Posted inScience Universe

The factual creation story of physics is more inspiring than religious fantasy

The world's major religions claim that God created our universe. Naturally details are lacking, because religions are all about faith, not facts.  Modern science also has its creation story, the Big Bang. It takes more effort to understand than the simplistic religious stories. But I find science's story to be much more appealing, largely because I prefer reality over fantasy when it comes to the big questions of life. (When it comes to thriller novels and television shows, I adore fantasy.) This isn't to say that the scientific explanation of creation is complete and coherent. It has a lot of…
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Posted inPolitics Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Trump is a proven authoritarian fascist. Reminds me of some religious leaders.

Yesterday I wrote a post for my Salem Political Snark blog, "Trump is a fascist, says his chief of staff, John Kelly." Here's part of a quotation from a New York Times story that I included in the post. In response to a question about whether he thought Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Kelly first read aloud a definition of fascism that he had found online. “Well, looking at the definition of fascism: It’s a far-right authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social…
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Posted inReality Religions Science

If God and the supernatural are real, where’s the evidence of them?

Religiously minded people like to have it both ways. I know whereof I speak, because I used to be one of those people before I saw the error of my ways.  The basic error is this: religious believers assert that (1) God and the supernatural can't be known through reason and the physical senses, yet (2) God and the supernatural are real, and deserve the respect shown to these divine realities. So those of us who reject blind faith are supposed to accept that one or many someones, somewhere, some time, had an experience of God and the supernatural that…
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Posted inReality Science

Science says the energy of matter is the energy of being

In my religious true-believing days, I would have made more of the scientific understanding shared in this blog post than what the understanding supports. Meaning, it isn't at all mystical, though it contains echoes of certain mystical teachings. Or more accurately, those teachings contain echoes of scientific truth. Today I got to the chapter in theoretical physicist Matt Strassler's book, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean, where he reveals the secret that he's been building up to in the part of the book that precedes the Quantum section.  I'm tempted to summarize what…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

I’m learning some things by caring for my wife

As I said in my previous post, "My wife's shoulder surgery is a growth opportunity for me," since Laurel had shoulder replacement surgery last Tuesday, I've been her caregiver -- and will be for the 4-6 weeks she'll have to wear a sling on her right arm (we're hoping for four weeks). Until you can't use an arm for much, it's difficult to know all the things you won't be able to do anymore. We're rediscovering those things, since Laurel had rotator cuff surgery on the same arm about ten years ago that also required her to use a sling…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

My wife’s shoulder surgery is a growth opportunity for me

For a long time I felt that my daily meditation was the best way for me to become a better person. Looking back, that was a selfish attitude. I'd bought into a form of pseudo-spirituality that taught self-realization (I'm soul, not body!) was the stepping stone to god-realization (My soul is a drop of the divine ocean!).  I call it "pseudo" because in my current frame of mind, genuine spirituality is about forgetting the self as much as possible, not trying to enhance it, even if the supposed enhancing is aimed at merging with the Grandest Self of All, god. …
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Science

Why the mystical notion of a “sound current” is at odds with science

I used to belong to an India-based religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), whose teachings centered on the notion of shabd, or sound current -- considered to be the audible voice of God, being an all-pervading conscious energy that created and sustains the cosmos, including our physical universe. Believing in this, my first book was called God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder: Echoes of Ultimate Reality in the New Physics. (In the shorter and simpler version that I published after the original book went out of print, I changed the subtitle to Echoes of Spiritual Reality in the New Physics, which…
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Posted inReality Science

Common sense is a poor guide to objective reality

As I said about a week ago, I'm enjoying theoretical physicist Matt Strassler's book, Waves in an Impossible Sea: How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean. I've made my way through chapters about Motion, Mass, and Waves. Then I'll get to read about Fields, Quantum, Higgs, and Cosmos. Strassler is an engaging writer. He makes science readable, though it still takes some work to grasp his core points. One of the things I most enjoy about the book are the facts about the world based on physics that I either never knew, or once knew and needed reminding about.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB gurus meet with Pope Francis. I comment on a report of their meeting.

Today in a comment someone shared a link to a story on the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) web site  about the two RSSB gurus -- Gurinder Singh Dhillon and Jasdeep Singh Gill -- meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican on October 5. (Dhillon apparently is still the chief guru, while Gill has taken on some of the guru responsibilities but not all of them, being the guru-in-waiting.) I found RSSB's description of the meeting to be theologically problematic. Below are my comments on the story, in boldface. The RSSB story is in regular type. Baba Gurinder Singh and…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s my churchless “death letter.” But I’m not dying.

