Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation Universe

My Amazon review of “The Mystery Experience”

Killing two birds with one stone (or rather, slicing two pieces of tofu with one knife, since I'm an animal-loving vegetarian), I'm going to talk about my overall impression of Tim Freke's The Mystery Experience in the form of an Amazon reader review. I read a lot more Amazon reviews than I write. This will help make up for that imbalance. Usually I'm only drawn to submit a review on books that I liked a lot. Such is true with The Mystery Experience, which I've blogged about before here, here, here, and here. But "liking" isn't the same as "agreeing with."…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Universe

First sermon from the Church of What the Fuck

I'm glad I named this blog Church of the Churchless when I started it up back in 2004. But since I no longer adhere to any religious dogma, I'm free to experiment with my churchlessness. So here's a mini-sermon from the Church of What the Fuck. The name came to me yesterday as I was thinking some more about why I started to disagree with what Tim Freke was saying in his book, "The Mystery Experience."  (Reasons described in my previous blog post, "Allow cosmic mystery to live, not killing it with religion.") As I read deeper into Freke's book…
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Posted inScience Universe

God isn’t happy with deeply religious Americans

I had a conversation with God today. I'm sure of it. Just as sure, at least, as so many other prophets, gurus, masters, and other purported communicators with the divine have been.  In my case, a godly voice didn't come out of a burning bush. It was more intimate than that: God spoke to me from right inside my own head, which makes it difficult for me to doubt a divine encounter that was so direct. Below you'll learn what God commanded me to preach. Be warned, God has a foul mouth. He doesn't mince words when he's seriously pissed. And…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

Physics knows more about “nothing” than theology or philosophy

It's amazing, how much can be said about nothing. Nothing always has been a favorite topic of theologians and philosophers. Now physicists are getting into the Nothing Game, big time (see here and here). There's a basic dispute between fact-focused scientists on one side, and concept-obsessed thinkers on the other: is "nothing" a something that can be investigated, or an absolute absence of anything? (including "absence") I've read a bunch of books and articles that argue both sides of this question, which is central to the classic Why is there something rather than nothing? question. More and more I favor…
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Posted inScience Universe

“Nothing” replaces “God” in modern cosmology

Nothing is a big deal in physics nowadays. As noted in a previous post, scientists have found that even seemingly empty space actually is seething with energetic activity.  So much so, as cosmologist Lawrence Krauss describes in his new book, "A Universe from Nothing," nothing can reasonably be viewed as the creative principle which brought the universe into being -- a job most religions give to God. We have discovered that we live in a universe in which empty space -- what formerly could have passed for nothing -- has a new dynamic that dominates the current evolution of the…
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Posted inGod Science Universe

Science’s “nothing” different from religion’s “nothing”

You'd think that if secular scientists and religious true believers could agree on anything, it'd be the nature of nothing. After all, isn't nothing, well, nothing? Zero. Zilch. Nada. Absence. Void.  But, no, here too science and religion are butting heads. Scientific nothing is quite different from religious nothing. And while I used to be more on religion's side when I thought about what nothing meant in the Big Question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?", now I strongly lean toward the headbutt (or to the faithful, butthead) of science. Physicist/cosmologist Lawrence Krauss does a great job laying out…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

Universe may not be eternal, but existence is

Believers in God who follow modern science will be heartened by a recent article in New Scientist, "Why physicists can't avoid a creation event."  While many of us may be OK with the idea of the big bang simply starting everything, physicists, including Hawking, tend to shy away from cosmic genesis. "A point of creation would be a place where science broke down. One would have to appeal to religion and the hand of God," Hawking told the meeting, at the University of Cambridge, in a pre-recorded speech. For a while it looked like it might be possible to dodge this problem, by…
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Posted inScience Universe

“Empty” space really isn’t — but don’t jump to spiritual conclusions

Wow! That's my one-word review of the first episode, "What is Space?," in NOVA's The Fabric of the Cosmos series. (You can watch it online.) I already knew many of the facts presented by physicist Brian Greene. Such as: -- Matter is mostly empty space. Take out the space, and Greene said that the mass of the Empire State Building would condense to the size of a super-heavy grain of rice.  -- Space isn't really empty. It is seething with activity at the quantum level. Particles are continually flashing in and out of existence. -- TIme and space are intimately…
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Posted inScience Universe

No need for God with “Wonders of the Universe”

I felt awe, inspiration, reverence, humility. Not from a religious ritual, holy book, or spiritual sage -- from the first episode I've watched of a BBC science program, "Wonders of the Universe." Youthful-looking physicist Brian Cox explained in Children of the Stars how the same 92 naturally occurring elements are found everywhere in the universe. So what we are, the universe is.I've heard this before, many times. But the way Cox put it seemed new and fresh. In the clip below he says that the building blocks of the universe -- protons and neutrons -- formed within the first few…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

Mystery of existence eludes both religion and science

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" This is the ultimate question. So ultimate'y, it shouldn't be viewed as a question, because questions imply answers. I prefer, "There is something rather than nothing." Leave out the "why." Embrace the stark, unarguable reality of existence. Forget God. Something must exist or God couldn't exist. So my awe is directed toward existence, not God. Existence is everlasting, eternal, omnipresent, unfathomable. Wild! If I want to feel a tingle up my psyche's spine before I fall into sleep, I ponder there is something rather than nothing as I doze off. (Some reflections of…
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Posted inScience Universe

Embrace uncertainty, shun dogma — be a possibilian!

