Reality

Passion. Religious believers consider that they're the only ones with it. For example, they have "The Passion of the Christ." It fills Christians with energy, conviction, determination, zeal. Well, there's also "The Passion of Reality." It fills me with exactly the same feelings. Just as fundamentalists are driven to rid the world of Satanic influences (including pagans like me), when I come across nonsensical dogmatic blathering my reality-loving blood begins to boil. I get fired up to defend the ramparts of truth against the neo-barbarian hordes who want to substitute superstition for science (and a scientifically founded spirituality). This morning,…

Ooh! It feels so good to have my view of life confirmed. Today someone sent me a link to "On Being Certain," which talks about a book with the same name by Robert Burton, M.D. It's subtitle is believing you are right even when you're not. Nice! Not that it applies to me. Because I know I'm right about uncertainty. Why, I've read marvelous blog posts about this subject, each of which, I'm pleased to say, was written by me (see here, here, here, and here). And now I learn from a description of Burton's book that science shows I've…

I'm surprised to find myself saying yes! so enthusiastically to a book by Ken Wilber. Though I'm just four chapters into "Integral Spirituality," it's producing more positivity in me than irritation – a big change. If you aren't familiar with Ken Wilber, his life work is to figure out how everything fits together. And I do mean everything. His personal and institute web sites point to a dazzling intellectual and philosophical production. The guy is undeniably brilliant and creative. Also, provocative and full of himself. I've read quite a few of Wilber's previous books. I've written an article, "What Wilber…

It's so easy to fire skeptical bullets at deluded religious believers. Because they aren't me. It's a lot tougher to turn my big guns around and point them at myself. Yet that's what we all need to do – especially those who call themselves "churchless." The way I see it, we often fail to recognize that while we've demolished the most obvious walls of blind faith that kept us confined within dogmatic bounds, often we've just retreated to a smaller and less obvious belief structure. We've shrunk our religiosity from a grand cathedral to something much more humble. However, it's…

It was one of those moments when the universe seemed to be sending me a wake up! call. I have them fairly frequently. I'd probably be aware of more if I wasn't asleep so much of the time. Not literally, though napping is one of the things I'm best at; what I mean is sleepwalking through life – absorbed in something other than what is really going on. A few days ago I was walking up our driveway to get the morning newspapers. We live in rural Oregon countryside, so when I talk to myself on a cold dry December…

Unchurched, nonbeliever, atheist. Those prefixes – un, non, a – imply an undeserved negativity. Consider "atheist." That simply means, not a theist. To most people this is something bad. If you don't believe in an unknown, unseen god, there's something wrong with you. But there's no term for those who don't believe in unicorns or the Tooth Fairy. Except, "those who don't believe in unicorns or the Tooth Fairy." A commitment to understanding reality as it really is usually is viewed as a good thing. But not when it comes to belief in god. Then those who want their reality…

When we feel like somebody is putting us on, "Get real!" is an appropriate response. But what the heck is real? Most of us think we know. However, are we really right about reality? I'm a sucker for big questions like this. So when I see a chapter called "Consciousness and Reality" in a book, my philosophical spine starts to tingle. That chapter is in Eugene d'Aquili and Andrew Newberg's The Mystical Mind, which I praised in my previous post. It reduces a whole lot of scientific, philosophical, and religious speculation, thousands of years of it, down to a single…

Given how philosophical I've been for so many years, it's sort of surprising to me that I'm losing interest in pondering the meaning of life. More and more, living life is meaningful enough. Adding something called meaning seems like decorating a cake that's already nicely frosted. It can be done, but what's the point? How many layers does life need? I do keep reading about the meaning of life, though. This morning it was the final chapter in Nicholas Fearn's book about the latest answers to the oldest questions: "The Meaning of Life and Death." I liked this passage: A…

That's a great title: "What is Reality?" It gets right down to the nitty-gritty of what life is all about. Being real. Whether we live only once, or have an opportunity to live another physical or metaphysical existence, making the most of these precious human moments means really living them. So I leapt to open an issue of New Scientist magazine that had "The Big Questions" emblazoned on the cover. "What is Reality?" is the biggest of the big in my opinion. And seemingly that of the magazine's editors also, since they featured Roger Penrose's essay on this subject in…

Some people look at things so bizarrely. Like Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the hugely popular "Left Behind" series of books that takes a fictional view of events surrounding the Second Coming of Jesus—which for LaHaye and Jenkins won't be fiction when the Big Day comes. Yesterday I heard them interviewed on a right-wing Portland talk show. The host asked them how they were faring on their book tour to the least-churched state in the nation. (Whenever I hear that fact, I always feel like cheering, Yay, Oregon! We're #1!) LaHaye and Jenkins said, "Just fine. We've got…

Pondering "Why is there something rather than nothing?" will blow your mind. This is the most common way the mystery of existence is framed, as noted in my "Existence exists. Amazing!" But, hey, why stop there? If we're going to have our minds blown, might as well blow up what's doing the blowing up also. Bigger the explosion, the better. This morning I plucked Milton K. Munitz' The Mystery of Existence from my bookshelf. This is a deeply philosophical book that isn't the easiest of reading. I'd read most of it before flaming out from intellectual overload on the final…

