thinking," the brain's System 1 and System 2 in the parlance of Daniel Kahneman (see my blog post, Don't mistake God for your intuitive brain speaking. Sometimes it makes sense to intuit; other times, to analyze. As the TIME article says, both brain capabilities…
2
Posted inGod

Jet crash “miracle” shows absurdity of religion

Last night my wife and I couldn't believe what we heard while watching the evening news. "It's a miracle," several people said, referring to the Navy jet that crashed into Virginia Beach apartment buildings without killing anybody. A U.S. Navy admiral said Saturday that the fiery crash of a fighter jet into apartment buildings in the military community of Virginia Beach matches his definition of a miracle. No one was killed and everyone was accounted for one day after the accident. "I don't speak for anybody's religious beliefs, but the mayor and I both agreed that if you want to…
2
Posted inGod Science Universe

Science’s “nothing” different from religion’s “nothing”

You'd think that if secular scientists and religious true believers could agree on anything, it'd be the nature of nothing. After all, isn't nothing, well, nothing? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Absence. Void.  But, no, here too science and religion are butting heads. Scientific nothing is quite different from religious nothing. And while I used to be more on religion's side when I thought about what nothing meant in the Big Question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", now I strongly lean toward the headbutt (or to the faithful, butthead) of science. Physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss does a great job laying out…
7
Posted inGod

Utterly unconvincing God experience

Wow, I've just wasted ten minutes of my life watching this ridiculousness. It's called Man dies, comes back to life, what he saw. Watch it at your peril. Somehow 2,931,978 people have, likely being sucked into doing so by a "check out this youtube video of a man who had what seems to be an NDE" like I got. No, he didn't have a near-death-experience. I didn't hear any mention of that. The guy suffered horrible injuries in a plane accident. He's lying in a hospital bed, probably drugged out of his mind, after going through a hugely traumatic event. So…
5
Posted inGod Science

Don’t mistake God for your intuitive brain speaking

Over on my other blog, yesterday I made fun of a bunch of Republican presidential candidates (Cain, Bachmann, Perry, Santorum) for believing that God had told them to pursue their political dreams.  But it would have been just as easy for me to make fun of myself -- or anyone -- because we all are prone to mistaking messages from the hidden part of our own brains for guidance of cosmic import. If you've ever said, "I think the universe is sending me a message" (I sure have), this is an indication that the difference between you and someone who believes that…
No Comments
Posted inGod Humor

Stephen Colbert’s God joke: “What if this is all there is?”

A few nights ago Stephen Colbert told a joke about God on The Colbert Report. It was at the end of an interview with Father Jim Martin, author of "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life." The audience, along with Father Martin, laughed at the end of the joke. Me, I was more puzzled than amused. As soon as I heard the punchline I thought, "Wow. This is profound." But I didn't know why. Yes, the joke is funny. But it's the sort of humor that's funny because it's so…
6
Posted inGod Religions

Every believer in God also is an atheist

Do you believe in God? If so, you're an atheist. Because you believe in a God, a singular God, a particular God. If you believed in all possible Gods, then I guess you deserve to be called a genuine theist. But such is rarely, if ever, the case. Religious true believers cleave to one God while rejecting the Gods that other people believe in. So they're atheists in regard to all Gods but one. Given the thousands of different religions, this means that the difference between an atheist who rejects all Gods but one, and an atheist who rejects all…
20
Posted inGod Humor

God responds to Rick Perry

Well, that didn't take long. God has already reacted to Texas Governor Rick Perry's prayer rally. The Supreme Being isn't pleased. Turns out he isn't even supreme. Read the revelation. Here's part of God's blunt message. Let me tell you something else,  Rick: I didn’t give you those commandments and I didn’t send my only begotten son to help you out.  I don’t care whose ox gores a foreigner or what you do with your neighbour’s ass.  And I certainly never had an interest in first century Palestinian virgins.  They’re all stories Rick, stories.The fact is, I’ve never really done…
1
Posted inGod Science

Is consciousness a “president” or “press secretary”?

Yesterday my Tai Chi instructor asked a question after about twenty minutes of class, during which we'd repeated the short Five Animal form several times. "Did the Five Animal feel differently the first time you did it, compared to the last time?" I was one of the first to answer. "At first," I said, "I was thinking about how to open and close my rear foot, among other things. But eventually it seemed like my body was doing what it need to do by itself, naturally, no thinking required." Other people made similar comments. By and large, with one exception,…
2
Posted inGod Science

Religion’s bad arguments against the big bang

The day after I wrote my previous blog post, "Mystery of existence eludes both religion and science," I returned to reading Michael Shermer's new book, The Believing  Brain. I came across a section in his "Belief in God" chapter that reminded me of points made in my post -- which isn't surprising, given that (1) Shermer's arguments are fairly obvious, and (2) almost certainly Shermer and I have read the same ungodly books by Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett, and other religious skeptics. Have a read: The problem we face with the God question is that certainty is not possible when we…
5