Posted inChristianity/Jesus Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Satan and Kal

Here's a guest blog post from Bob Russo, who sent this essay to me a while back. I recently discovered it in the depths of my email inbox, liked it, and asked Russo if it would be OK to share it on Church of the Churchless. He said, "sure." Enjoy some thoughts about Satan and Kal. "Kal" is how the so-called Negative Power is viewed by an Eastern religion, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), a branch of Sant Mat. Growing up within the crystalline and dualistic (heaven and hell; Jesus and Satan) landscape of Catholicism and having the Pope to…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Too much mindfulness can increase anxiety

Someone sent me a link to an interesting BBC story, "How too much mindfulness can spike anxiety." It describes research about the downside of mindfulness and meditation in general.  In any discussion of mindfulness, it’s important to remember that there are many different techniques that train particular types of thinking and being. The best-known strategies are mindful breathing, in which you focus on the feelings of respiration, and the body scan, in which you pass your attention from head to toe, noting any physical sensations that arise in the course of the session. These kinds of practices are meant to…
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Posted inBooks Science

Final thoughts on the wonderful irrationality of modern science

Having finished Michael Strevens book, 'The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science," I wanted to close the book on this book, so to speak, by sharing some further ideas about how Strevens' Big Idea applies to us in everyday life. (My three previous posts about The Knowledge Machine are here, here, and here.) The Big Idea that makes modern science a highly effective way of generating knowledge is restricting scientific communications -- journal articles, research reports, and the like -- to only empirical evidence.  So if a scientist wants to argue some point, they must do so on the…
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Posted inBooks Meaning of life

The good life is the life you already have

lt took me a few months, but today I finished reading John Gray's provocative little book, "Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life." (Other books took priority in my morning reading time; my first post about this book is here.) The final chapter contained some nice observations about our search for meaning, and what cats can teach us in this regard. Here's some excerpts. If cats could understand the human search for meaning they would purr with delight at its absurdity. Life as the cat they happen to be is meaning enough for them. Humans, on the other hand,…
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Posted inHumor Politics

QAnon and religion are both mass delusions

The Real Time With Bill Maher show always ends with a feature called New Rules. Most of the rules are brief and humorous, while the last takes longer to explain and is more serious, though still funny in a different way. I just finished watching our recording of the February 5 episode.  Maher's closing New Rule was a right-on discussion of how the craziness of QAnon relates to religious belief. Probably you're familiar with this cult, but if you aren't, a BBC story describes what QAnon is about. At its heart, QAnon is a wide-ranging, completely unfounded theory that says…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Have a listen to my Everyone’s Autonomous podcast interview

Today my rather lengthy interview with Marie D'Elephant's Everyone's Autonomous podcast interview appeared on her web site. The episode starts off with about 35 minutes of Marie talking before our interview starts. So click your way to the 35 minute mark if you're mainly interested in the interview with me. There's a few gaps in the recording, but they don't last long, so stick with the silence and it will soon end. https://everyonesautonomous.com We covered a lot of spiritual, philosophical, and religious ground. The focus of Everyone's Autonomous is on recovering from dogmatic religiosity. Mostly Marie speaks with Christians who…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Compassion, like other good qualities, is in us, not the cosmos

As noted in a recent post, I've been playing around with using the Buddhist mantra, Namu Amida Butsu. I like the way it sounds. I'm attracted to Buddhism, so long as it is stripped of extraneous supernaturalism. I don't believe that Namu Amida Butsu is anything special. It's simply a way for me to focus and calm my mind. That mantra is part of the Shin aspect of Buddhism.  I have some familiarity with Shin, also known as the Pure Land tradition. In 2005 I talked about Namu Amida Butsu in "Mantra meditation: what's in a word?"  In 2013 I…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Religious nationalism must be fought, no matter the religion

Nationalism is dumb. Religious nationalism is dumber. Believing that your country is superior to all others makes no sense, since lots of people in many countries, maybe most countries, consider that they're fortunate to live in the best country on Earth. But at least there's no doubt that these countries exist. They have governments. They have boundaries. They can be photographed. So nationalism, as misguided as it is, has a foundation in objective reality. Religious nationalism, though, adds a fantasy -- the unproven belief that Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, or some other religion is rooted in a supernatural…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

There are pros and cons to repeating a mantra

On this blog I've done a lot of writing about mantras. I just used the Google search box in the right sidebar to locate posts dealing with "mantra." The results went on for 10 pages, all of most of the posts being written for Church of the Churchless rather than my other two blogs. I assiduously repeated a mantra silently both in meditation and during some of the rest of my day for thirty-five years.  That was the meditation method I first was taught, though it had a component of open awareness to go along with the focused attention of…
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Posted inReality Universe

Grappling with the fact that existence has always existed

Recently I got this email from a fellow marveler at the inescapable fact that existence must always have existed in some form, or the universe we are a part of couldn't have come to be.  Hello Brian, I recently read this article of yours and was amazed how precisely it described the issue that's been on my mind for a long time. It seems inescapable to posit that something has always existed, something that never had a beginning. And as you point out in the article, trying to conceive and imagine that seems impossible: "the very possibility of cognizing an answer vanishes". And I…
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Posted inHappiness Humor

