Posted inBooks Religions

Worst and best part of being human: imagining what doesn’t exist

Imagination is wonderful. Except when it isn't.  That's one of the core messages of psychologist Daniel Gilbert's marvelous book, "Stumbling on Happiness."  I'm re-reading the book after first discovering it in 2006, when I wrote "Happiness is a new mountain bike. Maybe." On the same day I bought myself this present, I received a few other gifts from myself after a visit to my other favorite Sisters store, Paulina Springs Books. I saw “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert on the new non-fiction table. At first I figured that the book would tell me how to do just that. But…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Religions

“Soul” — an appealing notion, but no agreement on what it is

For many years I believed that I had, or was, a soul. This idea was comforting, because the spiritual philosophy I followed taught that the essence of human beings was non-material, pure consciousness, and everlasting. So when my body died, supposedly my soul would live on. Worse case was, it, or I, would be reincarnated as another bodily life form. Best case was, my soul, or True Me, would leave matter and mind behind forever. In this case, soul-me would exist in a "heavenly" realm beyond time and space. Now, it was always hard for me to imagine what such…
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Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

“Faithless Feminist” speaks to irreligious women and men alike

My wife, Laurel, is an increasingly ardent scientifically-minded religious skeptic. After starting a Meet Up discussion group here in Salem -- Science Minded Skeptics --  she's gotten to know Karen Darst, a Portland woman who runs the Faithless Feminist web site.  Check it out. It isn't just for women, or feminists. I liked Garst's "The Devil Made Me Do It" post. The whole idea of the devil is ridiculous, but the notion of an supernatural power in opposition to God (who is another absurd idea) can be found in Eastern as well as Western religions.  For a long time I…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

“Our God is a Woman! Our Mission is Protest! Our Weapon are bare breasts!”

FEMEN International has a good slogan -- the title of this post.  Recently they made good on those words, as described in "Topless female protesters manhandled after disrupting Islamic conference in France."  Members of a feminist protest group known for storming events topless has disrupted an Islamic conference in France and caught what appears to be a bit of a beating in the process....Even right-wing media sites like Breitbart were impressed when two young women, sans shirts, took the stage last weekend at what was billed as a “Muslim salon” in Pontoise, France, a town just outside of Paris. The salon, as…
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Posted inMystics Religions

Tough talk about Rajinder Singh from a disillusioned ex-disciple

Recently I got an email from someone who was initiated by an Indian Sant Mat guru, Rajinder Singh, and now realizes that this supposed divine being isn't really what he claims to be. This person gave me permission to share the message, which I've done below with some mild editing in line with the person's wish to remain anonymous. I'm always pleased to hear about someone's disillusioned experience with a religion or religious teacher. This is a wonderful thing, waking up from an illusion.  Feel free to share your thoughts about what this person says in a comment, as my…
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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…
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Posted inGod Religions

A must read for the churchless: “Faith No More”

Short. Sweet. Persuasive. There's a lot to like about a piece in the Milwaukee Magazine, "Faith No More," by Mario Quadracci. Download Faith No More PDF (in case the piece ever disappears from the magazine's web site) Quadracci nails a theme that I like to harp on also. It isn't up to atheists to prove that god and supernaturalism don't exist; it is up to theists to prove that god and supernaturalism do exist. He writes: I could try to convince you that we reside in a purely naturalistic universe. I could attempt to demonstrate the human authorship of all of…
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Posted inReligions

1000 musical fans of Foo Fighters display religion-like devotion

I'm not a religious person. But I respond to emotional displays of devotion that have a sort of religious quality to them. Such as this wonderful video of a thousand musicians and singers assembling in an Italian field to play the Foo Fighters "Learn to Fly" -- with the goal of getting the band to put on a concert in Cesena, Italy.   I was moved by the video. And I'm not even a fan of the Foo Fighters.  We humans are social animals. We enjoy getting together with other people and doing stuff. We also enjoy watching masses of…
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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…
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Posted inReligions Science

Belief in design of the natural world runs deep in human brain

Here's another bit of scientific evidence showing that false religious belief comes easy, while true secular rationalism requires effort to attain. The title of the piece, "Even atheists intuitively believe in a creator, study finds" is a bit overblown. It's more, as you can read below, that humans have an innate bias toward finding design in the natural world, even when something like a tree obviously wasn't intentionally designed. This helps explain why the vast majority of people on Earth subscribe to religious beliefs. Psychologically, it's the easy way to go. What's difficult is to carefully assess the evidence of…
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Posted inReligions

Godly superstitions are what are dangerous, not disbelief in divinity

Here's three recent news items that fit together in my churchless mind. The first is a letter to the editor in my local newspaper, the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal. I have no idea why the paper publishes this crap. I doubt they would regularly fill up space on the editorial pages with letters praising Zeus and warning that failing to believe in the Greek Pantheon of gods will lead to this nation's cultural downfall, so why publish this religious gibberish? When the Ten Commandments were introduced to the world in about 1475 B.C., they were presented to a primitive theocratic society. …
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Posted inBooks Religions Science

