Posted inScience

Evolution shows the grandeur of life

This morning I finished Richard Dawkins "The Greatest Show on Earth," a fascinating book that demonstrates why evolution is almost certainly true and intelligent design /creationism is almost certainly false. (In science, there are no 100% certainties.)I've been reading a few pages every day before I meditate. Now, I find more inspiration in science books than in spiritual books. Reality is uplifting.Dawkins' final chapter was especially enjoyable. He goes through the last paragraph of Darwin's "On the Origin of Species" (first edition) line by line.Thus, from the point of view of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

I’ve got a death wish: not to die

Death isn't to die for. At least, that's how my churchless psyche looks at mortality. I like being alive. Being dead -- that has a disturbing ring of nothingness to it. If it was up to me, I'd pass on the whole dying thing. And who wouldn't? Almost no one, aside from those who find life so painful, not existing seems preferable.This is a big reason why religions, philosophies, and belief systems that promise continued life after death are so popular. The Bible says that Jesus removed the sting of death.Hey, if there was convincing proof of this, I'd sign…
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Posted inReality

Cioran’s “A Short History of Decay” — existentially bracing

Some books are like last night's 20 degree dog walk, much of it facing into a brisk wind. I hated it and I loved it. My overriding perception during the two miles was: This is marvelously real. And fucking cold!

E.M. Cioran's "A Short History of Decay" struck me the same way — like an icy splash of reality. A book that demolishes so thoroughly, it leaves you on firm ground. 

After coming across quotations from it, and being intrigued, I found a used copy of the first (1975) English translation online. Cioran, a Romanian philosopher, wrote "A Short History of Decay" in French. It was published in 1949.

The back flap captures my reaction to the book perfectly.

"I regarded A Short History of Decay," the author recently wrote, "as an experiment in annihilation; or perhaps more precisely, a negative approach to life. But to my surprise, the great majority of its readers apparently found it invigorating. This is what me aware of the vital quality of Destruction."

Yes, this is a bleak book. Yet also a strangely uplifting one. Many passages resonated with my churchlessness.

Cioran's style has been called aphoristic. So it's possible to get a good sense of "A Short History of Decay" from this selection of passages that made me grab my yellow highlighter after being shocked by the author's jolt of existentiality.

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Posted inGod Morality

Religious believers’ inferences about God are egocentric

Wow, what a non-surprise! Religious believers consider that God favors whatever moral positions they do. Egocentricity rules.Such is the finding of research conducted at the University of Chicago. The researchers noted that people often set their moral compasses according to what they presume to be God’s standards. “The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing,” they conclude. “This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God’s beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing.”Well, this seems obvious. It's difficult to see how…
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Posted inFundamentalism Spiritual practice/meditation

New Age beliefs aren’t as bad as fundamentalism

I like Roger Ebert's take on religion. He has a nuanced, properly skeptical attitude toward God and matters metaphysical. During in all the endless discussions on several threads of this blog about evolution, intelligent design, God and the afterworld, now numbering altogether around 3,500 comments, I have never said, although readers have freely informed me I am an atheist, an agnostic, or at the very least a secular humanist--which I am. If I were to say I don't believe God exists, that wouldn't mean I believe God doesn't exist. Nor does it mean I don't know, which implies that I…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Religion isn’t horrible, just horribly misguided

While on a dog walk yesterday, I ran into a neighbor who I don't talk to very often. He started off our conversation in an appealing fashion:"I read your blog regularly." Nice! But then he said, "Being a confirmed atheist, it's a bit too kind to religion for me. I prefer PZ Myers' blog."Well, I told him that I also enjoy Pharyngula. Every day I take a look at Myers' posts that attack religion and support science. Hopefully without sounding too defensive, I did some defending of my own attitude toward spirituality."Yes, I'm not as rabid toward religion as Myers…
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Posted inGod Wu Project

“God” isn’t the best name for God

God. Just three letters in this word. But they sure pack a punch. Countless people have died in the name of "God." Countless good works have been performed. Countless arguments have ensued over what this word signifies.Dahlia Lithwick dives into this fascinating linguistic tangle in a Newsweek article, "Jesus vs. Allah -- the fight over God's secular title."Pop quiz: which of the following names represents a non-sectarian, universal deity? Allah, Dios, Gott, Dieu, Elohim, Gud, or Jesus?If you answered "none of the above," you are right as a matter of fact but not law. If you answered "Allah," you are…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science and religion share a sense of purpose

What makes life meaningful? How is it that we can wake up in the morning and feel like jumping out of bed, rather than hiding beneath the covers? A sense of purpose. Our life seems like it has a direction. We have a reason for being. Goals, intentions, to-do's.In the "Faith" chapter of his book, On Being Certain, Robert Burton, M.D. (a neurologist) says:By now it should be apparent that deeply felt purpose and meaning are exactly that -- profound mental sensations. Though the underlying brain mechanisms that create these sensations aren't known, the biggest clue comes from those who've…
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Posted inScience Universe

Let’s give thanks to the big bang, plus…

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Almost everybody is into thankfulness, whether sincere or feigned.Myself, I'm thankful that I was able to get a HP wireless printer working with my wife's new iMac this afternoon. It was touch and go for a while but I finally figured it out.My philosophical problem, though, is who or what I should offer my thanks to. This quandary is common to every exclamation of gratitude, including religious ones such as  "Thank you, Jesus" or "Thank you, God." Where the heck do you stop?I read some reviews of the Photosmart C4780 that pointed…
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Posted inHumor

