Posted inMiracles Reality

Don’t believe in miracles. Reality is better.

Late last night, while changing channels on our TV, I happened across a midnight mass that was being broadcast on ABC. After watching for a few minutes my wife and I were struck by how really weird the church service was.  Understand: it wasn't any weirder than any other religious form of worship. I'll give the Catholic priest credit for talking calmly and quietly, unlike more fervent evangelical preachers.  But what he was talking about seemed exceedingly strange to our rational, reasonable, evidence-loving psyches. Which was recognized by the priest (bishop, actually, if I recall correctly), because he spoke about…
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Posted inWu Project

Getting down to absolute nothing

Fans of nothingness (I'm one, and enjoy the company of Nothing'arians, but it's difficult to organize a fan club around nothing) should enjoy this letter in a recent issue of New Scientist.  It's in response to a special issue on the nature of nothingness that I blogged about last month. From Dave HowellsI found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p. 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum, and the noble gases. Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Janis Joplin, vapor trails, and falling leaves

Oh, man, this has got to be a terrific post now that I've come up with that title. It's almost Christmas, so naturally my thoughts are turning toward utterly unreligious stuff. But I'm still getting signs from the universe. At least, I like to think that I am. And who else is better qualified to tell whether a seemingly random event actually is a message from... [fill in the blank; me, I have no idea who might be the messenger].   Like, yesterday I was driving around, listening to Classic Vinyl on Sirius XM, grooving to sounds of the '60s…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

“Survivor: South Pacific” shows ridiculousness of religion

My wife and I are big Survivor fans. We've watched every episode of each season. "Survivor: South Pacific," which concluded last Sunday, was one of the most captivating series for this reality show. Also, one of the most annoying for us, because religion played a much larger role in the interactions between the people trying to outwit, outplay, and outlast (the Survivor mantra) each other on the island until one becomes the "sole survivor." One tribe was filled with obnoxiously explicitly devout Christians who regularly stood in a circle, held hands, prayed together -- and then proceeded to do their…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

The notion of a cosmic illusion is illusory

I loved "The Matrix." It's an entertaining movie with a compelling plot line. Eventually, Neo finds Morpheus, and is then told that reality is actually very different from what he, and most other people, perceives it to be. Morpheus tells Neo that human existence is merely a facade. In reality, humans are being ‘farmed’ as a source of energy by a race of sentient, malevolent machines. People actually live their entire lives in pods, wtih their brains being fed sensory stimuli which give them the illusion of leading ‘ordinary’ lives. Morpheus explains that, up until then, the “reality” perceived by Neo is…
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Posted inPlotinus Reality

Why materiality? What’s the point?

One of the reasons I love my blogging gig, even though I get paid precisely nothing, and even have to pay for the privilege of doing what I do, is getting email messages like this: I'm in the process of reading Return to the One which led me to your website and blogs.  Your writings have made me question, think, and laugh.  Thanks! I have spent many a year searching for something to satisfy this deep longing within.  I've known for sometime that I wasn't going to find "it" in the material world and have read zillions of books and tried various…
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Posted inBooks Science

God didn’t design the world. Neither do humans.

Scientifically-inclined people like me dismiss the idea of "intelligent design" when it is applied to the universe as a whole, or Earth in particular. It just is extremely unlikely that our world was designed by an intelligent being, rather than coming to be as it is through evolution's process of natural selection. Strangely, though, even most scientists assume that history is the record of how we humans have designed cultures, civilizations, and such. So intelligent design isn't accepted as an explanation for how the natural world came to be, but it is accepted as an explanation for how the "built"…
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Posted inHumor Personal/Stories

Hafiz warns, watch out for spiritual la-la land

Hafiz is pretty cool, for a religious'y guy. He's a Persian mystic poet who did his thing in the 14th century.  Daniel Ladinsky has written a book, "A Year With Hafiz," that contains 365 poems that are versions of Hafiz, in much the same sense that Coleman Barks has popularized Rumi. Meaning, liberties are taken. These aren't word for word translations. Fine with me. I'd rather get the spirit of a poet, than the letter of what he or she said.  Here's the January 17 poem, "Watch Out for Spiritual La-La Land." Watch out for spiritual la-la land, where you might…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

“How to Die in Oregon” made me less afraid of death

I'm going to die eventually. And I live in Oregon. So it figures that the award-winning 2011 documentary "How to Die in Oregon" would be of considerable interest to me.  In 1997 Oregon became the first state to allow terminally-ill people to end their lives through self-administered lethal medications if a physician certified they had six months or less to live. It's officially called the Death With Dignity Act, but often is midleadingly referred to as physician-assisted suicide. The movie shows that suicide isn't what terminally-ill people are doing when they choose to control the time and place of their…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Looking into the void…and waking up

Recently I got an email from someone who resonated with my take on death, not-existing for eternity, and the virtually certain unfortunate/fortunate fact that when we die, we're gone forever (aside from the atoms that make up our time-limited assemblage into a living entity). I asked the guy, Yeager St. John, if I could share his thoughts. "Sure," he emailed back. Here they are. Hey Brian, I came across your website, "Church of the Churchless" and must say, bravo. I have only read a few of your posts, but have enjoyed every bit. I came across your "death and the primal…
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Posted inPolitics

