Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Watch out! The Discourager of Hesitancy is behind you

Thanks to Edward, a regular Church of the Churchless commenter, I learned about the Discourager of Hesitancy today. He’s a fearsome dude. I can feel him standing behind me right now, razor sharp weapon at the ready. He doesn’t like excessive deliberation. I feel the pressure to type what I want to say without undue cogitation. I’ve gotten more than a little attached to having my head and body, well, attached. “The Discourager of Hesitancy” is a short story by Frank Stockton, he of “The Lady and the Tiger” fame. If you went to high school in the United States,…
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Posted inReality

Reality or belief: which are you seeking?

Here’s a thought experiment that, if you conduct it honestly, will tell you a lot about yourself. What you’re looking for in life. How you comfort yourself when the wild things howl. Whether you tilt toward science or religion. I first wrote about the Two Doors two years ago this month, back when the Church of the Churchless had just laid its cornerstone. I still often think about my thought experiment. I also try to put it into practice. So here, extracted from my November 2004 “Just have faith” post, is a re-run of the Two Doors. Here's how to…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Humility is being in touch with reality

I don’t trust displays of humility. This folding of the hands with a bowed head, this uttering of “God (or guru) is everything; I am nothing,” this confession of sins, failings, and weaknesses—it’s all too contrived, too artificial, too calculated. This morning I re-read the chapter “On Humility” in Hubert Benoit’s The Supreme Doctrine: Psychological Studies in Zen Thought As noted in my “The Supreme Doctrine, thirty-six years overdue” post, this is the only library book that I’ve kept permanently. When I first read it back in college, I couldn’t bear to let it out of my hands. Where it…
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Posted inBooks God Science

God vs. Science: guess who wins?

Science kicked ass in TIME magazine’s “God vs. Science” cover story debate. Atheist biologist Richard Dawkins pretty much blew Christian geneticist Francis Collins out of the theological water. The article points out that Dawkins is riding the quest of an atheist/agnostic literary wave, each of which I’ve read, or am reading. And can heartily recommend. Cited are Sam Harris’ The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation, Dawkin’s The God Delusion, and Daniel Dennett’s Breaking the Spell. Some other titles mentioned, each of which provides support to the religious skeptic, are Marc Hauser’s Moral Minds, Lewis Wolpert’s Six…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

Struggling to comprehend the Christian mind

I’ve been enjoying the Christian/non-believer dialogue being carried on via comments to my “Morality comes from nature, not God” post. Pastor Phillip Ross has stimulated some interesting cyber-conversation between himself and Church of the Churchless regulars, me included. Today I’m in a pretty mellow mood. Last night’s election results filled me with hope that the divisions plaguing the United States can be bridged by moderates who realize that left and right can’t exist without a center. I was in that spirit when I perused the latest comments from Phillip and others today. Rather than reflexively thinking, “Geez, that’s ridiculous” after…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Texas governor says non-Christians are going to hell

On this election day eve, let us remind ourselves why it is so important to send a message to the Christian Taliban in this country: we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore! What aren’t we going to take? Intolerance. Sanctimoniousness. Attempts to turn the United States into a hateful Christian nation. When the Republican governor of Texas agrees with a sermon where the pastor said that non-Christians are “going straight to hell with a non-stop ticket,” it’s long past time to scream bullshit. Governor Rick Perry’s weird religious beliefs are his own business. But he…
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Posted inGod

I’m accused of being God

Today I got an email from Michael in response to my “Morality comes from nature, not God” post. I was intrigued by what he had to say. Particularly the part where he suggests that I am God. I like that hypothesis. A lot. I just wish there was more evidence for it than I’ve been able to dredge up. Michael wrote me a thoughtful message. I don’t agree with most of what he said, but I appreciate the sharing. Here’s my paragraph by paragraph response to his email. (Michael’s words are in italics, mine in regular type). An interesting though…
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Posted inMorality

Morality comes from nature, not God

Why do people do good things rather than bad things? One of the worst answers to this question is, “Because God has told us what is right and wrong.” A much better answer is, “Because nature has evolved us to be this way.” Such is the hypothesis of those like Marc Hauser, a Harvard biologist, who propose that Darwinism is a better route to understanding human morality than theology. Thanks to a comment by benandante on a recent post of mine I learned about Hauser’s book, “Moral Minds” (this New York Times review probably requires registration, but if you haven’t…
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Posted inBooks God Taoism/Tai Chi

When the gods stopped speaking to us

About three thousand years ago the divine voices shut up. Until then, says Julian Jaynes, humans habitually heard messages from the gods. However, those communications merely were being transmitted from one side of the brain to the other and were mistakenly construed as coming from an outside source. Religion as we know it arose as a reaction to the silence. After the breakdown of the bicameral mind, people became consciously aware of the interior mental space that previously was the province of the gods. A replacement was needed. Jaynes says: This breakdown resulted in many practices we would now call…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Unlearning ventriloquism

I’m trying to learn how not to be a ventriloquist. As should we all. Isn’t one of “Me” (or “You”) enough? Why are there, like Edgar Bergen and his wooden sidekick Charlie McCarthy, two people performing on the mental stage where we play out our lives? Maybe more. I’m still trying to figure how many of me there are (or is) inside of my cranium. Seems like there should be only one, given that I go by the singular name of Brian. Yet that other guy, who I’ll call “Charlie” in honor of my ventriloquismistic Ed Sullivan show memories, sure…
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Posted inGod Religions

Letting go of God. And Uncle Fred.

