Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Wow. My wife convinces me she’s enlightened.

If you think I'm churchless and irreligious, you haven't met my wife, Laurel -- who is now surpassing me in skepticism about all things godly.  She's even enlightening me about enlightenment.  Driving home from central Oregon this afternoon, with plenty of time to converse during the two hour trip, Laurel said: Why are so many people concerned about being enlightened? It's just about embracing reality. Which is right here, right now. So understanding there's no such thing as enlightenment, just reality, is true enlightenment.  I couldn't add much to this bit of wisdom. Mostly I just marveled at Laurel's evident…
9
Posted inReality

John Gray’s “The Soul of the Marionette” — perplexing and persuasive

I enjoy books that present familiar ideas in a fresh way. I also enjoy books that, when I read the last page, leave me with as many questions as answers. John Gray's "The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Inquiry Into Human Freedom" is such a book.  I finished it last night, having read the 168 pages in just a day and a half. Once I started Gray's book, I found it so fascinating, I felt compelled to get to the end as soon as possible -- so I could grasp its conclusions. Problem was (if it is a problem,…
1
Posted inReality Religions

Why religious Personal Beliefs are usually Personal Delusions

A few days ago astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted out something so-true: If your Personal Beliefs deny what's objectively true about the world, then they're more accurately called Personal Delusions. Beautifully said.  This makes most religious dogma delusional. In fact, I probably should have said all religious dogma, since if something is objectively true it belongs in the realm of science and other forms of generally accepted knowledge, not the realm of religion. Now, in a reply to someone who commented on this tweet, Tyson clarified what he meant. He was asked, "What if your personal delusions don't deny what's…
6
Posted inReality Science

The weird interwoven world of general relativity

Let's get this straight right away: I don't really understand general relativity.  I've read a lot of explanations about it. Briefly I'll feel like I grasp what general relativity is all about in a non-mathematical sense.  A few days later, or even sooner, that understanding has slipped away and I'm basically as clueless as I was before. Which is strange, because usually I can conceptually grasp scientific truths much more fully.  So there's something weird for me about general relativity. Which probably is best explained by the fact that almost everybody feels the same way.  Spend two minutes watching this…
3
Posted inPolitics Reality

Naturalism needs to rule public policy debates

Below is an essay that I wrote for the Spiritual Naturalist Society (I'm a contributing writer), but which struck them as too political for their tastes -- politics and policy-making apparently not being part of what they consider to be a "spiritual practice."  So, boo-hoo, it was rejected for their site. I'm going to present some arguments to the Spiritual Naturalist Society folks about why no bounds should be placed around a naturalistic worldview. If there is no supernatural realm, it doesn't make sense to me to consider some aspects of a naturalistic person's life to be spiritual, and some…
1
Posted inGod Reality

Aliens test the faith of Earth’s religious believers

So here's a thought experiment to ponder, religious believers... Aliens have come to Earth. They're from an advanced civilization in a galaxy far far away. Their spaceship is way beyond anything our scientists have even imagined.  Technologically, it's immediately apparent that we are as sophisticated in their eyes as a chimpanzee with a termite-removing twig is to us.  Fortunately, the aliens haven't come to destroy humanity. Well, let's rephrase that: they're fine with destroying us Homo sapiens one at a time. It's part of a game they like to play with denizens of the planets they visit. The rules are…
5
Posted inReality

Boundless Existence is grander than anything, even a God

l enjoy marveling at a primal marvelousness: That the cosmos exists. Recently I wrote a piece for the Spiritual Naturalist Society about this -- "Wow! Existence has always existed." I boldfaced That because there's a unbridgeable gap between the What and That of existence. We can talk about What existent things are. It is impossible to talk about the That'ness of existence: That existence exists. Recently on a bookshelf I came across Milton Munitz' "Does Life Have a Meaning?", one of my favorite books. For the third time, I read it. Munitz  also was fascinated by the brute fact of existence. Being a Distinguished Professor of…
No Comments
Posted inReality Religions

Imagined orders — like religions — depend on shaky myths

Today I hit a sweet spot in my reading of Yuval Noah Harari's book, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind." Harari is a historian who has a knack for explaining the past and present in some wonderfully fresh ways. In his Building Pyramids chapter Harari describes the Code of Hammurabi, circa 1776 BC, and the United States Declaration of Independence, which was created in 1776 AD. Each claimed to be founded on sacred principles. So how do we know which is right? Or more right? Harari says: The two texts present us with an obvious dilemma. Both the Code of…
5
Posted inReality Universe

Wow! Existence has always existed.

