Posted inScience

Belief is in the brain, so beware

Believing in the supernatural is easy: our brains lead us down the belief road without our knowledge. So there's good reason to be skeptical of religious, mystical, or spiritual experiences.Much, most, or all of the time (depending on your level of skepticism) your brain is fooling you.Such is the fascinating message of Sharon Begley's "Why We Believe" in a recent issue of Newsweek. I read her piece the day after my wife and I believed we were at the right election night party place, but really weren't. We weren't in a supernatural frame of mind, but some of Begley's believing…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

If you can’t find the party, try another place

I want to suck as much meaning as possible out of yesterday’s marvelous election results. So I’ll keep the party going (sorry, Republicans) with a story about how I couldn’t find the party. Which bears quite a bit of resemblance to how I wasn’t able to locate the spiritual extravaganza that supposedly was rocking on a level of higher consciousness, according to the meditation system that I followed for many years. In both cases, it eventually became obvious that I wasn’t in the right place. But the interesting thing is how non-obvious obviousness can be, if you’ve got your mind…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Make life more of a silent movie

I'm fond of encapsulating the meaning of life in a pithy phrase. Only problem is, I keep coming up with different capsules. Back in my psychedelic-fueled youth, it was "the universe is a paper bag turned inside out." Recently, I realized that it was folly to "overlay the actuality of my day with an idealized version of it." Today, it's "make life more of a silent movie." This thought came to me, and it seemed so enormously profound I instantly knew it must be the key to understanding everything. I only wish I understood what I said to myself. But,…
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Posted inScience

Getting down to rock bottom reality

I've never understood why science isn't worshiped by religious believers. After all, most religions believe that God or a higher power created the cosmos. So seemingly the next best thing to knowing God would be knowing how our universe works, since it stands to reason that the consciousness of the creator would be reflected in the creation -- in the same way as the psyche of an artist shines through his or her paintings. Normally my meditation nook's reading corner has several science books nestled comfortably next to spiritual and philosophical titles. I jump back and forth between them most…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Small things can be the biggest

For me, one of the hallmarks of churchlessness is being content with the smaller side of life. Maybe this partly comes from aging, but not all of it. Yes, I recall my 50th birthday, when a friend told me: “Now you won’t worry so much about accomplishing all that you set out to do.” What was unstated I took to be, “because you’ve passed your prime and don’t have much time left.” Well, if that was true at 50, it’s even more so at 60. Yet I don’t think age alone explains the increased pleasure I get from everyday life…
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Posted inScience

Thumbs up to naturalism, evolution, and Palin fading away

Today Pharyngula, a terrific science/ progressive/ anti-religion blog, hit the mark with links to stories on three of my favorite subjects. Exposing Sarah Palin for the fool that she is. Palin is against science. She's for the teaching of creationism. She doesn't think humans have much to do with global warming. Picturing her as vice-president of the United States: too irrationally scary to contemplate. This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death can’t be imagined

What do you think will happen to you after you die? If you're religious, many answers are possible. "I'll be in heaven." "My soul will exist without a body." "God and I will be a single consciousness."But even if you're a non-believer, there's a good chance that you still harbor notions of your continued existence. Seemingly it's super tough, if not impossible, for the human mind to conceive of nothingness. We're hard-wired to imagine that we'll always be something, rather than nothing.This is the premise of a fascinating Scientific American article by Jesse Bering, "Never Say Die: Why We Can't…
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Posted inReligions

Another reason to reject religion

I just got an email from someone who wanted to let me know about the dangerous immoralities of cults. He said this story left him speechless. Me too. Except I wanted to use a few words to write this post. The next time someone asks you, "Why are you so down on religion?" say "Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because true believers make their children eat their own flesh." Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg is right: “Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

If a satguru isn’t God, what is he?

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I don't write as much about my experience with Radha Soami Satsang Beas anymore. My  of posts includes just about everything I want to say about my churchy phase. Still, there's always a bit more to say. Today I answered an email from someone who wondered how to deal with unjust situations. I told him that keeping calm, cool, and collected is admirable, but there's a difference between not being unduly affected by an injustice and failing to deal with it. Action is called for when someone is trying to screw…
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Posted inPolitics

Sarah Palin’s Christianity is scarily senseless

Yesterday I thought I'd pushed the car radio button that brought up Oregon Public Broadcasting, so I wasn't all that surprised to hear Sarah Palin's distinctive voice. It appeared that she was being interviewed by someone with a Christian bent. I figured that an excerpt from the interview was being played so it could be discussed from OPB's usual moderate perspective. But Palin and the man she was speaking with kept on talking. I heard her refer to him as "Dr. Dobson." That spurred me to glance at the radio setting. Oh my God! I had stumbled onto the dark…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Turn around, if you feel like it

