Posted inGod Humor

Stephen Colbert’s God joke: “What if this is all there is?”

A few nights ago Stephen Colbert told a joke about God on The Colbert Report. It was at the end of an interview with Father Jim Martin, author of "Between Heaven and Mirth: Why Joy, Humor, and Laughter Are at the Heart of the Spiritual Life." The audience, along with Father Martin, laughed at the end of the joke. Me, I was more puzzled than amused. As soon as I heard the punchline I thought, "Wow. This is profound." But I didn't know why. Yes, the joke is funny. But it's the sort of humor that's funny because it's so…
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Posted inPolitics

Voters need to quiz candidates about religion

I liked this column by E.J. Dionne a lot. "Election 2012's Great Religious Divide" makes some excellent points about how religion and politics intersect here in the United States. Yes, everyone is part of a religious minority. Especially atheists and agnostics, since the vast majority of Americans are believers in some faith. In the United States, we have no religious tests for office. It’s true that this constitutional provision does not prevent a voter from casting a ballot on any basis he or she wishes to use. Nonetheless, it’s the right assumption for citizens in a pluralistic democracy. All Americans…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Conspiracy theories are faith-based, like religion

Today George, a regular visitor to this blog, left a comment on a post which said, in part: "one thing i would like to know is how come all you guys are besotted with conspiracy theories and the occult?" That got me to thinking again about why conspiracy theories are so attractive, even to people who decry religious beliefs that aren't evidence-based. A few months ago I wrote a post called "Conspiracy theories -- another form of blind faith." No need to repeat why I said there. But who needs a need to do something? Here's how the post started…
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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 inReality

Get wise about life and death in 56 seconds

I liked these newly-released videos from the Neural Surfer, a.k.a. David Lane. Check out the first two in what apparently will be a series of two hundred wisdom in 56 seconds offerings -- "The Limits of Science" and "Radiance Without an Edge."     For those who prefer to read their wisdom, here's an excerpt from the first video: And herein is the great human dilemma: the limits of our skull are the limits of our understanding. Plus an excerpt from the second: Hence, what we should really fear about death is not the extinction of being, but the awareness of…
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Posted inBuddhism

Burn dogmas down, so you can see past them

A Zen poem can say a lot in a few words. This one is from Mizuta Masahide. Barn's burnt down --nowI can see the moon. Alternate translation: Since my house burned downI now own a better viewof the rising moon l came across the poem in James Austin's book, "Meditating Selflessly." Some commentary from Austin: It is tragic to lose one's barn in a fire. Thereafter, deprived of possessions, one could feel impoverished and hard-pressed to survive. Instead, we discover this poet who is undaunted, buoyant. Why? Now he can see the moon rise. It fills the empty space where…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Oregon faith-healing baby-killing couple get six years in jail

Before I turned chuchless, I might have said "There is a God!" when I saw the Oregonian's front page headline: A 'justly earned' sentence -- A couple who stood by as their baby died get six years in a Followers of Christ case. How these Christian faith-healers maltreated their newborn got my blood boiling back in September when the case was being tried. So I liked reading in the Oregonian story about Judge Herndon's sentencing of the oh-so-guilty couple. The Hickmans received the mandatory minimum prison term under Measure 11 sentencing guidelines, even though defense attorneys argued that their clients qualified for little or…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

More proof of my enlightenment

One of the big benefits of not being part of an organized religious faith is that you can affirm your own enlightenment -- or salvation, sainthood, mastership, gurudom, whatever.  Life is short. Why wait for someone else to tell you about your elevated state of consciousness? Do it yourself! Well, in my case, with the help of Google, as I needed assistance in remembering where prior bloggish proofs of my enlightened being lay. Thank you, Oh Great Google, for pointing me to here, here, here, and here. (Though truly, my entire Church of the Churchless blog post production testifies to…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

James Austin’s “Just this” meditation practice

I'm an admirer of Zen, albeit from afar. Meaning, I enjoy Zen philosophy, but diving into Zen practice doesn't appeal to me.  Zen is unreligious compared to traditional faiths. However there's still too much bowing and scraping before Zen masters for my churchless non-soul. Also, Zen's disciplines seem needlessly rigid, rooted more in habit than in practicality. That said, for a few days I've been trying out a meditation approach in James Austin's new book, "Meditating Selflessly: Practical Neural Zen." Austin, a clinical neurologist, is into the scientific side of Zen. I like the approach. Nice and simple. It gives…
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Posted inReality

With life, there’s no possible comparison

A few days ago, during a dog walk, when insights often spring into my psyche, I was contemplating the fall colors and how the number of years I'll be able to enjoy changing seasons is falling with every passing birthday. I had a brief relapse into a sort of semi-faithfulness, visualizing how nice it would be if life could be everlasting, eternal, without end. But almost instantly a compared to what? echoed in my consciousness, drowning out the anti-death wish fulfillment chatter. Yes, indeed: when we complain about life, not its particulars, but life itself, there's no basis for comparison.…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Do you want life to be experience, or memory?