Knowledge must be based on facts

Recently I wrote about "Five criteria for a 'God Theory' that religions fail." One of philosopher L.R. Hamelin's criteria related to private knowledge. If her theory can be tested only by private revelation, not by observations available to everyone, she unjustifiably claims private knowledge. Someone left a comment on this post, wondering why private knowledge wasn't justifiable. This was my reply: Here's how I see the issue of "private revelation" and "private knowledge." Can knowledge be private? Only if we define knowledge in a way that makes it virtually (or completely) synonymous with subjective experience. But then it isn't really knowledge…
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Posted inReligions Science Universe

Given size of the universe, is creation really all about us?

Religious belief involves lots of absurdities. For me, one of the biggest ones is the assumption that humans are the Big Deal of the universe.  Whether it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or some other major religion, theologies differ about how people are special in the eye of God, Brahman, or whatever, but they agree that members of a recently evolved species on Earth, Homo sapiens, occupy a central place in the cosmic scheme of things. This is really difficult for me to accept for various reasons. One is our modern understanding of the size of the universe. Consider... (1) Light…
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Posted inReligions

Religious belief and factual belief — different creatures

After more than ten years of blogging away at this here Church of the Churchless, I've ceased being surprised at how strongly religious believers hold onto their beliefs.  Partly because I understand the attraction of faith-based believing, since I was into this myself for thirty-five years. It feels good to consider that you are part of a special group that's especially beloved by God, and are privy to cosmic secrets unknown to others. And partly because I've seen so many examples of religious believers discounting good arguments, solid facts, and other reasonable evidence that should, one would think, cause them…
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Posted inGod Religions Science

A question about “God’s creation” for religious believers

I have a question for religious people: most religions believe that God or some other divine being created the universe. Which, naturally, includes Earth. I read a lot of science books. I'm not expert in the details of cosmology and evolution, but I'm familiar with the broad outlines of these fields. I know how much solid evidence supports certain basic facts. Such as... The universe started off in a big bang some 13.8 billion years ago. Stars and galaxies eventually came into being, along with our sun and the solar system.  Chance, in the form of countless unpredictable chaotic deterministic…
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Posted inMorality Religions

Religious ridiculousness: men refusing to sit next to women on planes

Rather than the so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act, legislatures in the United States should get busy passing Freedom from Religion bills. After all, to me (and many others) religiosity is a relationship between an individual and his/her imagined divinity. It's a matter of personal belief, which I have no problem with. Believe whatever you want, so long as you don't interfere with the right of other people to believe as they want.  Unfortunately, all too often religion becomes a matter of outward action, rather than inner belief. And not private actions, but public ones that affect other people. Case in…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religion is just one of many stories humans have imagined

Often religious people will say, "Science is just another sort of religion." This is wrong. Science is science. Religion is religion.  Yet that saying also is right in a way. Neither science nor religion exists in the same fashion as stars, rocks, water, and flowers do.  Those things existed before modern humans, Homo sapiens, came along. They also exist now. And if we humans disappear from Earth, almost certainly all of those things will remain. As Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, says in his fascinating book, "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind," certain entities exist only in the minds of…
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Posted inReligions Science

Hurting children in the name of religion — unacceptable

I dislike faith-based religious belief for lots of reasons. A big one is that innocent people often are hurt by irrational, science-denying dogmas. Like, the crazy notion that vaccines somehow are ungodly. Or even that all sorts of medical care are.  Driving around yesterday, I was channel-surfing on satellite radio and came across an interview with pediatrician Paul Offit on Radio Times. He's written a book called "Bad Faith: When Religious Belief Undermines Modern Medicine."  What he said pushed the child-protecting buttons in me. I'm OK with people endangering their own health (physical and mental) in the name of religion.…
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Posted inReligions

Leaving religion can be like dogs facing imaginary doors

Recently I came across a couple of videos that reminded me of (1) how hard and scary it can be to leave religious beliefs behind, and (2) how easy and joyful it can be. There is nothing preventing you from walking through the empty door of freedom from dogma, blind faith, and moralistic confinement. You just need to take a step or two. Be confident that the only thing holding you back is a false belief that something is. Then, rejoice in your newfound freedom. See how these videos strike you..    
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Posted inMorality Religions

Religious people have no right to discriminate against gays

Oh, man. As if I needed another reason to hate religious bigotry. But there it was, couldn't be ignored... a New York Times story that got my moral blood boiling: "Anticipating Nationwide Right to Same-Sex Marriage, States Weigh Religious Exemption Bills." So what do these religious jerks want to be exempted from? Treating homosexual people with the same dignity and respect due everybody else.  As it looks increasingly likely that the Supreme Court will establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage later this year, state legislatures across the country are taking up bills that would make it easier for businesses and individuals to opt…
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