Yesterday on my HinesSight blog I wrote a post called "My 76th birthday has me thinking about sending death letters before I die." Here's how it starts out. For a while I've been pondering the notion of sending death letters to friends, family, and other people important to me -- not letters to be delivered after I die, but while I'm very much alive, not even sick.  This idea has gained strength as I approach my 76th birthday. That sounds damn old to me. Which, it is. My sister died at 71. My mother died at 73. My father, almost…
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Posted inReality Science Universe

We are made from waves of the universe

For thirty-five years I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), an India-based religious organization that taught the ultimate reality of the cosmos is all-pervading conscious energy termed shabd, in English sound current.  I wrote a book on behalf of RSSB called God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder, in which I argued that findings of the new physics reflected the message of ancient mysticism that waves of conscious energy not only permeate our universe but actually are the deep-down nature of the universe. I no longer believe in the supernatural aspect of this viewpoint, but I've maintained my interest…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

New RSSB guru, Jasdeep Singh Gill, gets paramilitary commando protection

A few days ago someone sent me a link to a story in an Indian publication, ThePrint, titled "Centre provides Z category VIP security to Radha Soami head." I've copied in the short story below. This sure is a strange new world we're living in, where the guru of an India-based religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB)  is considered to need such protection.  The RSSB teachings proclaim that the guru is God in Human Form. I guess God requires armed security to keep Him/Her/It safe.  New Delhi, Oct 1 (PTI) The Centre has granted the Z category VIP security…
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Posted inAwareness Neuroscience

There’s a place for intelligent thinking. But we should be aware of its limitations.

I feel bad that my previous post caused some people to get the wrong impression of one of my favorite authors. In "Everything is spiritual" says Joan Tollifson. I heartily agree I shared quotations from one of Tollifson's books that were unbalanced in a certain sense. While I understood that Tollifson is a big fan of reason and science, taken by itself this paragraph could be taken to be a putdown of reason and science. Our brain sees patterns where none actually exist. It turns chaos into order. But the order is imaginary. We are always clueless. Life is an…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Everything is spiritual” says Joan Tollifson. I heartily agree.

When I've got a hunger for a meal of some tasty spiritual wisdom that appeals to my heart as well as my mind, and is free of unhealthy ingredients like dogmatism, holier-than-thou pretensions, and supernatural fantasy, lately I've been turning toward writings by Joan Tollifson. Here's excerpts from her book, Death: The End of Self-Improvement, that appealed to me in my most recent Tollifson reading. I don't agree 100% with everything she says, but her overall thesis strikes me as sound. This radical perspective points relentlessly to the choiceless nature of reality and the absence of anyone running the show.…
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Posted inMorality Radha Soami Satsang Beas

I prefer honest sinners to deceptive saints

Let's be clear. I don't believe in the notion of sin, which is an offense against God. That's ridiculous, since there's no persuasive evidence that God even exists, nor, obviously, that anyone knows what the nonexistent God likes and doesn't like. I also don't believe in the notion of saints, who are believed to have a closeness to God, for the same reason. So when I refer to sinners and saints in the title of this post, I'm speaking in a secular sense of bad and good people -- where "bad" and "good" are actions or qualities that a certain…
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Posted inMorality

Morality has evolutionary roots, but goodness still feels like a choice

Recently someone complained in a comment on this blog that another person was leaving comments under their name. I was asked to do something about it. Problem is, that's hard to do, since my blogging service, unlike Facebook, doesn't have a way for a user to claim a distinct identity.  So if you're concerned about this happening to you, my advice is to always include the same email address when you post a comment. The email address only is visible to me, while your name is visible to everyone. Then if someone has appropriated your name, not innocently but to…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

We cling to our center even while saying “I am nothing”

I'm a fan of Sam Harris' Waking Up app, which I subscribe to on my iPhone. Usually I just listen to Harris' daily guided meditations, a habit I've had for quite a few years. But occasionally I'll see a talk by someone else that's featured on the app. That's how I started listening to "Life Without a Center" by Adyashanti. (There's lots of free material on that website, along with lots of material you have to pay for.) I've read one of his books and recall that I liked it. Wikipedia says that his original name was Stephen Gray. He…
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Posted inScience Taoism/Tai Chi

Meridians in Chinese medicine have no basis in fact, just superstition

Over on my HinesSight blog yesterday, I posted "Some life lessons from a Tai Chi seminar." These were some of the insights I got from a special three-hour class my Tai Chi instructor, Warren, put on for five students who are especially interested in the martial side of Tai Chi, as contrasted with the energetic/exercise side. During the seminar Warren, who used to teach classes in East-West Medicine at a nearby college, talked about the meridians that are part of Chinese medicine. This is how a Wikipedia article about meridians starts off.  The meridian system (simplified Chinese: 经络; traditional Chinese:…
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Posted inReality Science

Search for quantum gravity shows why science is so much better than religion

I love science. I don't love religion, but I don't hate it either. Mostly I give little thought to religion, aside from when I write about its shortcomings on this blog.  Science appeals to me because I admire its dedication to truth, something that can't said about religion without being, well, untruthful. Yes, science often gets something wrong. However, rather than being upset about this, science views error as an opportunity to learn from the mistake and seek truth in another direction. Religion, on the other hand, abhors the possibility that what is considered to be true, actually isn't. Blind…
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Posted inMindfulness Spiritual practice/meditation

How to have less of a distracted mind

As evidenced by the title of the first blog post I wrote six days ago about The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World, a book by Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen -- "Why repeating a mantra during daily activities doesn't make much sense" -- I'm interested in the spiritual implications of the book, even though the authors pay zero attention to this. They're concerned with how three modern innovations, the Internet, smart phones, and social media, are screwing up our ability to concentrate, though it isn't as if these innovations are forcing us to obey their whims. For…
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