Posted inReligions

Religious abstractions like the “devil” are ridiculous

It's crazy to believe in a world that doesn't exist. This is what many mentally ill people suffer from: a mistaken belief that what their dysfunctional minds tell them is true, really is.  Today I heard on the radio that a pastor presiding over a service in the town where the Fort Hood shootings took place said "the devil is the author of what happened."  Whatever made Ivan Lopez kill three soldiers before he killed himself almost certainly was not the devil. (I added the "almost" to show my scientific credentials, since absolute certainty isn't a hallmark of the scientific…
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Posted inReligions

How much smarter are atheists than religious believers?

A video about religion from The Idiot's Guide to Smart People series makes fun of religious believers -- which isn't difficult, of course. But I also enjoyed the take on adamant atheists. They're much smarter than religious people, since they don't accept myths, fantasies, and wishful thinking. (At least, not of the godly variety.) Yet how smart is it to waste a lot of time debating people who do believe in this theological crap? I don't have a good answer. I wouldn't have seen the godless light without having my beliefs challenged by friends, family, and a bunch of books by…
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Posted inReligions

How can corporations have religious beliefs?

The Hobby Lobby case that was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court today shows why religious beliefs can be dangerous to your health. In this instance, if you work for a company run by owners who want to impose their religious dogma on their employees.  To me, it's a no-brainer: corporations should have to follow the law, just like everybody else. I don't see why there should be exemptions for any sort of religious belief. After all, who is to say what is "religious" and what isn't? Meaning, what difference is there between (1) the owners of Hobby Lobby who…
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Posted inGod Religions

Subjective sensations don’t make souls, just people

The title of this post comes from a passage I liked a lot in Adam Gopnik's terrific New Yorker piece, Bigger Than Phil: When did faith start to fade? “Cosmically, I seem to be of two minds,” John Updike wrote, a decade ago. “The power of materialist science to explain everything—from the behavior of the galaxies to that of molecules, atoms, and their sub-microscopic components—seems to be inarguable and the principal glory of the modern mind. "On the other hand, the reality of subjective sensations, desires, and—may we even say—illusions composes the basic substance of our existence, and religion alone,…
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Posted inReligions

I’m loving True Detective’s existential anti-religious honesty

HBO"s True Detective features Detectives Rustin Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson). It's a cop show like no other. My wife and I are loving it. It's gritty and bleak, yet so marvelously acted and philosophically intriguing, we eagerly look forward to new episodes.  Rustin Cohle breaks new ground for broadcast television. I've never heard a major TV show character speak about religion and the meaninglessness of existence in such an honest, philosophically-sophisticated way.  Here's an example from the episode we watched a few days ago. Cohle and Hart are following up a lead in their investigation of…
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Posted inReligions Science

Einstein talks about “spirit.” But not in a religious sense.

Can you be spiritual without being religious? Can you be spiritual and also scientific? Of course. It depends on what is meant by spirit.  A Google search produced this definition: 1. The nonphysical part of a person that is the seat of emotions and character; the soul. 2. Those qualities regarded as forming the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation, or group or in the thought and attitudes of a particular period. Obviously the first definition -- the non-physical part of a person, soul -- implies a religious sensibility. Or at least, a supernatural one. …
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Posted inGod Religions

Religious believers, what if you’re wrong?

I"ve mused about this subject before, including in "You're religious, but are you right?" and "Anti-Pascal's wager bets on life." The question is: what if religious believers are wrong about God, afterlife, ultimate reality? Usually the consequences of being wrong are thrown in the face of atheists and infidels. You'll spend eternity in hell if you're wrong! So you should believe. Running the risk of sacrificing eternal joy for transient earthly pleasure is stupid. Well, not really.  It comes down to probabilities. As I've noted before, the existence or non-existence of God isn't a 50-50 proposition. Virtually all of the demonstrable…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Pope Francis is cool, but Catholic Church still leaves me cold

Compared to his predecessor, Pope Francis is a breath of religious fresh air. After reading TIME magazine's cover story (Francis is Person of the Year) I came away with fairly positive feelings about the new leader of the Catholic Church. But what makes this Pope so important is the speed with which he has captured the imaginations of millions who had given up on hoping for the church at all. People weary of the endless parsing of sexual ethics, the buck-passing infighting over lines of authority when all the while (to borrow from Milton), “the hungry Sheep look up, and…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Two good comments about faith and guru games

Here's a couple of comments on Church of the Churchless posts that I particularly enjoyed today. Understand, I like all the comments people leave here, even the ones I disagree with. Dialogue, discussion, debate -- that's what this blog is about. (Religious people would add another "D" word,  damnation.) But some comments strike me in a special way, making me think, ah!, nicely said. This one is from Gene: "...remove the foundation of faith that supports their religiosity." The foundation of faith is the 'meaning' one finds from their very own life experiences. The only way to remove this would…
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Posted inReligions

How to cure an addiction to faith

In his book "A Manual for Creating Atheists," Peter Boghossian has some advice for those who want to helo cure religious addicts: don't focus on weaning them off of religion; rather, remove the foundation of faith that supports their religiosity. Makes sense.  Attacks on religion are often peceived as attacks on friends, families, communities, and relationships. As such, attacking religion may alienate people, making it even more difficult to separate them from their faith. ...Attempting to disabuse people of a belief in their God(s) is the wrong way to conceptualize the problem. God is the conclusion that one arrives at…
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Posted inReligions Science

Atheism is the rejection of theism, not a belief system

Here's a follow-up to my "Atheism isn't a belief. It is a lack of belief." That post had quotes from James Lindsay's second book.  The passages below are from Lindsay's first book, God Doesn't, We Do. Once again, he persuasively challenges the false assumption that theism, believing in God, and atheism, not believing in God, are somehow both belief systems. Doesn't make sense. Read on to see why. Another common misconception among believers is that infidels, atheists in particular, subscribe to a religious view that is called Atheism. This is incorrect, generally speaking. We might be able to call (capitalized)…
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Posted inReligions Science

What are the odds of alien civilizations believing in our gods?

