Posted inReligions

Religious belief, Dumbo, and the placebo effect

After reading a fascinating article in Newsweek about how antidepressants appear to be no more effective than a placebo, I got to wondering whether religions operate the same way.Patients on a placebo improved about 75 percent as much as those on drugs. Put another way, three quarters of the benefit from antidepressants seems to be a placebo effect.When people believe that a placebo -- a sham medical intervention -- is an effective treatment, that belief often is self-fulfilling. Meaning, they get better because they believed they should get better.How this happens is largely a mystery. But there are some promising…
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Posted inGod

If “God” is mystery, there’s no pointing to God

Religion is strange. Most faiths teach that God, or whatever the highest divinity is called, is transcendent, mysterious, ineffable, incapable of being described in words.Yet these faiths also aren't shy about using a whole lot of words, concepts, dogmas, and such to tell us what God is like and why it is so important to believe in Him, Her, or It. They want to have their cake of mystery and eat it too.Obviously there are degrees to which something can be precisely described. We can analyze the chemical composition of a strawberry, measure it, photograph it, write reams about it.But…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

I want my “spirituality” to be physical

I had an interesting experience this morning. Sitting in my meditation area, sipping a strong cup of coffee, I settled down to enjoy reading a spiritual book.I'd already read about half of Scott Kiloby's "Love's Quiet Revolution." My churchless psyche was enjoying his subtitle theme, the end of the spiritual search. I wasn't agreeing with everything Kiloby said, but his general stance seemed agreeable enough.Until... it didn't.I started using my highlighter to pen in yellow question marks in the margins. Lots of them. I skipped through pages that now struck me as ridiculous. Why? Because scientific reality had caused me…
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Posted inScience

Brain’s “dark energy” casts doubt on pure awareness

I like my spirituality (if there is such a thing) to be as scientific as possible. Fantasy, imagination, and speculative philosophizing are fun, but when it comes to understanding myself and my place in the cosmos, getting real is more appealing to me.So an article in the March 2010 issue of Scientific American struck me as having important implications for an oft-heard assumption of meditation-based spiritual and mystical paths:That it's possible to arrive at a state of pure, or mostly pure, awareness. Meaning, basically, that one's consciousness isn't contaminated by thoughts, emotions, and other egocentric manifestations of me, me, me.For…
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Posted inHumor

Nice Duhism

A recent Duh of the Day explained how to make money from a spiritual belief.A Hindu yogi told me, "I have never been born so I can never die." So, I made myself the beneficiary on his life insurance. Thanks for the Lexus, dude-ji!
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Posted inBooks

Dan Barker’s “Godless” is marvelous

There's atheists, and then there's Atheists! Dan Barker is one of the latter, an activist, in-your-face, eloquent promoter of "Who knows?" over "I have faith that..."I've mentioned Barker's book, "Godless," in quite a few previous posts. (To find them, scroll down and use the Great Genuine God Google search box in the right column of this blog; type in "Dan Barker.")Barker speaks of what he knows when he writes about religiosity, because he used to be an ardent evangelical Christian preacher. Eventually he saw the light and became an atheist agnostic.If that sounds funny, Barker explains:People are invariably surprised to…
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Posted inMystics

Why be shy about sharing mystical experiences?

I'm an admirer of Taoism. I resonate with these lines in the Tao Te Ching:The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.Those who know do not talk.Those who talk do not know.Makes sense. How could the essence of the cosmos be encompassed by words? The human mind wasn't around at the big bang some 14 billion years ago, so it's difficult to see how a verbal explanation could capture the fullness of ultimate reality.But silence has another side: speaking. Yin and yang are manifestations of the Tao. Too much of anything, for too long, is unnatural. We've…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Why every religion and spiritual path is wrong

I've just finished reading my bajillionth (more or less) spiritual, mystical, religious, or philosophical book. You could call me a slow learner, but today I had a mini-enlightenment. It dawned on me -- more clearly than ever before -- why every religion and spiritual path is wrong. More precisely, wrong for everybody but one person: the guy or gal who had the initial religious or spiritual experience that led to a claim that it is right for everybody. A personal experience is just that: one person's experience. End of story. But if that person shares his or her tale with…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

The sweet taste of imperfection

Religions and most forms of spirituality strive for perfection. Or at least, improvement. They teach that we're fallen, sinful, deluded, enmeshed in maya/karma, ego-ridden, desirous, lustful, selfish.In short, imperfect. Well, yeah. That's what being human is. That's what being alive is. Perfection is an abstraction, a concept, an idea. Maybe it exists. Maybe it doesn't. Perfection is a state of mind. Sometimes we're filled with a sense of everything is just as it should be. Then that moment passes.And we're left with life in its everchangingness. Ups and downs. Happiness and sorrow. Good news and bad news. Smiles and frowns.This afternoon…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Deconversion is as natural as conversion

I enjoy hearing deconversion stories -- how people changed from being religious believers into atheists or agnostics. But "conversion" and "deconversion" are two sides of the same coin. Everybody who is converted to a faith, such as Christianity, was simultaneously deconverted from some other philosophy, belief system, religion, or point of view.Our lives are ever-changing. When change stops, we're dead. So it's natural to convert, deconvert, convert, deconvert... for as long as we're alive. I converted to mueslix for a while, then deconverted to granola. Now I've converted to raisin bran. (Leaving out many other earlier cereal choices, such as…
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Posted inReality

