Posted inScience

A Theory of Everything is science’s mythical “God”

Often my journey from true believing to churchlessness has felt like an exciting amusement park ride. Descending from the heights of religious dogmatism, I'm both thrilled and unsettled by a sudden drop, Wheeeeee!, as beliefs drop out from under me. Then I hit a plateau and roll along comparatively smoothly until...Wow! Another free fall, as I realize that the spiritual philosophy I embraced after discarding an Eastern form of fundamentalism is still unduly faith-based. So I'm off on another abrupt descent, figuring that now maybe I've reached some sort of ontological ground floor where life's meaning, or the lack thereof,…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Psychedelics and placebos more effective than religion

For some churchless inspiration, check out Mark Morford's "Placebo effect beats out God, Prozac." He discusses the finding that anti-depressants are pretty much useless, except for cases of extreme depression. A sugar pill works as well as Prozac, if the patient believes he or she is getting the real deal.The placebo effect -- hereby defined as the sheer force of will and belief, of the mind's (and heart's) ability to heal and nurture itself sans external assistance -- applies to all sorts of constructs in our tortured modern world.Organized religion? Hell yes. Is your life flawed and painful? Are you…
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Posted inScience

Deepak Chopra challenged by quantum physicist

I used to enjoy Deepak Chopra a lot more than I do now. I don't know whether he has changed, or whether I've changed. Probably it's both.My impression of him used to be that he was a spiritual maverick, someone who sifted out the crap from religiosity and rejected just have faith dogma. But I've come to see him as a New Age entrepreneur who makes big bucks by peddling his own brand of irrational, unbelievable pseudoscience.This view was strengthened by watching Nightline's most recent "face off," Does God Have a Future? Chopra was the champion of the "yes" side.…
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Posted inScience Vedanta/Advaita

Deep dreamless sleep isn’t my mystical goal

I've often wondered why the state of deep dreamless sleep is so appealing to some mystically-inclined people. Since we're dead to the world -- both inner and outer -- seemingly the only difference between deep dreamless sleep and death is that we wake up from sleeping. I can understand wanting to experience a mystical super-consciousness, but why aspire to unconsciousness?The Indian Upanishads probably are largely responsible for the high marks given to deep dreamless sleep. For example:The third quarter is prājña, where one asleep neither desires anything nor beholds any dream: that is deep sleep. In this field of dreamless…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

I want my “spirituality” to be physical

I had an interesting experience this morning. Sitting in my meditation area, sipping a strong cup of coffee, I settled down to enjoy reading a spiritual book.I'd already read about half of Scott Kiloby's "Love's Quiet Revolution." My churchless psyche was enjoying his subtitle theme, the end of the spiritual search. I wasn't agreeing with everything Kiloby said, but his general stance seemed agreeable enough.Until... it didn't.I started using my highlighter to pen in yellow question marks in the margins. Lots of them. I skipped through pages that now struck me as ridiculous. Why? Because scientific reality had caused me…
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Posted inScience

Brain’s “dark energy” casts doubt on pure awareness

I like my spirituality (if there is such a thing) to be as scientific as possible. Fantasy, imagination, and speculative philosophizing are fun, but when it comes to understanding myself and my place in the cosmos, getting real is more appealing to me.So an article in the March 2010 issue of Scientific American struck me as having important implications for an oft-heard assumption of meditation-based spiritual and mystical paths:That it's possible to arrive at a state of pure, or mostly pure, awareness. Meaning, basically, that one's consciousness isn't contaminated by thoughts, emotions, and other egocentric manifestations of me, me, me.For…
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Posted inBooks Science

“Natural Reflections” shows how science is superior

I've finished reading Barbara Herrnstein Smith's "Natural Reflections," which I blogged about before on the basis of a New York Times review.Smith's main thesis is that science and religion are, well, natural reflections of each other. This is a seriously scholarly book and I'm not crystal clear about what she means by this. But her final two paragraphs summarize her case in an agreeable fashion.Scientists share cognitive tendencies, achievements, and limits with nonscientists; religious believers share them with nonbelievers. Although each may put the world together and conduct his or her life in ways that are at odds with or…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science and religion are so different, they aren’t at odds

Who worries about reconciling the deep philosophical meaning of rap music and bird watching? Or professional basketball and quantum physics? Or motorcycle maintenance and ballet dancing?Maybe science and religion are similar to these examples, because they are so different. Not only that, perhaps all the vigorous debates over the centuries about whether science or religion is closer to ultimate truth misses the point:There isn't any #1, alpha dog, primo, unsurpassed approach to knowing reality. All we have are various ways of dealing with reality. This is, more or less, what the central theme of Barbara Herrnstein Smith's recently released book,…
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Posted inBooks Religions Science

“The Quotable Atheist” is well worth quoting

My daughter, a chip off of her dad's churchless block, gave me The Quotable Atheist for Christmas. Organized alphabetically, I'm all the way up to "B." Lots of more great quotes to enjoy.I could tell I was going to enjoy the book as soon as I started reading the Introduction by Jack Huberman. He's got an engaging "take no prisoners in the war against religion" attitude. Here's some Huberman quotes.The world (not just America) is deeply divided. The main fault line is where the tectonic plates of religion and of reason/ secularism/ modernity/ science/ Enlightenment meet and grind against each…
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Posted inScience

