Posted inGod Religions

Koran burners and murdering Muslim protesters: two of a kind

It's tough for me to decide which brand of fundamentalist religious craziness is most appalling: (1) Christian pastor Terry Jones holding a mock trial of the Koran, then burning it, or (2) Islamic Afghan protesters of the Koran incineration who have killed 24 people in the past few days. What I do know is that believing in some unseen supernatural being who supposedly commands devotees to fight affronts to its honor is just about the stupidest thing humans do. Scarily, billions of people subscribe to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism -- the main monotheistic religions. Each religion considers that God/Allah/Jehovah is…
1
Posted inGod Religions

Leonard Pitts is wrong about atheism being “fundamentalist”

Glancing at the title of a Leonard Pitts column in our local newspaper yesterday, I had a feeling that my emotional blood pressure soon would be surging. My premonition was correct. Parts of "Belief in what cannot be proved requires humility" (originally called "Atheists, I believe in God because I do") irritated me mightily -- because Pitts failed to grasp some basic facts about religious belief and atheism that get harped on regularly here at the Church of the Churchless. Fact one: Not believing in God isn't a fundamentalist belief system, just as not believing in Santa Claus isn't. Atheism…
3
Posted inReligions Science

Behold the glorious mystery of your brain

Traditionally, people have looked outward toward mystery. For a long time maps of the world had large sections labeled "terra incognita" (unknown land). Now Earth is almost entirely explored, but the vast universe beyond attracts those who are lured by the unknown (witness the popularity of Star Trek and other forms of science fiction). Religions have capitalized upon our human fascination for mystery. God often is viewed as unknowable, unfathomable, beyond being -- leading apophatic theology and mysticism to emphasize what God is not, rather than what God is. Searching the (almost) omniscient Google for what I've written about mystery…
8
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 inGod Religions

Since love is blind, so is love for God and gurus

Shakespeare may have been the first to say it: "love is blind." Everyone who has fallen in love knows what this means. When we're infatuated with someone, we focus on what we like about them, ignoring their faults. Speaking from experience (I've been married twice, once for 18 years and currently for almost 21 years, giving me 39 years of marital knowledge), this honeymoon period starts to fade not too long after the "I do's" are said. Then traits that previously seemed endearing -- he's so wonderfully casual and carefree! -- start to be annoying: why doesn't he put the…
4
Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

The “self” is culturally determined

We in the West (not the wild west, but Western culture) are obsessed with ourselves. "I've got to find my true self," people say. Self-development is a big industry, featuring countless workshops, books, lectures, and such. We're big on autonomy, independence, finding our own way in life, not marching to the beat of someone else's drummer. Other cultures, such as those in East Asia, are quite different. To a much greater degree than self-absorbed Americans and Europeans, they view the self as including family, community, and societal relationships. Such is the message of an interesting Philosophy Talk podcast that I…
6
Posted inReligions

Religion is the biggest joke — but with no punchline

What if you spent quite a bit of time doing something that was very serious and important to you? And then you came to understand it was a joke and useless. How would that make you feel? Probably, disturbed that you'd wasted so much effort on something so laughable. Yet also happy that you reached your realization before frittering away more of your life on a big bit of nothing. This is how I see religions now. As jokes, but without a punchline. Often a joke isn't funny until the very end. That's when we see the humor in the…
14
Posted inReligions

No, Randi Rhodes, I can’t tolerate blind faith

This afternoon, all it took was a few minutes of listening to Randi Rhodes on Portland's progressive talk station (KPOJ) to get irritated by what she was saying. Usually it takes a bit longer, but eventually I always find Rhodes to be almost as difficult for me to listen to as Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Michael Savage -- her ideological opposites. (See here, here, and here for my previous anti-Randi rants.) Today I tuned into her show as she was talking with an atheist caller. He said that he couldn't believe in any religion, or God, because…
9
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Religions (and RSSB) should come with a guarantee

If a product lets buyers down, consumer advocates -- along with plain consumers -- jump into aggrieved action. Sometimes excessively. I'm amazed that Consumer Reports, a magazine I love and have subscribed to for as long I can remember, still isn't recommending purchase of the iPhone 4 because of a minor antenna reception problem that really wasn't that big of a deal. However, it was a defect that Consumer Reports felt should have been fixed by Apple before the iPhone 4 was released. This makes me wonder: Wouldn't it be great if religions came with a guarantee that salvation, enlightenment,…
141
Posted inReligions

Muslims shouldn’t be afraid of modernity

Every religion is crazy in its own peculiar ways. It's difficult for me to decide which deserves to win the Looniest of Them All award. Christianity deserves consideration for its "born of a virgin" and "walked on water" weirdnesses (among others). Judaism's rituals and requirements are beyond strange (such as the Sabbath Feature on our oven). Hindus are into all kinds of bizarre stuff, including Tantric sexual fluid transactions. But whenever I read about how scared Muslims are of the modern world, I'm struck by how dangerously crazy this attitude is. After all, Islam is the controlling force in many…
5
Posted inHumor Religions

Spiritual sadness and humor

Sad: a PBS video about the Devadasi practice in India -- religiously sanctioned prostitution. Funny: a graphic economic argument against the reality of supernatural phenomena. (thanks, Clare, for letting me know about these)
1
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 inReligions

What’s wrong with burning a religious book?