Church of Reality is a good place to worship

Ask, and you shall receive. A few months ago I wrote "Wanted: a religion that reflects reality." Recently someone left a comment on that post pointing me toward The Church of Reality. It's worth browsing around. I like the tagline, If it's real, we believe in it! Also, We are realists practicing realism, winning souls for Darwin!Welcome to the Church of Reality. Welcome to the Real World. That's our church greeting. Thank you for visiting our web site. If you are frustrated with the current state of the religious world and looking for some sanity, you came to the right…
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Posted inVedanta/Advaita Wu Project

Non-dualism is non-sensical, but I like it

Many things in life don't make sense, yet are enjoyable. Lost, the TV series, comes to mind. After every episode my wife and I look at each other and say, "What the heck was that all about?" Most of the time we've got no idea what's going on. It's an entertaining ride on the Confusion Express, though.I feel similarly about nondualism, as noted in a recent post. This is the "not two" (but also not one) mystical philosophy that underlies Vedanta, some forms of Buddhism, and various other faiths.I'm enjoying a book I've started reading: "Everything is God: The Radical…
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Posted inHumor Reality

The universe is a paper bag turned inside out

Some forty-two years ago, back in 1968, I had a revelation: The universe is a paper bag turned inside out. Now, at the time I had some reasons to doubt the veracity of this insight into ultimate reality, since it was fueled by mescaline and dissipated the following day. But another guy and I intuited this truth at the exact same moment. Far out. Today I've gotten confirmation that, indeed, the universe is a bag turned inside out. Tucson, a regular Church of the Churchless visitor, left a comment on this blog post that said, in part:Our perception is like…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Faith healing kills another Oregon child

Last year the father of Ava Worthington was convicted of criminal neglect for allowing his child to die rather than seek medical attention. Ava had the misfortune of being born to parents belonging to Oregon's Followers of Christ church, where children die at an alarming rate because of crazy faith healing beliefs.An investigation by The Oregonian claimed that at least 21 out of 78 minors found to be buried in the church cemetery died of preventable causes, including simple infections which would be easily treated with routine antibiotics.Now, make that 23. The parents of teenager Neil Beagley (grandparents of Ava)…
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Posted inBooks Vedanta/Advaita

Non-duality both appeals and repels (appropriately)

Here's my bottom line on non-dualism: it's either (1) the best take on ultimate reality that humans have ever come up with, or (2) a total crock of shit. Of course, if (1) is the case then seemingly both (1) and (2) are true -- since either/or distinctions don't have much of a place in non-dualism.I got to pondering this stuff after Amazon sucked me in this morning with one of their irritatingly accurate emails. (If there is a God, his name is Jeff Bezos).Amazon apparently looks at the books I buy and then correlates them with other books favored…
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Posted inGod

If God punishes people with earthquakes, to hell with God

When I heard Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson say that the Haitians "have been cursed by one thing after another" after they made a pact with the devil (actually voodoo), at first I vowed to ignore his idiocy -- not wanting to give him any publicity even in criticizing him.But Lisa Miller's recent interesting article in Newsweek, "Why God Hates Haiti: the frustrating theology of suffering" brought me to change my mind.In his narrow, malicious way, Robertson is making a First Commandment argument: when the God of Israel thunders from his mountaintop that "you shall have no other gods before me,"…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Gurinder Singh’s remarks on Sam Busa’s death

Sam Busa, the South African representative of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (an Indian spiritual group) for some 55 years died recently. The current guru of the organization, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, sent this message to Busa's family.Dear ______, I was informed about Sam's passing. Rest assured Sam is in a much better place now, free from all suffering and concerns.  His guidance and help which he gave tirelessly to the sangat in South Africa for so many years will be greatly missed. He lived a full and complete life.  He is once again united with his beloved Master. Though you will all…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Float gently on a stream of consciousness

Since I've become churchless -- a convert to no-religion -- one of the more ridiculous things I hear from true believers is: So you've given up on finding the truth.No! That's entirely untrue. I've simply realized that the most fundamental questions about life, reality, and what, if anything, lies beyond the physical can't be answered via blind faith, dogma, preconceived ideas, or rigid ritualistic practices.Here's some questions that I find fascinating:What is the essence of consciousness?Does a "soul" exist separate, or separable, from the body?Are humans part of a larger whole, or just a part?Is our usual view of reality…
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Posted inBooks Science

“Natural Reflections” shows how science is superior

I've finished reading Barbara Herrnstein Smith's "Natural Reflections," which I blogged about before on the basis of a New York Times review.Smith's main thesis is that science and religion are, well, natural reflections of each other. This is a seriously scholarly book and I'm not crystal clear about what she means by this. But her final two paragraphs summarize her case in an agreeable fashion.Scientists share cognitive tendencies, achievements, and limits with nonscientists; religious believers share them with nonbelievers. Although each may put the world together and conduct his or her life in ways that are at odds with or…
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Posted inMiscellaneous

The spirituality of “Avatar” (the movie)

My wife and I saw "Avatar" last night in all of its 3-D, Dolby Digital glory. I loved the movie. It inspired me politically, but Avatar's spiritual message is even more powerful -- and more universal.I mean, right-wingers don't like the movie's anti-corporate, pro-environmentalism theme. But who doesn't resonate with the all is one philosophy of the Na'vi, the indigenous people of Pandora whose beautiful earth-like moon is threatened by human invaders seeking a precious mineral, Unobtainium. Even a Christian minister could get behind the Na'vi nature-based spirituality.The Na'vi (per Indigenous tradition) are incredibly spiritual, sharing a connectedness hard to describe.…
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