Posted inReality

Is life absurd? Or maybe asking that question is.

For something completely different... and really well written... and either marvelously meaningful or completely meaningless... yet fun to read, nonetheless... Check out Rivka Weinberg's New York Times piece, "Why life is absurd."  I liked it a lot. While understanding it hardly at all. Which could be Weinberg's point. With modern philosophy, often it's hard to tell the difference between satire and seriousness. Here's a few excerpts to whet your reading appetite. In a famous 1971 paper, “The Absurd,” Thomas Nagel argues that life’s absurdity has nothing to do with its length. If a short life is absurd, he says, a…
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Posted inReligions

If a cartoon inflames religious passions, so what?

Over on my other blog today I put up a post, "Statesman Journal should put Mohammed cartoon on opinion page."  It irritated me that the editorial page editor of our local newspaper, which is part of the Gannett chain, said that he'd probably never publish a cartoon that included a caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, because this is offensive to Muslims. Well, the cartoon above is the cover of the next issue of Charlie Hebdo, the satirical French magazine that courageously is going to publish shortly after a dozen staffers were murdered by Islamic fundamentalists.  The caption at the top…
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Posted inComments

New Church of the Churchless comment policy

Time for an experiment with comments on my blog posts. I'm scientifically minded. I enjoy trying something different and seeing how it works out. Starting today, I'm going to be less accepting of publishing comments that include a lot of preachy religious dogma. Some people have been using comments on my "churchless" posts as an opportunity to share their irrelevant (to the post) religious beliefs.  They might make a passing brief reference to something I said in the post, then launch into a lengthy description of how great this-or-that religious belief system is. From now on, I'd like those commenters…
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Posted inReligions

Religious bias against gays is wrong, not religious

Like I've said before (quite a few times), and almost certainly will say again (after this time), religious beliefs shouldn't allow people to ignore laws. Where does this end, if we allow it to begin? Some Christian religious bigots believe homosexuality is a sin, so they refuse to bake a cake for a gay couple who want one for their wedding. Which, by the way, is completely legal in 36 out of 50 of these United States, where gay marriage is allowed. Yet as Frank Bruni says in his thoughtful New York Times piece, "Your God and My Dignity," this…
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Posted inReligions

Charlie Hebdo murders show danger of religious dogmatism

So many people have been saying so much that is right about the atrocious killings by Islamic extremists of staffers at a French satirical magazine, I don't feel that I can add much to the 100% justified outrage. This is what happens when religiosity goes over the brink. For me, the big question is: who is responsible for the possibility, indeed obvious likelihood, given the course of history, that religious true believers will act in murderous, violent, oppressive, or other unacceptable ways? On the whole, my sympathies are with those, like Sam Harris, who argue that "moderate" religion provides the foundation…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

News flash from God’s guru: smoking and medical marijuana are evil

In Christianity, the Ten Commandments are permanent. But in Eastern guru-centered religions, God's emissary on earth (often termed a "perfect living master") substitutes for holy scripture. So what is supposedly moral and what isn't can shift with the times as one guru succeeds another, or as the same guru decides to issue new edicts to the faithful. Case in point: some recent comments on a post of mine about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization I was a member of for about thirty-five years, have clued me in to the fact that smoking and medical marijiuana have…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Truth about the Bible: no way is it “the word of God”

Here's a terrific Newsweek piece, "BIble: So Misunderstood It's a Sin." Lengthy, and well worth reading. But be warned, Christians. You'll never be able to believe in the divine inerrancy, or even historical accuracy, of the Bible after being exposed to Kurt Eichenwald's review of how the Bible -- especially the New Testament -- was cobbled together in distinctly flawed human ways.Not surprisingly, a quick review of the over 2,000 comments on the online article reveals that fundamentalist Christians refuse to accept the scholarly reality discussed by Eichenwald. Here's a get real response I liked. I don't understand all the Christians…
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Posted inMiscellaneous Morality

Once again, I praise a New Year’s resolution of… nothing

I'm on a five-year nothing roll when it comes to New Year's resolutions. Of course, there's always something more to say about nothing, so I'll do just that after sharing links to my previous paeans to irresolution. 2010: "New Year's enlightenment resolution: nothing"2011: "Don't make resolutions for the New Year -- just live it."2012: "'Nothing' is my spiritual resolution for the New Year"2013:  "Thanks, godless heathens, for a good blog year"2014: "Brains are us: a fresh thought for a New Year" (Yes, I managed to squeeze some thoughts about nothing into the 2013 and 2014 posts.) This year one of…
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Posted inMorality Science

Free will believers like Eddy Nahmias make no sense

I firmly believe that free will doesn't exist. (See here, here, and here, among my many posts on this subject.) To me, and many others who consider that any "free will" worthy of that name should be really free, articles like Eddy Nahmias' Why we have free will in the most recent issue of Scientific American rest on an absurd proposition.  Namias basically argues that because conscious thinking affects our behavior, this points to free will. In other words, our actions aren't solely controlled by unconscious brain processes. He says: A body of psychological research shows that conscious, purposeful processing…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

The “Christmas story” is just one of many stories, and not the best

Here's one way I celebrated Christmas this year -- by writing a blog post that critiques a "Message of Christmas still rings true in 2014" editorial in our local newspaper.  Enjoy, churchless. There's a better message than the "Christmas story" Excerpt: The editorial starts off this way: The Christmas story is one of joy, of celebration, of hope. Its message of peace on Earth and salvation for humankind is as powerful, as relevant and as needed today as it was on that silent, starlit night some 2,000 years ago. Well, some people feel this way. Lots don't. Those words, salvation for…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

South Africa: hello, hello? Can you access this blog?

