Posted inAtheism Religions

It’s perfectly fine to be a religion of one (or a non-religion of one)

I really like the idea of being a religion of one, for reasons laid out in "If you become a religion of one, your worship will be effortless." After all, since there already are thousands of different religions, why not add one more: your own personal faith. That's why when I started this blog in 2004, it took me just a few seconds to come up with the tagline at the top of this page: Preaching the gospel of spiritual independence.  Not surprisingly, Ross Douthat, the author of Believe: Why Everybody Should Be Religious, differs with the whole religion of…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

No, major religions don’t provide a truer picture of reality

It isn't surprising that, as an atheist, I find a lot not to like in Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. However, what does surprise me is how weak Douthat's arguments are.  For while I admire his clear writing style, as befits a New York Times opinion columnist, often he simply tosses off glib statements about the marvelousness of religious belief without backing them up with either solid facts or persuasive reasoning. Here's an example from the book's "Big Faiths and Big Questions" chapter, which argues that the world's major religions are a better bet than minor…
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Posted inMiracles Mystics Religions

Ross Douthat’s five varieties of mystical experience

I'm finding Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, less interesting now that I've gotten past the reasons Douthat offers for being religious, and have started to read how one goes about choosing a religion to believe in. However, in his "The Myth of Disenchantment" chapter, which is within the why believe section, his description of five varieties of mystical experience struck me as both fairly unique and mostly valid. I'll use Douthat's own words to describe those varieties rather than attempting a paraphrase. (1) Generic mystical experience.  The first is what you might call the generic mystical experience…
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Posted inReligions Science Universe

No, the big bang doesn’t point to a divine creator

In my first post a few days ago about Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, I said that I bought the book because "I was curious about how Douthat would make his arguments, figuring that it would be easy for atheists like me to undermine them." Here I'll finish my critique of his first substantive chapter, "The Fashioned Universe," which I started making in that initial post about the book.  It's easy for me to do this, because I'm already seeing a theme emerge in how Douthat tries to make his case for religious belief. Though he's…
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Posted inAtheism Religions

“Believe” is a book that claims religions are true. I doubt it can do that.

I bought Ross Douthat's book, Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious, not because I agree with that thesis. Rather, I was curious about how Douthat would make his arguments, figuring that it would be easy for atheists like me to undermine them. After reading 25 pages, I'm impressed with Douthat's lofty goal, but not with his reasoning so far. Being a New York Times opinion columnist and a former senior editor at The Atlantic, it isn't surprising that Douthat is a talented writer. He makes his points clearly. So kudos to him for that. And I admire how in his…
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Posted inBuddhism Reality Religions

Science is the best guide to spirituality

Some people believe that science is opposed to spirituality, that these pursuits operate in different realms of reality and an embrace of one implies a distancing from the other. I've never believed this. Even when I was in my most religious frame of mind, the 35 years I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization headed up by a guru considered to be God in Human Form, I remained intensely interested in what science has learned about our universe even as I explored the possibility of realms beyond the physical. This is why…
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Posted inGod Religions

Opinion piece makes me wonder, why choose a religion at all?

Today I came across a New York Times opinion piece by Ross Douthat, "Looking for Faith? Here's a Guide to Choosing a Religion." (That link should open for everybody, being a gift article from my online subscription; if not, here's a PDF file.)Download Opinion | Looking for Faith? Here’s a Guide to Choosing a Religion. - The New York Times Douthat, a regular NYT columnist, based his piece on a book he's written that has a release date later this month: Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious. While I obviously don't share this assumption, being an atheist, I just put…
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Posted inAtheism Religions

Why it can be easy to talk with someone who has very different beliefs than you do

In these divisive times marked by so much animosity between people who believe in radically different things, whether these be in a religious, political, or some other "hot button" area, it was refreshing for me to read a book with a core message that deeply resonated with me.  Namely, that it can be easier to share ideas with someone on the opposite side of a dualistic spectrum -- liberal vs. conservative in the realm of politics, believer vs. atheist in the realm of religion -- than to converse with someone who believes very much as you do. Tim Urban explains…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Reality Religions

Free speech is as important in religion as in politics

I'm continuing to enjoy Tim Urban's book, What's Our Problem? A Self-Help Book for Societies. He's a wonderfully creative thinker. It's rare that I can read 245 pages of a non-fiction book without coming across something that just seems wrong to me. But Urban's arguments are so compelling and well stated, so far he's convinced me of the rightness of every point he's made. Recently I read his take on free speech. I'll just describe a few aspects of what he says about this important topic, which is enshrined in the United States constitution in a way that few other…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science says religion isn’t so much wrong, as it is unnecessary

Thanks to fading highlighting, I've been re-reading theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's book, Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions.  I bought the book a few years ago and wrote several blog posts about it. (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Then I put the book aside and turned my attention to other books in my morning pre-meditation reading. When I picked it up again recently, I noticed that I hadn't read a couple of the final chapters. I also saw that my yellow highlighting had faded considerably. To most people, that wouldn't be a big deal. But…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

If God and the supernatural are real, where’s the evidence of them?