Psychologist, Nobel laureate (in economics), and happiness researcher Daniel Kahneman describes a interesting thought experiment in his fascinating TED video, "The riddle of experience vs. memory."  It seems to point to something really important about life, spirituality, meaning, well-being, and all that. I just can't quite figure out what it is -- which probably is a result of me being immersed in the riddle of experience vs. memory, as all of us are. That is, I got an intuitive flash when I heard Kahneman talk about the thought experiment, but when I reflect upon it, as I am now, I'm focusing…
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Posted inBooks Reality Science

“War of the Worldviews” ends with clear win for science

Just like I thought after reading only four of the nineteen debates between spiritually-minded new age sage Deepak Chopra and scientifically-minded physicist Leonard Mlodinow in their book, "War of the Worldviews," I finished the final chapter feeling that science emerged the decisive victor. Understand: I've got a lot of sympathy for mysticism, meditation, and unconventional ways of viewing the cosmos. I don't believe that science has all the answers, because I don't believe that anybody does.  But I've always liked my "spirituality" (a term that doesn't mean to me what it used to, yet which I continue to use out…
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Posted inPolitics

Should a presidential candidate’s faith matter?

I've argued before that religious beliefs have no place in politics. (See here, here, and here.) This isn't the same as saying that religious people can't be politically active. Heck, if that were the case the vast majority of American citizens would be apolitical. I just feel that when it comes to policy-making, elected officials should offer up good reasons for why they want to do X rather than Y. Then those who disagree with that choice can engage in a rational debate rather than being met with a faith-based "just because." Pastor Robert Jeffress has a different point of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Good news, bad news: this moment will never come again

Over the years, as I've become less and less religious, my take on "spirituality" has become similarly pared down. I used to believe that a being a spiritual person had something to do with rising above or beyond this world into some ethereal realm. Now, I consider that being fully present is most, if not all, of what it means to be spiritual -- which removes supernatural connotations from this word and places it firmly in this world, not the next. The older and more churchless I get (the two qualities being closely tied together in me) the more frequently…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

I get mail: an “Atta boy” and a “Come home”

I enjoyed an email message from Tamara so much, I asked her if I could share it in a blog post. Her OK reply was equally enjoyable: "By all means, Brian, throw my golden prose onto the godless telegraph. ha. My opinions are always liberally (double meaning) expressed to everyone within earshot--or email. Accreditation is no prob." Here's her message: Brian, baby, LOVE LOVE the Oct. 12 "God is too good..." piece. At last, a kindred spirit in this religion-soaked world. My opinion of god is, if we entertain the premise of that existence--he/she/it does not DESERVE my worship. This crap about…
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Posted inBooks Science

Deepak Chopra’s inanity makes my head explode

Like I said before, I'm enjoying the series of mini-debates between Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow in "War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality." Now that I'm more than halfway through the book, it's more obvious than ever that Mlodinow is kicking Chopra's intellectual/philosophical butt. Here's a non-verbal depiction of my reaction to Deepak Chopra's New Age'y, mostly fact-free arguments on some Big Questions of Life. This photo is of the second page in Chopra's eight page answer to "Does the Brain Dictate Behavior?" Those are nine -- count them, nine -- marginal question marks that I highlighted in on…
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Posted inBuddhism

“Dot, an ordinary life” shows limits of Zen — and meditation

Yesterday my wife and I watched "Dot" at the Salem Film Festival. It's a documentary about an extraordinary 82 year old woman from Ashland, Oregon who believably claims that her life is ordinary. From the film's web site: Dot Fisher-Smith is a mystical masterful artist, a war resister, an environmental activist, a community presence, a jailbird. As a great-grandmother, she chained her neck to a log truck to protest salvage logging of old-growth forest. Yet she calls herself a mistaken Buddha and her own life ordinary. This moving documentary is an intimate portrait of life and death through the eyes of 82-year-old…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

My meditation: learning how unfree I am

Even though I no longer follow an organized system of meditation (for over thirty years I was a member of an India-based group, Radha Soami Satsang Beas), I still enjoy meditating every day. Sometimes I follow my breath. Sometimes I repeat a simple mantra of one or two syllables. Since I practice Tai Chi and resonate with Taoism, the words "wu chi" appeal to me. It's the readiness posture in Tai Chi, an embrace of empty fullness. And it's the core of the Wu Project that I've been blogging about. I also like to listen to a mantra in my…
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Posted inReligions

God is too good to believe in Him/Her/It

One big reason I don't believe in God is that descriptions of the Supreme Being almost always are unbelievably perfect.  Show me a flawed, clueless, unknowing, emotionally infantile God and I'd be a lot more inclined to sign up as a true believer. But then I'd wonder "What's the point in being devoted to a supposedly divine being who actually is no better than us humans are?" It's deeply suspicious that virtually every religion posits a super-good God. Sure, the Old Testament God and similar gods exhibit some nasty character flaws -- jealousy, cruelty, egotism, to name a few --…
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Posted inReligions Science

Mlodinow beat Chopra in “War of the Worldviews”

I've only read four of the nineteen debates between New Age "guru" Deepak Chopra and top-notch physicist Leonard Mlodinow in their fascinating book, War of the Worldviews: Science vs. Spirituality.  But I'm ready to declare a clear winner: Mlodinow. Highlighter in hand, I'm filling the pages Chopra authored with marginal question marks. By contrast, so far I haven't found anything obviously questionable in what Mlodinow wrote. That's because science sticks with facts, by and large, while spirituality is prone to fluttering all over the place with ethereal unproven pronouncements. You should make up your own mind, though. That's the best thing…
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