I got a transcript of a call to the Spiritual Surrender support line

Thanks for calling the Spiritual Surrender support line. How may I help you today? Well, I've heard a lot about the benefit of surrendering to a higher power. Isn't that how some addicts get off drugs and alcohol? I think it is. Anyway, i've got quite a few problems -- who doesn't these days -- and I'm wondering if some sort of spiritual surrender is right for me. Excellent. You've come to the right place. We specialize in helping people like you. Let's start with me asking you a few questions. No problem. OK. Do you have an idea of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Don’t let Phantom Energy Vampires suck you dry

This morning I listened to a guided meditation by Jeff Warren on my iPhone's Calm app that I liked so much, I wanted to describe what he said before it slips my mind. Phantom Energy is a real thing. It's the energy consumed by electronic devices when they are off, but still using power, such as the clock on a microwave oven that displays even when the oven isn't being used. Within our mind, Phantom Energy Vampires are those worries, anxieties, frettings, and such that are running in the background of our consciousness even when there is no real purpose…
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Posted inBooks Religions Science

Science requires demonstrable evidence. Religion doesn’t.

Most mornings recently I've been reading a chapter from Michael Strevens' marvelous book, "The Knowledge Machine." It describes why science is so effective at understanding reality. I find the book inspiring, both scientifically and spiritually. Ever since I started this blog in 2004, I've been using the term demonstrable evidence frequently. Often I ask for that -- demonstrable evidence -- when someone makes a supernatural claim. Maybe they claim to have seen God, or something Godly. Maybe they claim to have experienced a cosmic realm beyond physical existence. Maybe they claim some sort of special power like ESP.  There are…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Living with fewer expectations can be more fulfilling

Expectations come in many guises. Perhaps the simplest and least problematic expectation is anticipating the outcome of a physical action. I raise the lever of a faucet and expect that water will come out. I take a step and expect that I won't fall down. Almost always I'm right about this. On the other extreme, I may buy a single lottery ticket and expect that I'll win a hundred million dollars. Or I take up meditation and expect that I'll learn all the secrets of the cosmos. Those expectations are so grandiose, I don't really  believe they will come to…
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Posted inOpen Threads

Open Thread 36 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread. Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread.  If you don't see a recent comment, or comments, posted, it's because you've failed to follow the above rule. Keep to the subject of a blog post if you leave a comment on it. And if you want to use this blog as a "chat room," do that in an open thread. As noted before, it's good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it's also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is…
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Posted inFree will

Since there is no free will, “responsibility” needs to be redefined

Over on his Waking Up app, Sam Harris has posted a series of podcasts regarding the absence of free will -- a subject Harris has frequently written and talked about.  The titles provide a feel for Harris' subject matter. (1) Cause & Effect(2) Thoughts Without a Thinker(3) Choice, Reason, & Knowledge(4) Love & Hate(5) Crime & Punishment(6) The Paradox of Responsibility(7) Why Do Anything? Today I listened to the talk about responsibility. Harris made a lot of sense, as he always does. When we think about someone acting responsibly, such as by telling the truth, there's several assumptions underlying the…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Stillness can make action more effective

I'm continuing to enjoy Domyo Sater Burk's Idiot's Guide to Mindfulness.  Today I read her take on getting comfortable with stillness and silence. This appealed to me, not only because I've been meditating every day for over 50 years, so I understand how difficult it can be to keep the mind and body more or less still and silent. This also is espoused in Tai Chi, which I've practiced for the past 16 years. Of course, you can't be perfectly still in Tai Chi, which I like to call "Taoism in motion."  But listening skills are a big part of…
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Posted inDelusions Politics

Cult of Trump shows how delusion is linked to blind devotion

Cults come in various forms. Sure, religious cults are what first come to mind, but any form of blind devotion to an authority figure can result in cultish behavior and attitudes. On January 6 I wrote a post for my Salem Political Snark blog, "Insurrection at Capitol today caused by the Cult of Trump." This is what happens when people fall under the spell of an authoritarian cult leader. A woman died today in the Capitol building after a mob incited by Trump stormed the building in an insurrection aimed at stopping Biden from being declared president-elect by Congress. ...The…
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Posted inBooks Science

Be scientific in your life. Demand evidence of your beliefs.

A few days ago I wrote about the iron rule of science, the subject of a book by Michael Strevens, "The Knowledge Machine." I decided to order the book after reading a review of it. Today I finished the Introduction. So I've just scratched the surface of what Strevens has to say about the iron rule. Here's how he describes it in the part I read today. How can a rule so scant in content and so limited in scope account for science's powers of discovery? It may dictate what gets called evidence, but it makes no attempt to forge agreement…
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Posted inComments Personal/Stories

More churchless do’s and don’ts from commenters

In my recent post, "Here's some churchless do's and don'ts for the new year," I invited blog visitors to leave their own do's and don'ts in a comment. So far, five people have done that.  Here's what they said. Nicely done, guys. Osho RobbinsDON'T seek God because He ain't seeking youDO live your life as an ordinary personDON'T seek enlightenment because it's already thereDO simply BE YOURSELFDON'T try to be anything other than what you areDO simply BE YOURSELFDON'T complain about your lifeDO simply accept what you have in lifeDON'T think you NEED anything to be happyDO be happy regardless…
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