Religiously minded people like to have it both ways. I know whereof I speak, because I used to be one of those people before I saw the error of my ways.  The basic error is this: religious believers assert that (1) God and the supernatural can't be known through reason and the physical senses, yet (2) God and the supernatural are real, and deserve the respect shown to these divine realities. So those of us who reject blind faith are supposed to accept that one or many someones, somewhere, some time, had an experience of God and the supernatural that…
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Posted inPolitics Reality Religions

In both politics and religion, reports aren’t the same as verified evidence

Building on my post of four days ago, "Harris-Trump debate shows how political lies are like religious lies," now I want to talk about how in both politics and religion reports aren't the same as verified evidence. I got to thinking about this after watching a clip on X, formerly known as Twitter, from an interview Meet the Press host Kristen Welker did today with Republican Vice-President candidate J.D. Vance. Leaving aside the fact that I can't stand Vance and his running mate, Donald Trump, I found the arguments Vance brought forward in favor of his belief that migrants from…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Harris-Trump debate shows how political lies are like religious lies

In both politics and religion, lies are commonplace. I'm defining "lie" as a person saying something that isn't true, because there isn't any persuasive evidence supporting the statement. God loves you is a lie, since there's no persuasive evidence that God exists, so there's no entity to love or do anything else. You'll go to heaven after you die is another lie given the lack of evidence for life after death. People believe in religious lies for a variety of reasons. For example, it feels good to embrace warm supernatural fantasies that are more appealing than the cold truth of…
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Posted inReligions Science

Sea level and evolution show that reality is shades of gray, not black and white

One of the reasons why I've come to dislike religions so much is that they're so prone to making absolutist statements.  God is.... blah, blah, blah. The commandments to follow are... blah, blah, blah. You can tell good from evil by...blah, blah, blah. That's all bullshit, regardless of what the blah, blah, blah consists of.  I say this for a couple of reasons. One obvious reason is that religions don't deal in truth, they deal in fantasy. They make stuff up, then expect people to believe in it. If they don't, bad things are supposed to happen: hell, damnation, God's…
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Posted inPsychedelics Reality Religions

Why we’ll never agree about what is real, and what isn’t

Ooh. That's an ambitious title for a blog post. But since it came to mind, and it fits with some thoughts that have been rambling through my mind today, might as well stick with it -- even if what I write here doesn't really fulfill the ambitious promise of the title. I'll start with a brief letter to the editor in the April 10 issue of New Scientist magazine.  From Wolf KirchmeirBlind River, Ontario, CanadaIf we accept that our experience of reality is a simulation created by our brains, then the "self" must be part of the simulation. To ask…
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Posted inConsciousness Religions Science

“Facts and the law” applies to religiosity as well as the justice system

I don't know much about how the justice system works in other countries, but here in the United States one of the most frequently heard phrases is "facts and the law."  Those words were used a lot by commentators on the criminal trial of Donald Trump, which ended last Thursday with a 12 person jury deciding unanimously, as is required in criminal trials, that Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in order to disguise the fact that a $130,000 payment to a porn star was to keep her quiet just before the 2016 presidential election…
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Posted inMeaning of life Religions Spiritual practice/meditation

If you become a religion of one, your worship will be effortless

Whenever I'm reading a spiritual or philosophical book and am generally enjoying its message, then come across a passage that I heartily disagree with, I remind myself of one of my early blog posts from 2005, "Become a religion of one."  (I'll copy it in below, I like it so much.) For the way I've come to view spirituality is as an intensely independent pursuit. After all, our search for meaning and purpose in life necessarily is personal, not collective. There's zero chance that any other person in the world is going to have exactly the same goals, values, and…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Jewish religious nationalism is behind Israel’s horrible treatment of Palestinians

Anyone who wrongly believes that religiosity is a private affair of personal faith needs to educate themselves about the danger religious nationalism poses in many places around the world, including Israel. I wrote a post about this yesterday for my Salem Political Snark blog, "Two well-researched stories show how badly Israel is treating Palestinians."  One of those stories was a lengthy piece in the New York Times Magazine, with the title shown above. Since I'm a subscriber to the online New York Times and gifted that link, you should be able to click on it and read this disturbing investigative…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

The real saints are ordinary people

"Saint" is a word that generally has religious overtones. For example, I used to belong to an organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), that was part of the Sant Mat movement, which means "teaching of saints." The RSSB saints were gurus who supposedly were God in Human Form, something I now deeply doubt. The Catholic church has a more expansive view of saints: The saints of the church are a diverse group of people with varied and interesting stories. Their ranks include martyrs, kings and queens, missionaries, widows, theologians, parents, nuns and priests, and “everyday people” who dedicated their lives…
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Posted inNeuroscience Religions

Religion and mysticism are nothing other than the placebo effect

We've all heard about placebos. You know, those inactive substances, such as sugar pills, that are used as controls in research designed to determine whether a genuine drug has positive bodily effects.  Most of us also are familiar with the frequent finding that placebos turn out to be as effective as genuine drugs, or even surgical procedures. This is perplexing if we assume that the mind and body are separate entities. But not at all perplexing given the obvious fact that the mind is the brain in action, and the brain is an organ of the body. So if someone…
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