Posted inReligions

Being fuzzy is fine

Most people have a strong tendency toward drawing distinct lines. Between belief and unbelief. Between right and wrong. Between all sorts of false dichotomies. False, because life generally is a lot fuzzier than our "got to be this or that" minds take it to be. Today's Dilbert comic gets it right. I've been pondering fuzziness recently because my wife and I are preparing for an appeal hearing on a nearby proposed 217 acre subdivision. We and our neighbors are fighting the development because we don't believe there is enough groundwater for additional wells in the area. The developer does. So…
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Posted inReligions

Hard-wired for religion

Religious people often talk about how difficult it is to have faith in God and stay on a spiritual path. They like to think of themselves as brave souls choosing the road less often taken, going against the grain of a materialist, godless, faithless culture. Actually, there's increasing evidence that the truth is just the opposite, since the minds of human beings are hard-wired for religion. What's difficult is recognizing our instinctual propensity to believe, and choosing a course that leads in the direction of reality. Such is one of the messages of an excellent online article in the New…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

How would Jesus have us pee?

When you need to go, you’ve got to go. Peeing is simple. At least, it should be. But when going to the bathroom gets mixed up with religious dogma, organizational rules, and guru worship, it’s amazing how much controversy arises about getting up to go during a “sermon.” My post about blind obedience being a hallmark of cultish religion got noticed over on the Radhasoami Studies discussion group. I’d talked about how the leader of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, Gurinder Singh, objected to having his photo taken in a public place, and how devotees tried to force a man to…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Blind obedience a hallmark of cultish religion

“Don’t do that!” We hear this a lot when we’re children. Often for good reasons. Like when we want to flush kitty down the toilet, or see what happens when the bathtub water just keeps getting higher and higher. But once we can think things out reasonably for ourselves, few of us want to be treated like two year olds. So why are so many people attracted to religions that demand blind obedience, no matter how nonsensical the command? I guess because humans also value security. If we let someone else make decisions for us, we may not be free,…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Almost time to celebrate the Christianity meme

Here we are, late December, and there sure is a lot of Christian talk going around. Someone from outer space would be asking, “What’s that all about?” Mangers, wise men, gifts of frankincense and myrrh. Our alien visitor would be told that Christmas is a celebration of a man who was sent by God to redeem the world’s sins; that he died, was resurrected, and now is able to give other people eternal life in heaven if you believe in him; and that he expects believers to praise his glory to others so that they too can be saved. “Oh,…
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Posted inReligions

Sam Harris makes “The Case Against Faith”

It’s always a delight to read Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation. He’s got a knack for speaking honestly about subjects that often are taboo topics in polite conversation. Like, “Why do you cling to such weird religious beliefs?” In a November 13, 2006 Newsweek essay, “The Case Against Faith,” Harris socks it to the faithful in six paragraphs that had me cheering from my seat in the churchless bleachers. After lamenting that more than half of Americans believe the entire cosmos was created 6,000 years ago, he says: This is embarrassing.…
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Posted inGod Religions

Letting go of God. And Uncle Fred.

Julia Sweeney, former Saturday Night Live actress, has let go of God. She’s content, though she says that for her God was like a friendly uncle who lived in your head and always was willing to hear what you had to say. “Now there’s nobody to listen to my thoughts but myself,” I heard her tell Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air show last night. Since I tuned in on the car radio shortly before arriving home, I found the NPR archive and listened to the entire interview today. Sweeney is entertaining (not surprising, given her background). Also, fair and…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Religion as poetic expression

Before I jump into today’s subject, looking upon the practice of religion as an art, I’ve got to comment on Church of the Churchless comments to my posts. These offerings by other people are wonderful. Frequently I read them and think, “God, these are so much wiser and more meaningful than what I wrote.” Also, better written. I deeply appreciate these (almost) always thoughtful sharings. If you’re not reading the comments, you’re missing out on a big part of this blog. Flowing into this notion of religion as art, via these comments I love to see, or at least get…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Sam Harris shakes up a Christian nation. And, me.

I loved “Letter to a Christian Nation.” Sam Harris punctures every variety of religious vanity. Though his focus is, obviously, on the follies of Christianity, Harris’ razor-sharp dissection of one religion leaves in shreds every faith-based belief system. I read nearly all of the 96 pages in one evening. It’s hard to put down this book. I agree with Harris nearly 100%, but even if you don’t—and most Americans won’t—his blunt epigrammatic style will draw you in. After all, right off the bat Harris establishes some common ground between he and his Christian audience. You believe that the Bible is…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

The Pope isn’t infallible. Oh my god!