Yesterday I related the following story to my Tai Chi class. Our instructor had been talking about the importance of staying empty, keeping one foot unweighted so you can easily move it in a desired direction. Being double-weighted is a no-no. That's when you're firmly planted on both feet, committed to where you are, which prevents you from fluidly being somewhere else if the situation demands it. I came across this tale in "A Short History of Chinese Philosophy." Wang Hui-Chih was living at Shan-Yin. One night he was awakened by a heavy snowfall. Opening the window he saw a…
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Posted inWu Project

Profitable spiritual investing

As the world financial crisis deepens, conversations tend to turn toward money rather than other subjects. Last night I was with a group of people who discussed the ins and outs (not to mention the ups and downs) of investing in tough times like these. I didn't have a whole lot to say. Briefly I held forth on the Buddha-like nature of index fund investing, where you don't try to beat the market through some clever scheme but rather rest content with rising and falling in concert with the overall financial tide. I told my friends, "If the world and…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Spirituality without God

Is an atheist or agnostic spirituality possible? Sure. And I've read a book that proves it: Andre Comte-Sponville's "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality." This morning I browsed through the final chapter again, liking it even more the second time through. My first post about the book was on the theme of desiring God isn't proof of God. That's true, but sort of negative. Comte-Sponville ends his book with a positive flourish, arguing that not only is an atheist spirituality possible, but really it is the only authentic way to establish a loving, truthful connection with the cosmos. First, what…
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Posted inReligions

Meet a young, beautiful, thoughtful, charming atheist

There's long-term hope for America, churchless-wise, if 18 year olds like Laci (a.k.a. "gogreen18") are in plentiful supply. I learned about Laci via a blog post that featured her "Why atheists care about YOUR religion" You Tube video. She lays out the case against religion persuasively in five entertaining minutes. Have a watch (guys, do your best to keep looking in her eyes – you'll fail, as I did, but try just for the futile fun of it). I also enjoyed Laci's "I'm going to hell," in no small part because I've also condemned myself to hell (for a free…
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Posted inPolitics

Pray for McCain-Palin (they need it)

Thanks to Pharyngula, I learned about a Pray for McCain-Palin web site, which I was pleased to visit, adding my voice to a poll about whether McCain's pick of Palin made me more or less likely to vote for him. I'm totally supportive of this site. It's hard to think of anyone who needs prayer more than John McCain and Sarah Palin. (Proof, here and here.) In case you're not sure about how to pray, the site provides some helpful specific prayer requests. My favorite is: Pray for the peace of mind of the candidates & their families and that…
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Posted inScience

God, the Big Bang, and a Big Bounce

It's well accepted that our universe came into being about 13.7 billion years ago with a bang. A big bang, in fact. So big, and yet so small. Because the energy which became at least 100 billion galaxies each containing about 100 billion stars, supposedly was contained within a singularity of infinite density and temperature that wasn't even a point in time and space – since a singularity is where the laws of nature (including general relativity) break down. This helps explain why the Catholic Church has looked with favor on the big bang theory, as have theologians of other…
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Posted inPolitics

McCain campaign says God wants Obama to lose

Reason number 439,816 to not vote for John McCain (don't have time to list rest of them): A minister delivering the invocation at a McCain rally asked that God protect His reputation by orchestrating an Obama loss – since non-Christians are rooting for McCain's opponent. "There are millions of people around this world praying to their god—whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah—that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons. And Lord, I pray that you will guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their God is bigger than you, if that happens," said Arnold Conrad, the former…
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Posted inGod

Is the economic crisis God’s will?

I've been spending a lot of time recently staring at computer or television screens that show the current depressing state of the United States stock market, which reflects a global financial crisis. I'm not a masochist. I just find this whole meltdown fascinating on all sorts of levels: personal, societal, philosophical. My core emotional reaction to the 40% decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average this year has mirrored my descent into churchlessness. At first, I felt uncomfortable. But now I'm feeling a sort of strange bliss that's akin to the sensation of being strapped into a roller coaster. All…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Make your own path

It isn't often that I get inspired by a bank ad. More accurately, it's been never. Until last Sunday, when I noticed the big bold print in an Umpqua Bank advertisement in the Salem newspaper. If you make your own path, you can't lose your way. Ooh! So Zen. As was one of the questions in last night's presidential debate between Obama and McCain. What don't you know and how will you learn it? Terrific question. The answers were just OK, something about expecting the unexpected. Which fits with the Umpqua Bank philosophy. Many spiritual and religious faiths stress the…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Say your spirituality in one sentence

If you were cast away on a mental desert island and could only bring one spiritual sentence along, what would it be? Tough choice. I like words. I read a lot. I write a lot. I enjoy pondering what lies beyond the ponderable. My shelves are filled with many favorite books, each containing favorite lines. In the end, though, I'd have to stick with what I've called the best one-sentence metaphysics ever written (by Philip K. Dick): Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Now, I'm not saying that I believe this sentence. What…
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