Posted inBooks Morality

Finding meaning in the midst of life (not in God, not in “I”)

What gives life meaning? Why do we get out of bed in the morning rather than pulling the covers over our head and curling up in existential despair? Where are we to look for purposes, goals, things to do? God or the supernatural is one answer. Deeply religious people believe that meaning flows down from a divine above. The purpose of life isn't made; it is discovered -- via a holy book, holy person, holy revelation.  The source doesn't have to be a personal higher power. In Eastern religions, karma is considered to be the guiding force which leads us…
1
Posted inMorality Religions

Cultures and religions blind us to reality

In a TIME magazine story about the Penn State sex scandal -- rape of young boys by a football coach is alleged -- I came across an analysis of how people become blinded to what is right in front of their eyes. These excerpts from "Penn State of Mind" reminded me of religious true believers. Their blind faith causes them to become equally blind to aspects of reality that don't mesh with what they desperately want to believe in. Within a college bubble, say organizational psychologists, the urge to shape your mental picture of the world can be overwhelming. "Culture…
No Comments
Posted inMorality

Without God, there’s no morality (and that’s good)

Religious fundamentalists often say, "If you don't believe in God, you have no basis for morality." This irritates non-believers like me. Hey! I'm moral! I know the difference between right and wrong. My morality just isn't based on supernatural dogmas. But what if those fundamentalists are correct? What if there's no such thing as atheist morality? And -- most importantly -- what if this is no big deal, because morality is as unnecessary to live a good life as believing in God is? Such is the basic thesis of Joel Marks' "Confessions of an Ex-Moralist." Marks is a philosophy professor,…
5
Posted inMorality Religions

Atheism promotes human dignity and truth-seeking

While exercising today I listened to a podcast of the Philosophy Talk program, "Atheism and the Well-Lived Life." The guest philosopher was Louise Antony, who edited Philosophers Without Gods -- one of whom is Ken Taylor, a regular host of the program. For me the most interesting comment of the program came from Antony. She was asked a question by a woman in the audience that went something like this: As an atheist, what would you say to someone who is suffering, who has serious problems? Excellent question. Religion offers consolations for people who aren't having a pleasant life. Most…
10
Posted inBuddhism Morality

Shun extremes. Usually. (Be moderate in shunning also.)

The past few days I've made my way through all of David Chapman's "Meaningness" online book, which I first blogged about here. Since I'm a habitual highlighter of print books, it's been an interesting change of pace to page through screen after screen on my laptop without making any important!, I like!, or hmmmmm... marks. All of the markings have been in my mind. So I'll consult my memory and share what has struck me the most about what Chapman says in his scientifically Buddhist'y fashion: Life is best lived between extremes. But let's not make that adage into something…
2
Posted inMorality Science

92% of Americans believe in God. Are they normal?

Yesterday I was reading TIME magazine and came across a factoid that 92% of Americans believe in God. My first reaction? Wow, I'm part of a distinct minority. Checking on the Gallup web site, I learned that this percentage is down only slightly from the 1940's, when the polling firm started asking this question. In 1967, when I was a godless existentialist drug-crazed college student, 98% of my fellow citizens believed in God, making me even more of an exception. But am I abnormal? Another survey found that only 1% of people in the United States said they've never believed…
5
Posted inMorality Religions

Judgment precedes reason — in religion and elsewhere

Most of us like to think of ourselves as being reasonable creatures. Our decisions, choices, beliefs, values, morality, philosophy of life, political orientation, and such make great good sense. It's the other guy who is whacked-out, irrational, out of touch with reality, a nut job. Of course, for him or her, we're the one who has embraced some far-out crazy shit. How to make sense of all this? After all, people manage to get around in the world just fine together. Almost always we agree to obey the same traffic laws, stopping on red and going on green. We courteously…
2
Posted inMorality Religions

Agnostics and atheists are better than believers

Since I turned churchless, I've become a way better person. So I can testify to this truth that has been been revealed to me by the grace of absolutely nobody but myself: Agnostics and atheists are better people than believers, by and large. Note the "by and large," which protects my truth from being challenged by someone pointing out that agnostic/atheist human X is a world class asshole, while religious human Y is a marvelous example of what us Homo sapiens can become. I shall now engage in one of my favorite blogging activities -- demonstrating with impeccable logic and…
5
Posted inBooks Morality

Exploring the moral landscape with Sam Harris

This morning I finished reading Sam Harris' newest book, "The Moral Landscape." After blogging favorably about the first two chapters, I continued to enjoy Harris' neuroscientific, yet eminently readable, take on how human wellbeing can be expanded via facts rather than faith. Events in the world, and the brain, affect how we experience life. If we study the relationship between those events and our experiences, we stand a good chance of being able to climb higher on the "moral landscape" (individually and collectively). Harris says: Throughout this book I make reference to a hypothetical space that I call "the moral…
5
Posted inMorality Reality

People aren’t free to believe

Here in the United States, you often hear "It's a free country, so...[I can do such and such.]" Reflecting this attitude, I frequently say on this blog that people are free to believe whatever they want to, so long as they don't try to force those beliefs on others. But Sam Harris has caused me to see the caveats in this. In his new book, The Moral Landscape, a section in the "Belief" chapter is called Do We Have Freedom of Belief? Short answer: No. If you ask me to raise a hand, I can choose either my right or…
6
Posted inBooks Morality Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Sam Harris says morality can be scientific

I love Sam Harris' books. His "The End of Faith" came out about a year after I started this churchless blog in the fall of 2004. It provided me with a surge of faithless energy, validating my decision to do what I could to help rid the world of destructive religious dogma. "Letter to a Christian Nation" (2008) also was a winner, but didn't appeal to me quite as much. Never having been a Christian (aside from pretending to be one in my early elementary school years), I guess his focus on the ridiculousness of Christianity seemed self-evident to me.…
3
Posted inGod Morality

Take the Battleground God test (I aced it!)