Well, another religious bubble has burst. The Pope makes mistakes, just like the rest of us. So much for infallibility—though the Catholic Church is smart enough to attach conditions to infallible Papal statements, leaving themselves an out when he makes a mistake. Which I’d say he did in his recent speech to a German university, parts of which seriously offended Muslims. But I don’t think it was a mistake to quote a medieval emperor, who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to…
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Posted inReligions

Americans see four faces of God

Step right up and choose your God: Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical, or Distant. A major national survey of American attitudes toward religion has found that an Authoritarian image of the Almighty is the most popular at 31%. Distant comes in second at 24% with Benevolent not far behind, 23%. Critical brings up the rear with 16%. This finding goes a long way toward explaining why our country is so screwed-up. Almost half of our citizens go through their days believing that an authoritarian or critical god is looking over their shoulders, judging them for every moral misstep. When I read the…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Gaining an ear for religious disharmonies

I’m not at all musical. But I’ve got a pretty good ear for theological inconsistencies. These are statements that, when I hear them, sound like an obvious off-key note. Like a loud whaaaap! in the midst of an otherwise harmonious composition. During my many unquestioning devotional years, I was able to sit through Radha Soami Satsang Beas “sermons” (a.k.a. satsangs) and pretty much tune out the disharmonies. I could do the same thing when my daughter briefly, blessedly, tried to learn to play the violin in elementary school. When you’re attached to someone or something, you tend to overlook sour…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

If a religion can’t be wrong, it surely is

According to Daniel Dennett’s new book, here’s a surefire way to tell whether a belief system is a religion: is it invulnerable to disproof? In other words, is there any way to tell whether the beliefs are wrong? For example, Jesus is the Son of God. We know this because the Bible tells us so. The Bible can’t be doubted because it is the Word of God. So is Jesus, according to St. John. Thus we have a skeptic-proof system operating here. If you doubt the truth of the Bible, you lack faith in Jesus, without which you will never…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Religions

Emerson’s sacrilegious Divinity School address

On July 15, 1838 Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed a class of Harvard Divinity School graduates. He wasn’t invited back to Harvard for three decades. Given what he said, I can understand why. The complete address can be read here. I’ll share some of my favorite passages: Meantime, whilst the doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man, and the oracles of this truth cease never, it is guarded by one stern condition; this, namely; it is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can…
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Posted inGod Religions

Possible and impossible gods

I’m a firm believer in melding science and spirituality. Any religion or metaphysical system that is clearly at odds with evident scientific facts has no appeal for me. So the book by Victor Stenger that I wrote about in my previous post, “God: The Failed Hypothesis. How Science Shows That God Does Not Exist,” is right up my alley. It hasn’t been published yet, but today I took a look at a sample chapter via Stenger’s web site. “Possible and Impossible Gods” is thought-provoking. And Judeo - Christian - Islamic religion-demolishing. Stenger argues persuasively that it isn’t possible for the…
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Posted inGod Religions

Are you religious or spiritual? Take the test.

Often people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” Understandable. Religion, after all, has some notorious drawbacks. Intolerance, divisiveness, sanctimoniousness, irrationality—to name a few. But what does it mean to be non-religious? I’ve just started reading Daniel Dennett’s “Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon” and came across his intriguing definition: Tentatively, I propose to define religions as social systems whose participants avow belief in a supernatural agent or agents whose approval is to be sought. Interesting. And persuasive to me. Not least because this definition by a professional philosopher meshes nicely with my “turn on or tune in?” distinction.…
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Posted inBuddhism Religions Wu Project

To find God, get off the mind road

Churches are big on mind roads. That’s what they want you to travel on. In the church’s theological car, of course. Propelled by faith that you’re eventually going to get to God. Driven by the savior, mediator, master, guru, or prophet who supposedly knows the territory. Problem is, nothing travel-worthy is apparent apart from the belief that there is. That’s why it is a mind road, not a real road. The pavement is cobbled together from passages found in holy books, words heard from the mouths of holy teachers, images seen by eyes that have gazed upon holy places and…
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Posted inReligions Wu Project

Religious knowledge totals exactly zero

Zero: it never fails to astound me that this is the sum total of genuine religious knowledge accumulated throughout human history. There have been so many worshippers, so many devotees, so many seekers of divinity. And the demonstrable metaphysical facts that have been accumulated from all of this effort? None. Absolutely none. There is not a single shred of objective evidence that reality consists of anything more than the universe we know now. If there were, such a fact would have been trumpeted in banner headlines across every newspaper in the world. Core scientific theories would have had to be…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Radha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Living in the now

What if this is all that there is? This. Right here, right now. A succession of moments in the physical world. After we die: nothing. No more “this.” As I so often repeat here at the Church of the Churchless, I don’t know. I sure hope there is life after death. As Woody Allen put it, “I don't want to achieve immortality through my work I want to achieve it through not dying.” But here’s another Woody Allen quote: “You can live to be a hundred if you give up all the things that make you want to live to…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Spiritual nomads

Over at the wonderfully named Ambivablog, amba is “Calling all spiritual nomads.” Her piece is well-written and thoughtful, as befits a blogger with an impressive literary resume. (I’d love to be able to say about myself, “wrote a lot of reviews for The New York Times Book Review.”) I was pleased to note that amba says that Church of the Churchless is a new favorite blog of hers. Same back at you, my churchless sister. I thoroughly enjoyed your spiritual nomad piece. Especially the musical chair analogy. Say “Religion” in this strange new world of ours, and I see a…
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