Julia Sweeney, former Saturday Night Live actress, has let go of God. She’s content, though she says that for her God was like a friendly uncle who lived in your head and always was willing to hear what you had to say. “Now there’s nobody to listen to my thoughts but myself,” I heard her tell Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air show last night. Since I tuned in on the car radio shortly before arriving home, I found the NPR archive and listened to the entire interview today. Sweeney is entertaining (not surprising, given her background). Also, fair and…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Loud siren is a wake-up call

God, it’s said, works in mysterious ways. So I’m willing to believe that the siren on the side of our house that blared for ten minutes across our neighborhood yesterday evening was a divine message directed to me. My wife, too. And all of us, really. The message is universal: Be aware. Look. See. We were running late, per usual, for our weekly Tango class. There was going to be a guest instructor so I wanted us to be on time. I was ready a few minutes before Laurel, per usual. “We should leave the dog in,” she said, hurrying…
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Posted inGod Humor

Proofs that God exists

Well, it’s hard to argue with over three hundred proofs of God’s existence. Guess I’m going to have to become a believer. Oh, darn. By mistake I clicked the next link down on the Atheists of Silicon Valley “Humor” page. Now I know there are about an equal number of disproofs of God’s existence. Now I’m confused. Got to get my faith back. I went down the proofs list and found a bunch that made beautiful sense to me. Especially after drinking a bottle of wine and watching Fox News for an hour. Once my incredulity neurons were stupefied, it…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God Wu Project

God wants to be forsaken

My churchlessness and agnosticism is adored by God. Yes, God looks upon me with more favor than all those worshipful Christians, Muslims, Jews and other religious types. For God wants to be forsaken. Happy to oblige, my friend. It’s a pleasure to comply with the divine will. I learned about what God wants from Meister Eckhart, the German theologian and mystic. He’s got some excellent doctrinal credentials, chief among them being accused of heresy by Pope John XXII. You know that a Catholic is pointing toward the truth when he’s branded a heretic. So we need to take seriously the…
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Posted inMorality Vedanta/Advaita

Gangaji, Eli, and Neo-Advaita hypocrisy

Ah, nothing like a guru-student sexual affair to spice up a churchless blog. Through my friend Randy’s “Gangaji’s Pinprick” and “More on Gangaji and Eli Jaxon-Bear” posts I’ve learned about some Neo-Advaitan hypocritical failure to practice what you preach. Understand: the hypocrisy is what bothers me about spiritual teacher Eli, who is married to fellow spiritual teacher Gangaji, having a three-year affair with a much younger female student. Affairs happen. Usually they should remain a private matter. Some of the commenters to an Ashland (Oregon) Daily Tidings story about Jaxon-Bear’s affair wondered why this was newsworthy. Well, I agree with…
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Posted inGod Wu Project

Hey, God, shut up! No more conversations

Like a good lapsed Catholic, I will begin by confessing that I’ve never read “Conversations with God.” Nor any other of Neale Donald Walsch’s follow-up books (whatever or whoever God is, “wordy” certainly defines the supreme being). I have, however, perused brief articles such as I found in a New Connexion issue that I’d picked up at a natural food store, needing some reading material to accompany my lunch of whole wheat pizza. In a “What Does God Really Want?” interview, Walsch clues us in to the meaning of life as revealed by the Big Man Upstairs. Who, to encapsulate…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Religion as poetic expression

Before I jump into today’s subject, looking upon the practice of religion as an art, I’ve got to comment on Church of the Churchless comments to my posts. These offerings by other people are wonderful. Frequently I read them and think, “God, these are so much wiser and more meaningful than what I wrote.” Also, better written. I deeply appreciate these (almost) always thoughtful sharings. If you’re not reading the comments, you’re missing out on a big part of this blog. Flowing into this notion of religion as art, via these comments I love to see, or at least get…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Science

Skepticism, cynicism, and science

On this blog I’m still flogging my “In Good Spirit” interview with mediums Marcel and Lenny. Hey, it’s been a long time since I was on a radio program. Okay, this was an Internet program, but that still counts. My interview starts at about minute three of the archived file and stops at about minute eighteen. We covered quite a bit of ground in that quarter hour. As I noted in the previous post, when I listened to the recording I was aghast at how often I interjected a “you know.” I was totally unaware at the time that I…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Welcome, “In Good Spirit” listeners

I enjoyed my conversation with Marcel and Lenny on Achieve Radio's "In Good Spirit" tonight. Marcel mentioned the Church of the Churchless several times, so maybe some new blog readers have found their way here. I wrote about my reading with Marcel, the medium, last month, so it's slipped off the listing of most recent posts. For those interested in how a skeptic viewed his first reading, click on "I visit a Hollywood medium, Marcel Cairo." When (or if) Achieve Radio puts up an archive of tonight's show, I'll blog about it. For sure. [Update: Marcel sent me a link…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Dancing free, not to a pattern

About 90 minutes into our Tango class last night the instructor asked us, “Are you ready to really challenge yourself, to drive yourself crazy?” There wasn’t much of a response from the dozen students. I meekly muttered, “Sure…I guess.” Up to that point we’d mostly been working on an ocho cortado pattern. At first it drove Laurel and me crazy, so that explains why we weren’t thrilled to hear that we were about to be driven even crazier. Six simple steps. But each has to be led and followed. Laurel and I struggled to get the pattern down. Then the…
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