TPM (The Philosopher's Magazine) has an interesting online test called Battleground God. It shows how rationally consistent your beliefs about God are. Can your beliefs about religion make it across our intellectual battleground?In this activity you’ll be asked a series of 17 questions about God and religion. In each case, apart from Question 1, you need to answer True or False. The aim of the activity is not to judge whether these answers are correct or not. Our battleground is that of rational consistency. This means to get across without taking any hits, you’ll need to answer in a way…
6
Posted inMorality Politics

Judge’s gay marriage ruling is putdown of religion

Out here on the left west coast people are pretty tolerant and open-minded, by and large. For example, in a few months Californians are going to vote on legalizing marijuana. Oregon probably will follow in 2012. So I was surprised when a ban on gay marriage passed in California a few years ago. Now that a federal judge, Vaughn Walker, has declared the ban unconsitutional, it's becoming more obvious why voters were taken in by the spurious arguments of Proposition 8. Religion is the main culprit. A front page story in yesterday's The Oregonian contained these telling quotes: Walker, in…
4
Posted inMorality

Free will is a fiction (and that’s fine)

Over the years I've had many deep, as well as shallow, discussions with friends and acquaintances about free will. It's a fascinating subject, in no small part because substance and process are intimately related.Meaning, if someone disagrees with me and argues, "I'm free to do what I want," I can always respond with "That's just what I expected you to say."Reading about all the philosophical hair-splitting in the area of free will can overheat the cerebral cortex quickly. That's why I like to focus on Albert Einstein's simple viewpoint (in part 1 of his credo): I do not believe in free…
5
Posted inMorality

Striving for perfection is wildly imperfect

Religions would have us strive for perfection. But as this essay points out, that would mean a death of sorts: no progressing, no changing.None of us is perfect. The question is, why would we want to be? (And a more basic one, how could we ever know what perfection consists of?)I got to thinking about this after an intuitive Aha! popped into my consciousness recently. Some undone "to-do's" had been brought to my attention by my wife. She'd reminded me that I hadn't yet attended to some tasks that would benefit other people, yet I kept putting off.I started to…
4
Posted inMorality

Morality shouldn’t depend on the supernatural

How do we decide what is right and wrong? Is there even such a thing, or just "right" and "wrong"? Who are we trying to please, or relate to, when we act ethically, outwardly or inwardly?All intriguing questions, which are ably addressed by anthropologist David Eller in his "Christianity Does Not Provide the Basis for Morality." This is a chapter in a book I'm reading, The Christian Delusion: Why Faith Fails.Every religion is deluded, of course -- not just Christianity. Likewise, no religion, spiritual belief, or mystical practice can provide the basis for morality. Eller shows how they all make…
3
Posted inMorality

Obeying God is immoral

When we were little children, we had to obey our parents. Conversations like this are common:Child: "Why do I have to clean my room?"Parent: "Because! Now go clean your room!"Religious fundamentalists haven't progressed out of this child-like authoritarian morality. If God or a representative of the Big Man Upstairs (such as a guru, preacher, or whoever) says to do such-and-such, that's the end of the story.Obedience is valued above ethics. And that's weird, as evangelist turned atheist Dan Barker says in his book, "Godless."When someone tells you to do something it is natural to ask, "Why?" Why remember the Sabbath?…
5
Posted inGod Morality

Religious believers’ inferences about God are egocentric

Wow, what a non-surprise! Religious believers consider that God favors whatever moral positions they do. Egocentricity rules.Such is the finding of research conducted at the University of Chicago. The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God’s standards. “The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing,” they conclude. “This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”Well, this seems obvious. It's difficult to see how…
2
Posted inMorality

Service and charity don’t need God to be authentic

Back in my true believing days, I used to enjoy feeling that what I was doing was an act of service to my guru. This, of course, is a decidedly Eastern perspective. Western religions don't have living perfect masters, who often are considered to God in human form.But Christians seem to feel much the same when they perform charitable acts in the name of Jesus. Just as I did, they get enjoyment from acting with the thought that someone they love is being pleased.Now that I've entered my churchless phase, I don't believe in the value of seva (an Indian…
6
Posted inBooks Morality

Without God, how can religion be divine?

I thought I'd just thrown twenty bucks down a non-fiction hole. A few scant hours after buying Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God" (at 25% off!) my wife, who was reading the Sunday Oregonian, said: "You're not going to like this review of the book you just got." She was right. Thumbing through the first few pages of the book while considering whether to buy it, I'd focused on Wright's first hand.On the one hand, I think gods arose as illusions, and the subsequent history of the idea of god is, in some sense, the evolution of an illusion.That elicited a…
9