Astonomers have come up with an estimate of how many earth-like planets there are in our galaxy: some 40 billion. Wow.  The known odds of something — or someone — living far, far away from Earth improved beyond astronomers’ boldest dreams on Monday. Astronomers reported that there could be as many as 40 billion habitable Earth-size planets in the galaxy, based on a new analysis of data from NASA’s Kepler spacecraft. One out of every five sunlike stars in the galaxy has a planet the size of Earth circling it in the Goldilocks zone — not too hot, not too cold…
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Posted inReligions

Atheism isn’t a belief. It is a lack of belief.

I don't listen to country music. I don't like country music. I don't believe country music is worth listening to. So does this make me an "acountrymusicist"?  That is, someone who holds to a belief that country music sucks. No, I just don't like it. I pay very little attention to it, noticing this musical genre only when it is is foisted unwillingly on me by a radio station, TV show, or store.  Likewise, I don't consider myself an "asoccerfan." I just am not much interested in soccer. Same goes for religion. So why should I be called an "atheist"…
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Posted inReligions Science

Faith is pretending to know things you don’t know

To most people, faith is a positive quality. Perhaps it is, if "faith" is construed as "hope" or "positive thinking." As in, I have faith that I'll be able to make it to the top of this mountain.  You don't know if you'll be able to reach the summit, but you hope that you will. Nothing wrong with this. Somewhat similarly, faith can be viewed in probabilistic terms. I have faith that my laptop will start up when I raise the lid in the morning, because so far it has every time I've done this. But in his book, "A…
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Posted inReligions

Is God a substitute for the social safety net?

It sure seems like people turn more toward God when they face tough times. If life doesn't give us what we need, the anticipation of better things to come in an afterlife offers hope that eternity in heaven will be much more pleasant than the time we spend on Earth. Thus an interesting letter in New Scientist hypothesizes that as near-universal health insurance through Obamacare/Affordable Care Act becomes more and more of a reality, religiosity in the United States will decline. We can only hope. From Rev Dr Derek SuchardIn his review of Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How religion transformed cooperation…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Imagine how you felt when you still believed

Almost everybody has believed in imaginary things.  God. Angels. Bigfoot. Flying saucers. Soul. That the barista at the coffee shop is really attracted to you when he/she smiles while handing over your drink. The list is endless. Because it feels good to believe in things that we want to be real, but almost certainly aren't.  How do we tell the difference between reality and illusion, fact and belief, actuality and hope? By using an everyday form of the scientific method: predict what would happen if your belief really is true. If that prediction comes to pass, or if the experiment…
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Posted inReligions

Religion Cheat Sheet — see what faith you believe in

When I got an email from someone representing Christian Universities Online who shared a link to their "Religion Cheat Sheet," I deleted the message after a quick lookover. But the next day this person said she was checking to see how I liked the infographic. If I did, was I going to pass it along to my blog readers? Well, Hailey, actually I do like the Religion Cheat Sheet. It's a clever and seemingly pretty darn accurate flow chart of what religion you end up with, given your answers to a few questions.  Give it a look-see below, or via…
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Posted inReligions

Don’t experience life through your phone. Or religion.

I admit it. I look at my iPhone frequently. It's a good friend. Keeps me in touch with what's going on. Does what I want it to most of the time. Allows me to communicate with people I care about. But I saw some of myself in a viral video, "I Forgot my Phone." Shows what occurs when life is lived through the screen of a smart phone: a direct connection with what is happening right in front of us becomes diluted through a technological filter. Question is: how different is this from living life through the screen of religious…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Become your own weird religion of one

I'm churchless. I don't belong to any organized religion. But actually I'm still religious. In a marvelously disorganized sense.  Meaning, I believe in a religion of one -- my own. It's all about me, myself, and I. There are no other members of my religion than moi.  And I seek no other members. In fact, it would be impossible for anyone else than me to believe in my religion, because not even I do.  Likely you're confused about what I just said. Join the club. I am also. Believe me, I find it difficult to believe that I believe what…
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Posted inReligions

Preachiness on my churchless blog is irritating

I'm pretty patient with people who want to leave religious'y comments on this blog. But eventually my patience wears thin.  I don't mind a few "I love [insert name of divine being] so much!" kinds of comments. Hey, I've been there and done that -- wanted to share my religious zeal with the world.  Eventually, though, the situation becomes akin to an alcoholic coming to a 12-step group where the members are dedicated to weaning themselves from a dependency on excessive drinking. And supporting each other in finding non-alcoholic ways of living life. The first question is: why is an…
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