Space aliens are more likely than God

Driving home tonight, I listened to a BBC program about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). I never heard the name of the American scientist who was answering questions from a British audience, but his style and sense of humor were engaging.He led me to think, "This is why I prefer science over religion; open-mindedness is so appealing."Someone asked if he thought that aliens were visiting Earth. His reply: this is within the realm of possibility, because it wouldn't violate the laws of physics. If they were traveling at the speed of light, it could take aliens thousands of years…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religious mindset supports skepticism about science

Over on my other blog, where I've been writing about global warming recently (here, here, and here), someone commented that he was surprised I'm so accepting of the scientific consensus on climate change when I'm so skeptical of religious claims.Well, I was surprised that he was surprised. It makes sense to me to have lots of faith in the scientific method, and virtually no faith in religious dogma.Skepticism is a virtue. I have no problem with people being skeptical of a purported scientific fact -- such as that our planet is warming and humans are responsible for it -- if,…
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Posted inScience

Evolution shows the grandeur of life

This morning I finished Richard Dawkins "The Greatest Show on Earth," a fascinating book that demonstrates why evolution is almost certainly true and intelligent design /creationism is almost certainly false. (In science, there are no 100% certainties.)I've been reading a few pages every day before I meditate. Now, I find more inspiration in science books than in spiritual books. Reality is uplifting.Dawkins' final chapter was especially enjoyable. He goes through the last paragraph of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" (first edition) line by line.Thus, from the point of view of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science and religion share a sense of purpose

What makes life meaningful? How is it that we can wake up in the morning and feel like jumping out of bed, rather than hiding beneath the covers? A sense of purpose. Our life seems like it has a direction. We have a reason for being. Goals, intentions, to-do's.In the "Faith" chapter of his book, On Being Certain, Robert Burton, M.D. (a neurologist) says:By now it should be apparent that deeply felt purpose and meaning are exactly that -- profound mental sensations. Though the underlying brain mechanisms that create these sensations aren't known, the biggest clue comes from those who've…
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Posted inScience Universe

Let’s give thanks to the big bang, plus…

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Almost everybody is into thankfulness, whether sincere or feigned.Myself, I'm thankful that I was able to get a HP wireless printer working with my wife's new iMac this afternoon. It was touch and go for a while but I finally figured it out.My philosophical problem, though, is who or what I should offer my thanks to. This quandary is common to every exclamation of gratitude, including religious ones such as  "Thank you, Jesus" or "Thank you, God." Where the heck do you stop?I read some reviews of the Photosmart C4780 that pointed…
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Posted inGod Science

There are no signs of God. So why believe?

You'd think that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and/or omnibenevolent being would leave some evident trace, given all this omni'ness. Yet God, whether considered from an impersonal Eastern perspective or a personal Western viewpoint, has left no demonstrable signs of his/her/it's existence.Why? A theologian would answer, "It isn't possible to know the mind of God, or comprehend the essence of divinity." Well, OK. But if this is the case, let's do away with religions, mystic paths, spiritual philosophies, and the like, and simply admit that if God is real, this is a mysterious ultimate reality never to be known.Since true believers…
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Posted inPlotinus Science

Ken Wilber is wrong about Plotinus

I've got a love-hate thing going with Ken Wilber, a prolific writer and creative thinker who relentlessly preaches the marvels of an Integral approach to understanding reality.Sometimes I like what Wilber says (see here and here). Sometimes I don't (see here and here).His misunderstanding of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, is especially irritating to me. I wrote a book about Plotinus, "Return to the One." I spent several years reading just about every book in English that describes and analyzes Plotinus' teachings. So when I saw how Ken Wilber mangled Plotinus in an attempt to demonstrate that Plotinus' outlook is…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Most inspiring message in a movie

When I ponder what line spoken by a character in a movie has inspired me the most, here's my answer (share yours in a comment, if you like).Jodie Foster, playing Ellie Arroway, a scientist searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence, in Contact -- a movie based on Carl Sagan's novel. Strapped into a machine whose construction was made possible by technical drawings contained in mysterious messages from the Vega star system, not knowing what the machine does or if she'll be killed when it is activated, enduring violent shaking as The Machine is first turned on, Ellie tells mission control...I''m okay to…
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Posted inScience

Guide to creating scientific controversy

Don't like facts? Hate science? There's a handy four-step guide to generating your very own scientific controversy. I think some religiously-minded commenters on this blog already know #3.When people point out that the facts don’t back up your claim, ignore them. As those people get angry and shouty at you, smugly say, “They’re persecuting me! They’re so closed-minded that they won’t let anyone ask questions!” Bonus points for saying that science is now a religion.
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Posted inScience

Evolution shows why reality can’t be categorized

The natural world doesn't come with names attached. Look up at the full moon. Do you see a label on it, "moon"? (Leaving aside the question of what language that word would be written in.)Both religion and science make the mistake of confusing human thoughts about what is real with reality itself. Religions make the most egregious errors, of course, since they intellectualize about entities -- God, heaven, angels, and such -- that can't be shown to even exist.Scientists, though, can also forget that nature is flowingly continuous, not discretely categorized.This morning I read the "Missing Persons? Missing No Longer"…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religions are wrong: in the cosmos, humans aren’t special

It's a burden to believe that you're special. Especially when it isn't true. Feeling special places you in a starring role. You're at the center of a script that has a marvelous ending -- with you at center stage taking bows.Religions appeal to people because dogma leads them to feel special. God has a plan, for you. Enlightenment is going to happen, for you. The heavens and earth were created, for you. A guru will appear, for you. Jesus died on the cross, for you. Christianity likes to speak of the "good news."The Christian message of good news is described in…
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