A few days ago a regular Church of the Churchless visitor from South Africa emailed me, saying that she wasn't able to access this blog anymore.  She's been looking into possible reasons. Today I got another message from her: Hi Brian. So far I have ascertained that the site is blocked by 3 [Internet] service providers. My daughter who is with Telcom, our national telephone provider, government owned, is open. Would you know if anyone else in South Africa is having the same problem? I'm still investigating but I'm finding it very disturbing. I really miss going on to the…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Merry churchless Christmas. Here’s our non-Christmas Letter.

Through my religious-believing and atheistic days alike, I've always composed a Christmas letter to send with our cards. Well, my wife and I actually call it our Holiday Letter, since in many years I don't get around to writing it until after Christmas. So as long as it gets sent out before New Year's Day, hey, it qualifies as a holiday letter.  Yesterday I explained on my other blog why we don't have a 2014 Christmas/Holiday letter. Naturally it took quite a few words to do this, being as verbose as I am.  Here's a PDF file of my non-Christmas…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religion is what might remain after science explains

David Lane, a.k.a. the Neuralsurfer, has made another provocative short video. It's called "Remainder Conjecture: Driving Science to the Brink of an Epistemological Cul de Sac."   Here's my take on Lane's basic point, which seems unarguable to me. Assume that science can explain what currently is unexplainable. If significant mysteries eventually remain that science can't explain, this is where supernaturalism, or at least a radical restructuring of how we look upon reality, can be seriously explored. This is much different from the "god of the gaps" approach where whatever science can't currently explain is taken as proof of God's…
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Posted inReality Science

Imagination permeates waking, as well as dreaming

Imagination. We tend to think of this as something special, an activity we engage in when, say, we're trying to do something creative like paint a picture, write a novel, or compose a song. Or as what the brain does when it dreams -- which seemingly is markedly different from the clear perception of reality in our waking state. But Evan Thompson's book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being," has given me a different perspective on imagination. From both a Buddhist and neuroscientific perspective, he sees imagination as permeating every form of consciousness. Here's a passage from his Imagining: Are we real? chapter.…
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Posted inGod

It’s stupid to say “God is everything”

Everything is God. God is all there is. As soon as I got to those words in a piece I came across, "Why Your Version of God is the Right One...for YOU," I knew that I'd disagree with the rest of the article. Download Why Your Version of God is the Right One…for YOU – Fractal Enlightenment It's meaningless to say God is everything. That's the same as saying God is nothing. If there is no way to distinguish something called "God" from everything else in existence, then God doesn't exist. Just call everything by a more accurate name. Here's…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Does religious belief dilute our enjoyment of life?

To answer my own blog title question: Yes, I do believe that religiosity tends to dilute people's enjoyment of life. Having been religiously-minded for about 35 years, and churchless now, I consider myself well qualified to address this question. Even though I was a member of an India-based spiritual organization, my experience seems to be applicable to devotees of Western religions also -- including Christianity. I used to believe in life after death, God, and "heaven." I put that word in quotation marks to indicate the difference between an Eastern/mystical conception of an ultimate divine reality, and how heaven is…
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Posted inBooks God

Halfway through “Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart,” I love this book

With Christmas just a couple of weeks away, it's time to start thinking about what to get your atheist friend who, of course, doesn't believe in Christ (but still enjoys giving and receiving presents). Here's a book idea: Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century, by Lex Bayer and John Figdor.  Yeah, it's a bit spendy, even in the Kindle version. That didn't stop me from getting a copy, though, because I was fortunate to get a free one from a publicist who thought churchless me would enjoy the book and write a review of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Step out of the separate self, and you’re spiritual

Thanks to a regular Church of the Churchless visitor, I was turned on to a short interesting piece in The Guardian, "Spiritual but not religious? You're not alone." Oliver Burkeman wrote the piece. Though he has mixed feelings about Sam Harris (I do also), he approvingly observes: What Harris means by spirituality stems from the realisation that the feeling of being a distinct self – “the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from you” – is an illusion, and can be altered, even extinguished. Meditation and magic mushrooms are among the ways…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Nothing special: lucid dreaming and mindfulness

I dream a lot, as we all do. Lucid dreaming, though -- very rarely. That's when you're aware that you're dreaming, while still in a dream. Maybe I've had a couple of lucid dreams in my entire life. Three years ago I blogged about a semi-lucid dream experience in "I dreamed within a dream. Felt a lot like reality." The title of that post points to a notion Evan Thompson talks about in his book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being." It's the familiar philosophical conundrum: how can we be sure that we're not dreaming in everyday life, since dreaming while we're asleep…
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Posted inReality

Here’s what you actually know…

Hey, I can find quasi-philosophical churchless inspiration in all kinds of places. Yesterday it was in Carolyn Hax's advice column that appeared in the Sunday Oregonian.  Hax responded to a woman who was "feeling shaken in my own marriage" after learning that the husband of a friend of hers has been having an affair. The woman said, "My husband has never given me a reason to suspect he is anything less than a loving and devoted spouse and father, but I feel myself looking at our relationship with a more critical eye." I thought Hax's advice was well spoken and…
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