Duhism Thanksgiving wisdom

The Duhist sage Bob Tzu captures the spiritual meaning of Thanksgiving perfectly:On this holiday spent with the family, I'm reminded to be thankful to the creator of mind-numbing alcoholic beverages.
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Posted inMorality

Service and charity don’t need God to be authentic

Back in my true believing days, I used to enjoy feeling that what I was doing was an act of service to my guru. This, of course, is a decidedly Eastern perspective. Western religions don't have living perfect masters, who often are considered to God in human form.But Christians seem to feel much the same when they perform charitable acts in the name of Jesus. Just as I did, they get enjoyment from acting with the thought that someone they love is being pleased.Now that I've entered my churchless phase, I don't believe in the value of seva (an Indian…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Godless rituals for the churchless

Religion isn't all bad. That was the not-so-surprising consensus at the monthly meeting of the Salon discussion group that my wife and I helped start up here in Salem about seventeen years ago.The members are almost all godless Prius-driving, expresso-sipping, organic food-eating progressives like us. Religiosity comes in for regular bashing, but since we're into open-mindedness and diversity, believers are embraced so long as they don't try to press their faith onto others.Last night a woman talked about how much she liked taking some Christian children out to lunch at a fast food restaurant. She'd just met them. When they…
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Posted inGod Science

There are no signs of God. So why believe?

You'd think that an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, and/or omnibenevolent being would leave some evident trace, given all this omni'ness. Yet God, whether considered from an impersonal Eastern perspective or a personal Western viewpoint, has left no demonstrable signs of his/her/it's existence.Why? A theologian would answer, "It isn't possible to know the mind of God, or comprehend the essence of divinity." Well, OK. But if this is the case, let's do away with religions, mystic paths, spiritual philosophies, and the like, and simply admit that if God is real, this is a mysterious ultimate reality never to be known.Since true believers…
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Posted inPlotinus Taoism/Tai Chi

Time…the essence of enlightenment?

Einstein showed that we live in spacetime, a continuum comprised of the familiar three dimensions of space and the much more mysterious dimension of time.Nobody knows what time is really all about. Not scientists, not philosophers, not mystics. And certainly not theologians. We have a sense of it passing. But the theory of relativity proves that this sense differs for people in different circumstances.Two events, simultaneous for some observer, may not be simultaneous for another observer if the observers are in relative motion. Moving clocks are measured to tick more slowly than an observer's "stationary" clock.Astronomers look up into the…
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Posted inPlotinus Science

Ken Wilber is wrong about Plotinus

I've got a love-hate thing going with Ken Wilber, a prolific writer and creative thinker who relentlessly preaches the marvels of an Integral approach to understanding reality.Sometimes I like what Wilber says (see here and here). Sometimes I don't (see here and here).His misunderstanding of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher, is especially irritating to me. I wrote a book about Plotinus, "Return to the One." I spent several years reading just about every book in English that describes and analyzes Plotinus' teachings. So when I saw how Ken Wilber mangled Plotinus in an attempt to demonstrate that Plotinus' outlook is…
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Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

Most inspiring message in a movie

When I ponder what line spoken by a character in a movie has inspired me the most, here's my answer (share yours in a comment, if you like).Jodie Foster, playing Ellie Arroway, a scientist searching for extra-terrestrial intelligence, in Contact -- a movie based on Carl Sagan's novel. Strapped into a machine whose construction was made possible by technical drawings contained in mysterious messages from the Vega star system, not knowing what the machine does or if she'll be killed when it is activated, enduring violent shaking as The Machine is first turned on, Ellie tells mission control...I''m okay to…
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Posted inScience

Guide to creating scientific controversy

Don't like facts? Hate science? There's a handy four-step guide to generating your very own scientific controversy. I think some religiously-minded commenters on this blog already know #3.When people point out that the facts don’t back up your claim, ignore them. As those people get angry and shouty at you, smugly say, “They’re persecuting me! They’re so closed-minded that they won’t let anyone ask questions!” Bonus points for saying that science is now a religion.
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Posted inScience

Evolution shows why reality can’t be categorized

The natural world doesn't come with names attached. Look up at the full moon. Do you see a label on it, "moon"? (Leaving aside the question of what language that word would be written in.)Both religion and science make the mistake of confusing human thoughts about what is real with reality itself. Religions make the most egregious errors, of course, since they intellectualize about entities -- God, heaven, angels, and such -- that can't be shown to even exist.Scientists, though, can also forget that nature is flowingly continuous, not discretely categorized.This morning I read the "Missing Persons? Missing No Longer"…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Why Radha Soami Satsang Beas initiates are so special

Recently I got an email message from someone who wanted to know why I felt so special when I was an active member of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, a Sant Mat organization headquartered in India.In your posts, you often make mention of having felt special when you were in RS mode, and how you now feel relieved to have shed this sense of being special. It isn’t clear to me what was your basis for this feeling of being special. The way I understand it, Sant Mat teachings and practice inculcate in the initiate an ever broadening and expanding perspective of…
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