I've done a lot of pondering about the primal mystery of existence. As noted in the essay I wrote this month for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I've gone from being blown away by the classic question Why is there something rather than nothing? to being awestruck at the amazing affirmation, There is something rather than nothing. Read on... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wow! Existence has always existed. Awe-inspiring. Spine-tingling. Vertigo-inducing. Something frequently produces these feelings in me. It isn’t a theme park ride. In fact, it isn’t even a thing. It is everything. Existence. Just typing that word produced a chill up my spine — a…
11
Posted inReality

There’s no need for a “theology of atheism”

At one time I probably would have agreed with a call for a theology of atheism. But now this strikes me as both absurd and unneeded. Sure, I've got a blog called Church of the Churchless. That sort of sounds like the same thing. Aren't I trying to foster a belief system for people who don't believe in God or the supernatural? Not really.  This might have been part of my motivation when I started this blog back in 2004. Hard for me to say. I'm a considerably different person now than I was back then, just as I'm a…
4
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…
1
Posted inReality Universe

Even God can’t explain the mystery of existence

Re-reading the first chapter of Luther Askeland's "Ways in Mystery" this morning (one of my favorite meaning-of-life books), I liked how Askeland addressed The Seemingly Really Big Question of Existence. The Way of Unknowing chapter starts off with a Wittgenstein quote: Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. Now, I've come to doubt that this that mystery is really as mystically mysterious as it appears to be. Maybe the classic question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" simply should be rephrased as a statement: "There is something rather than nothing." Offering support to  this…
12
Posted inGod Reality

Best statement about reality, in just thirteen words

Back in 2006, I called my post about it "The best one-sentence metaphysics ever written." I still feel that way. But if anyone has another contender for this honor, share it in a comment. Dick's adage came to mind today when I gave some thought to another quotation by Gregory Bateson that I see mentioned fairly often in science books. Information is a difference which makes a difference. So let's ponder the notion of "God" a bit from the perspectives of what Dick and Bateson said. Or, if you like, of supernatural religiosity in general. What difference does the divinity so…
21
Posted inReality Science

Timeless naturalism vs. temporal naturalism? I like temporal.

I'm still making my way through a thick, serious, thoughtful, well-written science/philosophy book, "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time."  (Previous posts about the book are here and here.) The authors, Roberto Mangabeira Unger and Lee Smolin, wrote different parts of the book. I've just started reading Smolin's chapters. He's a philosophically minded physicist, while Unger is a scientifically minded philosopher. A couple of topics particularly interested me in Smolin's opening Cosmology in Crisis chapter.  First, the notion of naturalism -- which he says comes in two flavors, timeless and temporal. Smolin defines naturalism this way: Naturalism is the…
2
Posted inReality Religions

Humanism is way better than religion. Yet mystery remains.

On the whole, I'm pleased to call myself a humanist. As noted in this post about a humanist book, someone called me this during my sophomore year in college --  before I even knew what humanism was. This is one of the points made in an interesting You Tube video a regular Church of the Churchless visitor told me about today: "Christian man says humanists are debauched. Andrew Copson explains what Humanism is really all about."    If you're like me, you'll find the preachy Christian guy who speaks at the start of the video to be irritating. But here's…
2
Posted inReality Religions Science

Religion is a failed paradigm deserving of ridicule

Even after more than ten years of blogging on this here Church of the Churchless, I continue to be surprised by how often visitors to this site believe that religious belief shouldn't be subject to ridicule. Um, didn't they notice the word "churchless" in the blog name? Or the tag line, Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence? Today a comment interchange on a recent post pointed to this inability of true believers to recognize that their worldview lacks a solid foundation. Here's what "x," a religious skeptic, said: I don't preach anything...I just comment on preachiness...like yours. You think you're…
87
Posted inReality

Is life absurd? Or maybe asking that question is.

For something completely different... and really well written... and either marvelously meaningful or completely meaningless... yet fun to read, nonetheless... Check out Rivka Weinberg's New York Times piece, "Why life is absurd."  I liked it a lot. While understanding it hardly at all. Which could be Weinberg's point. With modern philosophy, often it's hard to tell the difference between satire and seriousness. Here's a few excerpts to whet your reading appetite. In a famous 1971 paper, “The Absurd,” Thomas Nagel argues that life’s absurdity has nothing to do with its length. If a short life is absurd, he says, a…
3
Posted inReality Science

Imagination permeates waking, as well as dreaming

Imagination. We tend to think of this as something special, an activity we engage in when, say, we're trying to do something creative like paint a picture, write a novel, or compose a song. Or as what the brain does when it dreams -- which seemingly is markedly different from the clear perception of reality in our waking state. But Evan Thompson's book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being," has given me a different perspective on imagination. From both a Buddhist and neuroscientific perspective, he sees imagination as permeating every form of consciousness. Here's a passage from his Imagining: Are we real? chapter.…
3
Posted inReality

Here’s what you actually know…

Hey, I can find quasi-philosophical churchless inspiration in all kinds of places. Yesterday it was in Carolyn Hax's advice column that appeared in the Sunday Oregonian.  Hax responded to a woman who was "feeling shaken in my own marriage" after learning that the husband of a friend of hers has been having an affair. The woman said, "My husband has never given me a reason to suspect he is anything less than a loving and devoted spouse and father, but I feel myself looking at our relationship with a more critical eye." I thought Hax's advice was well spoken and…
No Comments
Posted inReality Science

“Spiritual oneness” is embracing your bodily being

Having written a well-received book called "Return to the One," I've obviously thought a lot about oneness. My views have changed considerably since I wrote the book. I used to believe that the goal of a spiritual or self-realized life was to merge the soul's immaterial consciousness with universal consciousness, which often is termed God or The One.  Now, I've got another view of oneness. A simpler one. A more easily achieved one. A considerably more scientific one. What I am, what we all are, what everything in the universe is -- its the stuff of physics. Julian Baggini puts…
1