Dichotomies are limiting. Also, unrealistic. Theist/atheist. Believer/skeptic. Conservative/liberal. Follower/leader. Human/animal. Matter/energy. The world comes in a lot more flavors than just vanilla and chocolate. There's all sorts of shades of gray between black and white. Reality doesn't completely conform to how we Homo sapiens' conceptualize it. This is one reason I like David Eagleman's "possibilian" philosophy so much. (I've blogged about it before here and here.) Eagleman is a scientist. He recognizes that the scientific method is more than passively open-minded; science also actively seeks out new possibilities, creatively wondering "what if... ." Yet this doesn't mean giving credence to…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Reality Universe

If the universe is infinite, we’re immortal (sort of)

Wow, I got some great news after reading only two chapters in physicist Brian Greene's new book, "The Hidden Reality." I'm immortal! Only catch is, the "me" who exists forever isn't really the same me who is typing out these words. Though maybe it is. Just depends on how I look upon myself: (1) as a being with a unique essence peculiar to myself (I don't mean a smell, but a non-physical identity), or (2) as a configuration of atoms which could be almost exactly duplicated in another corner of the cosmos. I've read Greene's previous books, enjoying them, but…
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Posted inScience Universe

Finding our place in a factual cosmos

There's only one thing wrong with religious cosmologies: they aren't true. And that's a pretty damn serious thing. Which is why we shouldn't take erroneous views of the universe seriously.Yet we humans are meaning-creatures. Bare facts aren't enough for us. Our highly evolved minds love to construct stories about what life is all about, what's most important for us to do, and other value-laden layerings that provide a increased depth to our existence.The choice each of us faces is how realistic our "myths" are. Now, that word, myth, doesn't need to refer to something untrue. There's another way of regarding…
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Posted inScience Universe

The universe is expanding into nothing

For a long time I've been fascinated by the fact that our universe is expanding because of the Big Bang that brought it into existence. I've visualized an edge to the universe, where a incomprehensibly vast tidal wave of raw existence cascades onward, into...What? This is the question that always stymied me. What is the universe expanding into, if the universe is all that exists? Or at least, all that we know to exist. Even if we say the universe is expanding into nothing, doesn't "nothing" thereby become a something?The marvelous mind-blowing nature of these cogitations is one reason why…
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Posted inScience Universe

Finding meaning in an accidental universe

Looking around, the universe seems to be flowingly interconnected, a seamless web of smoothly functioning laws of nature. Sure, there are lots of nasty things we humans find distasteful -- earthquakes, diseases, tornadoes, and such -- but even these have causes. They're just often extremely difficult to discern or predict, given our lack of knowledge about the details of how things operate in the world.But there's another way of looking at the cosmos. Here's an excerpt from the jacket on Marcelo Gleiser's "A Tear at the Edge of Creation," a book that I blogged about before. (Subtitle: a radical new…
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Posted inGod Universe

Best reason why God doesn’t exist

Does God exist? People have been trying to answer this question for thousands of years. As I wrote about in this post, a philosophical novel sets out 36 arguments for the existence of God (listed here; scroll down to read them).Arguments for the non-existence of God aren't as common. It's tough to prove that something doesn't exist, especially when that entity is supposed to be metaphysical, mysterious, and not particularly eager to reveal itself in an obvious fashion.I usually argue that it isn't possible to prove that God is non-existent. Instead, we agnostics and atheists are justified in asking for…
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Posted inReality Universe

The cosmos doesn’t have a cause

Often it's said that the biggest, grandest, most profound philosophical question of all time is... (drum roll, please) Why is there something rather than nothing?I used to be entranced by this question. Now, I'm not. It doesn't make any sense to me. I've got some pretty impressive philosophical company in this regard: Bertrand Russell.Here's what this agnostic philosopher said in his 1948 debate with Father Frederick C. Copleston (Jesuit Catholic priest).I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all... I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it…
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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 inUniverse

The universe is unity

Look around. Outside of yourself. Inside of yourself. Do you find any sharp divisions between utterly distinct aspects of reality? I can confidently predict, "No, you don't." (If I'm wrong, enlighten me.) There's a reason the word universe starts with "uni." It's a whole.Most religions, maybe all, are founded on a duality of some sort. Heaven and earth. Soul and body. Spirit and matter. God and creation. Salvation and sin. Liberation and karma. Truth and maya. Yet these supposedly separate spheres of existence aren't evident. They're concepts, belief structures that have to be taken on faith. So religious believers necessarily…
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Posted inUniverse

What?! The universe isn’t all about me?!

Warning: if you're comfortable feeling that the cosmos is designed around you, or humanity in general, what you're about to read runs the risk of putting some leaks in your belief bubble. I'm not only speaking to the religious, even though theology and metaphysics is where you'll find the most egregious examples of Homo sapiens centeredness. The churchless also are prone to self-centered grandiosity. I know, because I am one. For me, faithlessness came down the track of my psyche long before humility. Understand, I'm not claiming any sort of ego-loss now. I'm still as full of myself as ever.…
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