I admire anyone who writes this boldly about believing in God: You believe in God. You also believe that we have a soul that lives eternally once our earthly bodies fail us. You believe that both of these statements are true. Now that we’ve agreed upon what you believe, let me tell you what I know. (Not what I believe to be true, but what I know to be true.) I know these statements you believe to be true are false. I know they are false because I know they are not true. That anyone is Jon, a Church of…

I live just sixty miles or so from Mt. Hood, where two climbers are still missing on the mountain and one has been found. Dead. Both local and national news is focused on this drama. I am too. This afternoon I was zeroed in on a television tuned to CNN while exercising on a stairmaster at my athletic club. There was lots of talk about hope. A snow cave had been discovered. Rescuers were making their way to it. Driving home, I heard on the radio that a body had been recovered. Yet hope was still being expressed that the…

Got to get psyched up, so to speak, for another Internet radio interview tonight with mediums Marcel and Lenny. Tune in your computer at 8 pm PST here for a discussion of “The Changing Face of Faith.” Here’s the blurb that got emailed to me. Download in_good_spirit_12606.doc I’ll jump on their medium turf and look into the future: Marcel and Lenny will challenge my spiritual skepticism. And I’ll say, “But skepticism is the doorway to openness.” Or something like that. Maybe I’ll talk about walking up our driveway to get the newspaper in the morning. A few days ago I…

Here’s a thought experiment that, if you conduct it honestly, will tell you a lot about yourself. What you’re looking for in life. How you comfort yourself when the wild things howl. Whether you tilt toward science or religion. I first wrote about the Two Doors two years ago this month, back when the Church of the Churchless had just laid its cornerstone. I still often think about my thought experiment. I also try to put it into practice. So here, extracted from my November 2004 “Just have faith” post, is a re-run of the Two Doors. Here's how to…

Should I be skeptical about skepticism? That’s an interesting notion. But after pondering the question as a good skeptic would, I’ve decided that skepticism should continue to blossom in me. And, hopefully, the world, which would be a better place with more of it.

So I’ve got to respectfully disagree with an essay that a Church of the Churchless visitor recently pointed me toward: “The Death of Skepticism.” The author, Steve Pavlina, does his best to make a convincing argument that we should be as skeptical about skepticism as we are, say, about a claim that the moon is made out of green cheese.

But I’m not convinced. The main problem with Pavlina’s piece is that he doesn’t understand what skepticism is all about. He says that skeptics are closed, while non-skeptics are open. He also says that skeptics believe in objectivity, while non-skeptics believe in subjectivity.

That’s simplistic. And wrong. Peter Suber, a philosophy professor at Earlham College, gets it right in his essay on “Classical Skepticism.” Here’s some of what he has to say in his introduction to the subject

Compared to non-skeptical philosophical positions, skepticism is very simple. It is easy to understand, although it is commonly confused with things it is not.

Skepticism in religion, for example, is not atheism. It is not even agnosticism. No genuine skeptic ever doubts or denies or disbelieves any theory, any hypothesis, or any belief. In fact, this is the only obstacle to a clear understanding of skepticism: we think we already know what it is and we are wrong.

To skeptics, this unfounded pretense to knowledge is itself an example of the greatest sin they know, which is variously called rashness, conceit, pride, dogmatism, presumption, and culpable ignorance.

To the Greeks “skepticism” meant inquiry, and a skeptic was an inquirer. The skeptics so named themselves because the essence of their position was not doubt or denial or disbelief, but continual inquiry.

They did not believe in the reality of a god, for example, but neither did they deny it. Nor did they even say that nobody could ever know for certain one way or the other, as agnostics do. Skeptics said instead, “I personally do not know at the moment but I am trying to find out.”

The differences between this and atheism, agnosticism, and indifference have led to confusion.

All three components of the skeptics’ statement are important. (1) They speak only for themselves and confess only their own ignorance. (2) They speak only for the present and do not claim that their ignorance is inescapable. They do not say that knowledge is impossible for themselves or for others. (3) And they always add that despite their own present ignorance they are inquiring for the truth of the matter.

They have not given up; they are optimistic —or at least hopeful —or at least undefeated —or at least unrelenting.

Right on, Dr. Suber. You’ve expressed my own skeptical attitude much better than I could. You’ve strengthened my conviction that skepticism is the wisest position we can take toward ourselves and the world. Skeptics are humble truth-seeking optimists, not grumpy nay-sayers.

I respect Steve Pavlina’s belief in the power of subjectivity. He’s convinced that “I’ll see it when I believe it” is a more accurate representation of how the cosmos operates than “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Pavlina is trying to use the power of intention to manifest a million dollars for each person taking part in the experiment. I wish them luck. So far the participants have subjectively estimated that, on average, an additional $592 has come each person’s way. Not bad. Also, not a million dollars.

On the whole, the observable universe seems to be tilted much more in the direction of objectivity than subjectivity. The dependability and universality of the laws of nature testify to that conclusion. Humans can think and believe what they want. That’s the special blessing (and curse) of Homo sapiens.

However, for the time being my personal opinion is that truth is what it is, not what we may want it to be. I may very well end up changing my mind, because that’s what skeptics frequently do. Skepticism is at the other end of the philosophical spectrum from dogmatism, which suits me just fine.

I’ll end with another quote from Suber that resonates with my skeptical soul (see continuation to this post).