Posted inScience Universe

More thoughts on Jim Holt’s “Why Does the World Exist?”

Via an email (thanks, Nick) I learned about a Slate article that's based on a chapter in "Why Does the World Exist?" by Jim Holt, a book I blogged about recently. Updike on the Universe describes Holt's interview from John Updike, a noted novelist who has mused about the mystery of existence in his writing. It's worth a read. Here's a sample: “When you think about it,” he continued, “we rationalists—and we’re all, to an extent, rationalist—we accept propositions about the early universe which boggle the mind more than any of the biblical miracles do. Your mind can intuitively grasp the…
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Posted inReligions

Unreligious “Nones” are growing fast in United States

Great news. The Nones are on the march in the United States. Don't be scared. They aren't zombies, or soulless creatures from the underground (though religious believers might think so).  Unbelief is on the uptick. People who check "None" for their religious affiliation are now nearly one in five Americans (19%), the highest ever documented, according to the Pew Center for the People and the Press. The rapid rise of Nones — including atheists, agnostics and those who say they believe "nothing in particular" — defies the usually glacial rate of change in spiritual identity. Barry Kosmin, co-author of three American Religious…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Universe

Mystery of existence is near and far — not in between

Why is there something rather than nothing? Or more positively (my preference): There is something rather than nothing! A great question. And a great exclamation. I hugely enjoy pondering both, especially the latter. But the mystery of existence is much more than a pondering to me. It's an immediate, um, existential experience that always is lurking not far from the surface of my consciousness. I'm easily drawn into the depths of WOW! by ducking my everyday conscious mind just a little ways below the surface of the perceptions, thoughts, sensations, emotions and what-not which normally are the focus of my attention.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Another inspiring RSSB “why I left” story

I love religious deconversion stories. They're more inspiring to me than conversion stories, because I've come to realize that a meaningful life is far distant from religiosity.  So someone is making progress when he or she is able to get further away from rigid dogmas. Below is a story from one such "someone." After sending me an email, I encouraged this person to write a blog-sharable version of why a decision was made to leave the formalities of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an India-based spiritual group organized around the teachings of a line of gurus who are considered to be God…
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Posted inGod

Why have faith in a God who fucks things up?

Today a gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded 59 in a Colorado movie theatre. My wife watched news coverage of the disaster this evening. She told me that a man was interviewed who praised God for saving his life. Maybe it was this guy, Zach Golditch, a football player in an adjoining theatre who was shot when a bullet went through a wall. And then at 8:57 a.m., he tweeted, "Thank you God for the gift of life! i promise it will not go to waste." Don't take this too personally, Zach, but I think you're an idiot.…
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Posted inFundamentalism Religions

Irritating putdowns of pseudo-spiritual wannabes

Even when I was a religious true believer, Eastern mysticism variety, I tried to avoid being irritatingly sanctimonious. People who consider themselves holier-than-thou are difficult to be around. And I necessarily associated with quite a few people who didn't believe in what I did. Such as my first wife, who early on deconverted from the India-based Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) faith that I held on to for about thirty-five years. And my second wife, who always has been an "infidel" from the standpoint of RSSB. When I gave talks at RSSB meetings, I often used her as an example,…
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Posted inBooks Science

Free will doesn’t exist. Compatibilism makes no sense.

I don't believe in free will. I've got good neuroscientific company, which includes Sam Harris, author of "Free Will." (See here and here for my previous blogging about the book.) Reading a New York Times review of "Free Will," I was reminded of how the have-it-both-ways notion of compatibilism doesn't make sense to me. Compatibilism claims that free will and determinism are compatible. Huh? is my reaction. Harris' also, according to the review. For quite a while now, philosophers and public intellectuals, including Harris’s friend Dennett, have tried to rescue something like the common notion of free will from the…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

I’m not bitter toward religion — just fed up with false claims

Fairly frequently true believers leave comments on this blog saying, "Brian, you're so bitter toward religion." This surprises me.  I don't feel bitter toward any religion or spiritual organization, including Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the India-based group I was an active member of for about thirty-five years. Rather, I'm disappointed about the false claims RSSB promotes in its teachings. If I buy a car, or a computer, I expect it will function as advertised. If it doesn't, I don't feel bitterness. Just irritation, disappointment, let-down. Now, how do I know that RSSB, or any religion, makes false claims? I…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

Morality has nothing to do with scientific truth

Einstein revealed some amazing truths about the cosmos through his theory of relativity and other research. Einstein also spent time with six girlfriends while he was married.  Is there any connection between these two facts? Should we question the validity of the theory of relativity because Einstein engaged in behavior that would seem morally questionable to many people?  No, of course not.  Universal scientific truths have no connection with individual, or even societal, moral norms. The cosmos doesn't care what we do with our bodies and minds. Laws of nature aren't dependent on human thou shalt's and thou shalt not's.…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