How science supports left-wing politics

Do people have free will? No. Is almost everything in the cosmos determined? Yes. Have humans evolved a core morality? Yes.  Put these facts together, and you arrive at a persuasive scientific argument for favoring progressive politics. Read all about it in a post I wrote for my other blog, "Science supports a progressive political agenda." One more fact: Will lots of people disagree with this conclusion? Yes.
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Posted inReality

Science: a minimalist “get real” walk through life

Most people like to be insulated from reality. After all, it hurts sometimes. So everybody puts on physical and mental coverings of one sort or another. Clothes, shoes, gloves, beliefs, hopes, imaginings.  I used to do this much more than I do now. My inward churchlessness has been matched by an outward "get real" approach to how I dress and get around. For example, I enjoy a healthy dose of minimalism in my footwear. Currently these are my favorite shoes, Teva's Zilch and Nilch. I Zilch in warm weather; I Nilch in cold weather (with wool blend socks). They're wonderfully…
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Posted inHumor Politics

Sodomites and infidels should govern U.S.

This video response to Rick Perry's religious homophobia is much more to my liking. Hey, the guy makes a lot of sense. He observes that gay and atheist presidents didn't get us into wars or financial crises. No, "It took some God-fearing vagina penetrators to pull that off." The solution: "Leave the governing to sodomites and infidels." Sounds good to me.   
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Posted inMorality Religions

Cultures and religions blind us to reality

In a TIME magazine story about the Penn State sex scandal -- rape of young boys by a football coach is alleged -- I came across an analysis of how people become blinded to what is right in front of their eyes. These excerpts from "Penn State of Mind" reminded me of religious true believers. Their blind faith causes them to become equally blind to aspects of reality that don't mesh with what they desperately want to believe in. Within a college bubble, say organizational psychologists, the urge to shape your mental picture of the world can be overwhelming. "Culture…
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Posted inPolitics

Rick Perry hates gays and loves religion. Me, the opposite.

Thank you, Rick Perry. Your homophobic video, where you bizarrely speak of Obama's "war on religion" (huh?), has inspired me to carry on with my own genuine war against hateful religious dogma such as you espouse.  Take 30 seconds to watch it. Then, if you're as disgusted as I expect you'll be, head to You Tube and click on the thumbs-down (dislike) icon. So far about 87,000 people dislike the video and 2,000 like it. Good to know Rick Perry doesn't represent Americans. Just the mean-spirited ones.  
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Posted inReligions

Islam’s war on women

I got an email from A Mohit, who shared a link to a post he wrote about "Islam and Women." Very disturbing, this tale of an Afghan woman who is raped, then has to marry her attacker in order to be freed from jail. Mohit tells it like it is. Shame on her tribe, shame on their society! I do not condemn her family, who are probably as helpless as Gulnaz herself is. I raise my hands in prayer: May God have his fury on the people who oppress women in the name of God. Here's another story about the…
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Posted inScience

Shocker! Thoughts really aren’t about anything at all

Thoughts. Desires. Intentions. Plans. Interpretations. Meanings. These seem to be so important, so vital, so much a part of being human.  We think about stuff. We have feelings about stuff. We argue, debate, laugh, cry, discuss, cogitate, agonize over, dream about stuff. Yet there are good neuroscientific reasons to say, "We're totally mistaken. It's impossible for our minds to be about anything." So argues Alex Rosenberg in his book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality." A few days ago I blogged about it here, ending with a quotation that stimulated this post: Ultimately, science and scientism are going to give up…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Dancing teaches me a life lesson

Quality, not quantity. Relate, don't compare.  That's the essence of what Debra, my dance instructor, told me yesterday. On my other blog I described these life lessons. Have a read. And a look, as I included a dance video that Debra liked a lot. Religions urge that we form an intimate relationship with God or some other supernatural entity. Ballroom dancing points us toward the here-and-now: relating to the partner who is in our arms.  Which is more real? For me, dancing. For sure.
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Posted inReality Science

“Atheist’s Guide to Reality” answers life’s biggest questions

Here's a gift idea for the atheists and agnostics on your Christmas shopping list: Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions. I'm enjoying it a lot, having bought it at Powell's Books in Portland (best bookstore in the world!) a few weeks ago. Rosenberg, chair of the Philosophy Department at Duke University, is a powerful writer. He is utterly fearless in proclaiming his atheistic thesis. Here it is in a nutshell, on pages 2-3 of his new book where he confidently answers life's biggest questions in a few words: Is there a God? No. What is…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Religious stories are too wonderful to be true

One of the things scientists have learned about humans is how much we love stories. People are bothered by uncertainty, doubt, not-knowing. Our brains are hardwired by evolution to jump to intuitive conclusions that seem oh-so-right, even when the evidence supporting those conclusions is oh-so-limited. Stories fill in the gaps in our ignorance, producing a pleasing thematic arc: introductory first act, dramatic second act, tying it all together third act. For example, Christianity tells us a story of how God created a perfect world, humans screwed things up by sinning, and Jesus was sent to save us. Of course, there…
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