Posted inReligions

Religious craziness is like drunk driving

Daniel Dennett has a nice piece in the Washington Post about not allowing religious believers to be a protected class — immune from the consequences of their bizarre beliefs.

When I was young, drunk drivers tended to be excused because, after all, they were drunk! Today, happily, we hold them doubly culpable for any misdeeds they commit while under the influence.

I look forward to the day when violence done under the influence of religious passion is considered more dishonorable, more shameful, than crimes of avarice, and is punished accordingly, and religious leaders who incite such acts are regarded with the same contempt that we reserve for bartenders who send dangerously disabled people out onto the highways.

I also liked how Dennett wants pastors who spout unscientific crap from the pulpit to be held accountable for their dishonesty.

(I'm unsure if the Post allows access to the piece for those who haven't registered on their site, so I'll copy it into a continuation to this post.)

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Posted inReality Universe

The cosmos doesn’t have a cause

Often it's said that the biggest, grandest, most profound philosophical question of all time is... (drum roll, please) Why is there something rather than nothing?I used to be entranced by this question. Now, I'm not. It doesn't make any sense to me. I've got some pretty impressive philosophical company in this regard: Bertrand Russell.Here's what this agnostic philosopher said in his 1948 debate with Father Frederick C. Copleston (Jesuit Catholic priest).I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all... I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it…
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Posted inBooks Christianity/Jesus Religions

Talking about religion is good, preaching is bad

A friend of mine has a great way of dealing with Jehovah's Witnesses who knock on his door, proselytizing pamphlets in hand. He tells them enthusiastically, "Great to see you! Come on in! I want to tell you about how wonderful my religion is. It'll just take a couple of hours."I don't think he's gotten any takers. It's funny how religious true believers are really eager to talk about the marvelousness of their own faith, yet usually shy away from learning about other points of view or philosophies of life.So I think Ross Douhat made some good points in his…
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Posted inReality

Agnosticism’s profound respect for reality

Thanks to commenter George, who posted a quote from Thomas Huxley about how he came up with the term "agnosticism," I've been able to appreciate more deeply this faithless approach to life.Here's the quotation:When I reached intellectual maturity and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; Christian or a freethinker; I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until, at last, I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last.…
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Posted inReligions

Saying “there is no God” isn’t a religion

Over on my other blog, HinesSight, I wrote a 2008 post that chastised a Portland talk show host: "Atheism isn't a religion, Thom Hartmann."Usually I agree with Portland's Thom Hartmann, Air America's progressive talk show host. But this morning he kept saying that atheism is a religion – that not believing in God is a belief system. That's ridiculous. It shows that no matter how smart and articulate Hartmann is, he's got some blind spots. Those logic-obscurers likely stem from his Christianity. I approvingly quoted from a right on piece cleverly titled "Religion of Atheism: if atheism is religion, 'albino'…
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Posted inBuddhism

Brit Hume blasts Tiger Woods’ Buddhism

Ooh, I'm so excited! It's just what we needed to spice up the New Year -- a new front in the religious wars. Brit Hume of Fox News has dissed the 350 to 500 million Buddhists in the world by saying Tiger Woods needs to ditch Buddhism and embrace Christianity in order to recover from his infidelity scandal and be a great example to the world.Not surprisingly, this has irked Buddhists, who usually are pretty darn mild-mannered. I'm not sure what a Buddhist "jihad" or "crusade" would be called, but the Progressive Buddhism blog has started one against Brit Hume.Could…
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Posted inBooks Religions Science

“The Quotable Atheist” is well worth quoting

My daughter, a chip off of her dad's churchless block, gave me The Quotable Atheist for Christmas. Organized alphabetically, I'm all the way up to "B." Lots of more great quotes to enjoy.I could tell I was going to enjoy the book as soon as I started reading the Introduction by Jack Huberman. He's got an engaging "take no prisoners in the war against religion" attitude. Here's some Huberman quotes.The world (not just America) is deeply divided. The main fault line is where the tectonic plates of religion and of reason/ secularism/ modernity/ science/ Enlightenment meet and grind against each…
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Posted inBuddhism Wu Project

New year’s enlightenment resolution: nothing

I used to make New Year's resolutions. Now, my attitude is, "what's the point?" If I want to make a change in my life, I will, no matter what part of the year it is. Doesn't have to be January 1.When I was a religious true believer, I'd often vow to meditate more assiduously, be a better person (details left necessarily vague), or otherwise try harder to close the gap between a conception of my ideal self and who I felt myself to be.Master Woof thinks this is a stupid thing to do. So do I. If Master Woof was…
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Posted inScience

Space aliens are more likely than God

Driving home tonight, I listened to a BBC program about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI). I never heard the name of the American scientist who was answering questions from a British audience, but his style and sense of humor were engaging.He led me to think, "This is why I prefer science over religion; open-mindedness is so appealing."Someone asked if he thought that aliens were visiting Earth. His reply: this is within the realm of possibility, because it wouldn't violate the laws of physics. If they were traveling at the speed of light, it could take aliens thousands of years…
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Posted inBooks Fundamentalism