What Zen practice is… so simple…

I've been reading Zen books since my college days, forty-four years. I go hot and cold with Zen. Never have heated up enough to study it formally. Never have cooled off enough to lose interest in it entirely. When an author throws too much Buddhism into the mix of Zen + Buddhism, I get turned off. I like my Zen to be as non-religious as possible.  Which explains why Charlotte Joko Beck's "Nothing Special" appeals to me so much. I learned about the book from an interesting blog post by David Chapman with the same name.  I took the title…
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Posted inScience

Discovery of “God particle” has nothing to do with God

Bravo, CERN scientists! It looks like you've found evidence of the Higgs boson, a particle produced by knocking a tiny chunk out of space-time with a high-energy particle accelerator. This discovery could answer the question, "Where does mass come from?" That is, why is there something we can point to and say there!, rather than everything being formless pure energy? According to the Standard Model, the Higgs boson is the only manifestation of an invisible force field, a cosmic molasses that permeates space and imbues elementary particles with mass. Particles wading through the field gain heft the way a bill going…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Does God want me to be a senior citizen skateboarder?

There's got to be a deep meaning behind my strangely strong desire to become a skateboarder, longboarding style, at the age of 63.  After all, don't the world's Western religions tell us that God/Allah is in control of our lives? And don't the world's Eastern religions tell us that Karma/Tao guides our decisions?  Thus I have to assume that if I follow through on my lust for longboarding, I will have taken another step toward my salvation, enlightenment, god-realization, satori, and overall Major Dude'ness.  (For some background on my divine mission, see here and here.) Now, so far I haven't…
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Posted inReligions

Religion and politics: where lies triumph over facts

Fascinating. Reading Leonards Pitts' column in today's Oregonian opinion page, it almost seemed as if he was talking about religion in "When lies triumph over facts, we're done." All I had to do was mentally substitute a few words in key passages. Which I've done non-mentally below. Not long ago, if you told a whopper like Palin’s a holy book's and it was as thoroughly debunked as hers it's was, that would have ended the discussion. These days, it is barely even part of the discussion. These days, facts seem overmatched by falsehood, too slow to catch them, too weak to stop them. Indeed,…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

You wanted old answers, not new questions

It makes sense... to try to make sense out of what makes sense. But if something is senseless, trying to make sense out of it is... (drumroll, please) senseless.  Such is the mystery of life. Such is the mystery of the cosmos. Such is the mystery of ourselves. To be wondered, not made sense of.  Jack Haas is a guy who loves wonder, mystery, senselessness. So do I. I've blogged about Haas and his stimulating books here and here. And... here I go again.  Recently I got Haas' book, The Dream of Being -- aphorisms, ideograms, and aislings. (An aisling is a…
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Posted inReality Religions

Matt Thornton, mixed martial artist, kicks religion’s butt

I love how the World Wide Web leads in so many interesting unexpected directions. Like, from a brief Sam Harris twitter tweet to the blog of a guy who is both physically and intellectually capable of twisting religious believers into knots. I started off listening to an interview Bobby Nelson, "The Paranormal Skeptic," conducted with Matt Thornton, a mixed martial artist and coach from Portland, Oregon -- just a short ways up I-5 from Salem, the much less cool city where I live. You can listen to it here. Great stuff. I've been involved with martial arts for almost twenty…
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Posted inBuddhism Death/Rebirth

Uncertainty: the key to dealing with death and non-existence

Last night I had another of my Holy shit! I'm going to die and not exist forever! moments. I wrote about these disturbing experiences six years ago in "Death and the primal fear of non-existence."  I’ve come face to face with not-existing. It’s scary. Really scary. I’ve never experienced anything scarier. I can call it “fear,” but it’s more than that. Worse than that. Regular fear arises when something bad is happening or could happen. But primal fear is looking into the maw of nothing happening to you, because there will be no you around for anything to happen to. Do you get the…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

How to move between horizontal and vertical time

Memories are strange. I've forgotten so much about the past, yet some memories have stuck with me in a surprising fashion. Fairly early in my meditating years (I've meditated daily since 1970), I'd attend talks by Gordon Limbrick, a Canadian. He habitually offered three pieces of advice: "Keep your back straight; smile inwardly; visualize a trap door opening in the ceiling of your mind." I liked all three tips back then. I still think of them now. With some variations. Such as visualizing myself opening a trap door on the ground floor of my body also. This reflects my Tai Chi…
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Posted inGod

God-man useless compared to Human-man

Came across this great comic in a Daily Kos post. Reminded me of some ridiculous "God is in control of everything" stuff a Christian was quoted as saying in my previous post. If God-man is so powerful, why does Human-man fail to find him helping out?
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Posted inFundamentalism God

Why a Christian woman denies global warming

My wife, Laurel, has been engaging in an exchange of emails with a Christian woman who used to do the same thing with Laurel's sister -- try to convince a religious skeptic that the Bible is God's inerrant truth. Which, of course, is complete bullshit.  As is this woman's response, after Laurel noted that viewers of Fox News are horribly misinformed about the reality of global warming. She replied: It is because I am a Christian that I don't believe in global warming.   My wife then emailed her: I am curious why being a Christian causes you to reject…
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