I've written several books. They're deeply meaningful to me, because I put so much work into them. But if I heard that someone was planning to burn hundreds of copies of a book I wrote, it wouldn't freak me out so much that I'd riot, pillage, or kill. (In fact, I'd be happy that so many books had been bought in order to be burned. Yay, more royalties!) Yet when Christian pastor Terry Jones laid out his plans to burn a bunch of Korans (a.k.a. Qur'ans) tomorrow, 9/11, the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. He got calls from the…
6
Posted inReality Religions

Here’s the reason religions don’t agree

I used to be a proponent of the "perennial philosophy." This is the notion that there's a basic agreement about the nature of metaphysical reality. Aldous Huxley wrote a book by the same name, saying the perennial philosophy is: The metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the…
13
Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Wear religious and spiritual beliefs loosely

Ever eager to find profundity in anything connected with my dearly beloved iPhone 4, I took a look at a self-portrait I snapped yesterday -- using my phone's forward-facing camera held at arm's length -- and realized how much it had to say about my preferred approach to religiosity. My wife detests this shirt, which I recently bought from The Territory Ahead after they enticed me with a Sale! email. As soon as I opened the UPS package, Laurel said "you should return it." It wasn't her style. I usually trust my wife's taste in clothes, which almost always is…
18
Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Religions are wrong about self-realization

There's a lot of talk about self-realization in religious circles, mostly of the Eastern variety. The India-based spiritual group that I was a member of for many years promoted the idea, "self-realization before God-realization."In the West, self-realization has much more of a secular connotation. Regardless, many people have a simplistic notion of the "self" that supposedly is to be known via meditation, mystic practice, prayer, psychotherapy, or some other means.Modern neuroscience has demolished the fantasy that the essence of a human being is something open to view under the right circumstances, like a jewel wrapped in layers of cloth that…
16
Posted inReligions

What’s churchlessly cool about Judaism (and, not)

I've never rank-ordered the major world religions on how appealing they are to me. Maybe I'll do that after finishing Stephen Prothero's "God is Not One," a book I've blogged about here and here.Prothero's clear descriptions of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, et.al. are helping me to better understand what turns me on, and off, about them. There's something to like in every religion, even if only a little (so far, Islam is my least favorite).This morning I finished the chapter on Judaism. I've always been intrigued by this religion, in large part because, as Prothero points out, Jews are exceedingly brilliant…
4
Posted inReligions

Crazy or religious? Tough to tell the difference.

After putting up my post about Muslims in Pakistan going batshit crazy over a Facebook page that celebrates Everybody Draw Muhammed Day!, I got to thinking about how religious believers would be considered certifiably insane (or at least seriously out of touch with reality) if society didn't look upon collective delusions more favorably than individual wacked-out'ness.I mean, let's imagine that there aren't any religions on Earth. So...no unproven metaphysical dogmas. No faith-based theologies. No imagined heavens/hells, astral planes, or soul-traveling destinations. No hypothesized divine beings with miraculous powers. No hidden system of godly rewards and punishments. But people still have…
1
Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Great logical argument for not believing in God

Why should someone believe in God? Any god. Or gods. Going further: why should someone believe in any metaphysical, spiritual, mystical, or other-worldly hypothesis?Usually people don't give much thought to these questions. Most of humanity is religious in one way or another. They've fallen into some faith by virtue of birth, culture, conversion, or a leap that was taken without much (or any) of a logical underpinning.Yesterday I started reading a book by Greg Craven, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" It's subtitled A rational response to the climate change debate. Which it is, judging from the four chapters that…
13
Posted inReality Religions

Religious believers: Drop the similes and state the facts

The first job I had when I left graduate school was research associate at a medical school's Family Practice Department. I used to sit in on some training sessions for the residents who were on their way to becoming family doctors.One of the faculty members had a favorite saying: "Say it so your grandmother could understand it." Meaning, talk to your patients simply and directly. Don't use big words. No jargon.That was good advice -- leaving aside the mildly sexist grandmother reference. (Hey, it was 1973; we weren't so culturally correct back then.)I wish religious believers, including those who leave…
68