Andrew Cohen — an abusive American guru

Outrage. Anger. Disgust. An overwhelming desire to cancel my subscription to the EnlightenNext magazine. These were some of my reactions as I read through an expose of Andrew Cohen, a self-proclaimed "guru" who talks a good spirituality game but clearly plays by very different rules.Earlier I shared some passages from Stephen Bachelor's excellent introduction to "American Guru," a book authored by William Yenner and other contributors who were long-time disciples of Cohen and experienced or saw his abuses first-hand.As the events recounted in this book reveal, Cohen's demonization of his students' "egoic tendencies" -- tendencies which he himself has supposedly…
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Posted inBuddhism

I’d love my self if I had one

Proving, or not, that profound insights are found in the strangest places, I'll share some of the lyrics to an atonal song that I made up and love to "sing" (using that word in its absolutely loosest sense) in the shower.I love my dog.I love my cat.Only problem is, I don't have a cat.It's hard to loveWhat you don't have.This is how I also feel about loving God. Or, my self. Except seemingly there's more evidence for a "self" than for "God." Buddhism, though, seizes on that seemingly and runs with it to an intriguing, reasonable, and scientifically defensible conclusion.I…
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Posted inComments

Must be troll time

Merry Day after December 25. This must be Troll Day in the United Kingdom, where some nameless person (if I didn't name him BleedingObvious), is busily posting childish comments in my name, "Blogger Brian." I've deleted them and have turned on comment moderation. Sorry for the inconvenience. 
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Merry whatever tomorrow means to you

It's December 24. Tomorrow, not surprisingly, is the 25th. Some people make a big deal out of the day. Christmas! Presents! Baby Jesus! Other people, like my wife and me, look upon it pretty much as any other day. Except, Laurel is taking the opportunity of a holiday to try out a new recipe for a walnut loaf.At the moment I'm listening to Christmas songs being played on the sound system of my favorite blogging-friendly coffee house. The music is pleasant enough, though not what I choose to listen to myself.Which basically sums up my evolving churchless attitude toward Christmas.…
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Posted inBuddhism

Stephen Bachelor’s appealing agnostic Buddhism

Often people say that it's hard to tell whether Buddhism is a philosophy or a religion. This makes me give it a semi-enthusiastic churchless thumbs-up. I enjoy the Buddhist way of looking at reality. It's the religious side of Buddhism that gives me pause. So whenever I come across a writer who is knowledgeable about subtracting religiosity from Buddhism, I'm eager to read what he or she has to say.My favorite author in this genre is Stephen Bachelor. His "Buddhism Without Beliefs" is a terrific book. When I feel in the need of some godless inspiration, I pick it up.As…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death is real. Religion shouldn’t deny it.

My sister died yesterday. Unexpectedly. Shockingly. And really. On my other blog I said what needed saying a few hours after I learned of Carol Ann's death. Now, I want to add on to how this experience has affected me.Basically, it's made me more appreciative of genuineness. When my brother-in-law phoned with the news, he told it like it was: "Your sister is dead." I took it the same way. Face to face with the truth, no turning away.Deep into our conversation, Bob said that he knew Carol Ann wanted to be cremated. He wasn't sure, though, what to do…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Liberation: freedom from craving to be perfect

Authoritarian religion draws its power from an understandable desire: for perfection. This craving leads people to bow down before supposedly holy books, holy people, and holy dogmas that, they believe, will give them what they can't find in this imperfect world.Such is the central theme of Stephen Bachelor's terrific foreword to "American Guru," a book about Andrew Cohen's abuse of his students/disciples. (I'll have more to say about this book when I've finished it; it's a disturbing tale of guru worship gone bad.)I like Stephen Bachelor a lot. He's a secular Buddhist who does a great job of sifting the…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Getting real is geniune spirituality

Spirit. Matter. Heaven. Hell. Soul. Body. Words... If they don't point to something real, they're interesting expressions of human cognition. But the mind can come up with all sorts of abstractions. If these aren't grounded in anything other than more concepts, clinging to them leads us into a airy-fairy world of our own imagining.I love this quote from Thoreau's Walden.No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well. For the most part, we are not where we are, but in a false position. Through an infirmity…
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Posted inReligions Science

Religious mindset supports skepticism about science

Over on my other blog, where I've been writing about global warming recently (here, here, and here), someone commented that he was surprised I'm so accepting of the scientific consensus on climate change when I'm so skeptical of religious claims.Well, I was surprised that he was surprised. It makes sense to me to have lots of faith in the scientific method, and virtually no faith in religious dogma.Skepticism is a virtue. I have no problem with people being skeptical of a purported scientific fact -- such as that our planet is warming and humans are responsible for it -- if,…
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