Posted inCoronavirus

Trump acts like a cult leader in his coronavirus briefings

Because Oregon is under a shelter in place order from Governor Brown and my usual routine has been disrupted, I've been entertaining myself (broadly speaking) by watching Trump's coronavirus briefings most afternoons -- including today. Not surprisingly, they're horrifying. Early on in Trump's presidency I thought that his egotism, incompetence, habitual lying, and incoherent babbling was as amusing as it was disturbing. But that was when Trump's personal defects didn't directly threaten American lives, just indirectly, such as by his repeated attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. Now, though, there's nothing funny about the failure of Trump…
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Posted inCoronavirus India

A foreigner’s scary tale of being checked for COVID-19 in India

Here's a description someone emailed to me yesterday about what happened after they wanted to be checked out in India for possibly having COVID-19, the dreaded coronavirus. Hopefully this doesn't describe a typical medical experience in India. If it does, India is in deep trouble as it fights the coronavirus (currently the country is in the midst of a three-week stay at home lockdown).  If you aren't aware what paan is, check out the Wikipedia page about this commonly chewed substance in India. I was in India recently. Just got back a little over a week ago. Had a great…
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Posted inFree will

Brian Greene: “Behavior is fully governed by physical law”

I love the idea that free will is an illusion. Sure, for each of us it feels like we can freely choose what to do. But as I've observed numerous times before, it also feels like the earth stands still and the sun sets, which is another illusion. So if we want to know reality as it is, not as how we consider it to be, it's important to not overly trust our subjective perceptions, because that can lead us astray. I've continued to enjoy my reading of Brian Greene's new book, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our…
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Posted inOpen Threads

Open Thread 31 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread. Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread.  This hasn't been happening recently, as some commenters have been using blog posts as a "chat room," basically, so from now on I'm going to vow to do better at not approving comments submitted on a regular blog post if the comment doesn't deal with the subject of the post.  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,"…
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Posted inBooks Reality Science

Brian Greene: “Nothing supersedes the laws of physics”

I've been needing some cosmic scientific perspective during my morning pre-meditation reading time, given how the coronavirus pandemic dominates the news and peoples' psyches. Physicist Brian Greene's new book, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe," has been meeting that need nicely. He's an excellent writer, thinker, and popularizer of scientific truth.  Here's an example of what appealed to me in the first four chapters. I'm sure I'll be sharing more from the book as I get deeper into it. Nothing supersedes the laws of physics. I love this bold simple statement.…
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Posted inCoronavirus India

Be strong, India. Your 3-week coronavirus lockdown is a wise decision.

I'm no fan of Prime Minister Modi, because he reminds me of President Trump in some disturbing ways. But his decision to institute a strict lockdown of everybody in India for three weeks is the right thing to do -- even though this is going to create a lot of hardship.  A New York Times story, "Modi Orders 3-Week Total Lockdown for all 1.3 Billion Indians," describes why the lockdown is needed. NEW DELHI — India’s prime minister ordered all 1.3 billion people in the country to stay inside their homes for three weeks starting Wednesday — the biggest and…
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Posted inCoronavirus Religions Science

Religion is bringing out the coronavirus stupid in people

Not surprisingly, the coronavirus pandemic is causing religious people around the world to turn to superstition, fantasy, and unproven remedies.  Naturally they'd be much better off if they paid rapt attention to the public health experts who are using science and facts in their advice about how to keep from being infected by the COVID-19 virus. But religion often brings out the stupid in people. Especially when they're afraid of an unseen menace. Like a virus. Or the devil. The difference being that a virus is real, and the devil isn't, along with God and other imaginary supernatural entities.  Today…
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Posted inCoronavirus Personal/Stories

How are you coping with the coronavirus outbreak?

Since this blog attracts people from many countries, I'm curious to learn how you are coping with the coronavirus, or COVID-19, outbreak.  Leave a comment on this post, if you like. It'd be good to know both how people in your part of the world are handling the disruption in everyday life that, likely, has been imposed by government authorities, and also how you yourself have been affected.  What disturbs you the most about what's going on? What bright spots can you find in this otherwise dark and distressing situation? All I ask is that you keep religion out of…
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Posted inCoronavirus Science

Don’t spread false information about coronavirus

Science can be trusted. Though it isn't 100% perfect, science is way better than other ways of knowing -- especially when it comes to the coronavirus, COVID-19.  I just discovered that a frequent commenter on this blog left several comments on my HinesSight blog that referenced false information from mythical "Stanford board" advice about dealing with the coronavirus.  That information has been deleted by me.  Please, COVID-19 is tough enough to fight without people spreading false information about it. Here's the truth. ---------------------------------------------- CNN) — Contrary to what some may think, not everything on social media is rooted in fact.…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Excellent comments about RSSB guru’s failure to be honest

Here's three comments by "j" on the post I wrote yesterday, RSSB guru wants to keep his tax returns secret.  They're excellent. Reasonable. Factual. Well-written. I heartily agree that Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, isn't living up to the ethical standard of even an average person, much less a religious leader who supposedly is God in Human Form. Enjoy. I've corrected a few typos and added some paragraph breaks to make the comments easier to read. Not "the appropriate stage" to reveal his tax returns? How many more of Gurinder's followers need to go to…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

RSSB guru wants to keep his tax returns secret

Here's the latest development in the financial fraud saga involving the Singh brothers (Malvinder and Shivinder) and their relative, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas. Today a story in India's The Economic Times says that Dhillon has told the Delhi High Court that he wants to be exempted from producing his personal income tax returns. Since Malvinder Singh has said that the RSSB guru and his family ended up with most, or all, of the money illegally siphoned from Religare, a public corporation, obviously it is important for investigators to see the Dhillon tax returns. If…
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Posted inBuddhism

Zen circle reminds me that perfection is a fantasy

Here's my new piece of art, courtesy of Amazon and a 8X10 frame that I put the print in. It doesn't really have an up or down. I just like it oriented this way, though I might change my mind.  (I don't keep it on a rug. That was for a photography purpose. Normally it sits next to a bathroom sink where I can peruse it when I wash my hands, which is frequently, given the coronavirus scare the world is going through.) I got the print, which admittedly isn't traditional, given its color, after reading a paragraph in Lesley…
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Posted inReality Religions

Perfection is an imaginary ideal, a lifeless dead end

This morning I finished the book I've been blogging about recently, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto, by Lesley Hazleton. It's a wonderfully thoughtful and well-written description of what it means to be an open-minded agnostic (or atheist), rather than a closed-minded religious believer. Below are some passages that I liked in the concluding chapter, "Imperfect Soul."  Hazleton starts out by debunking the notion of perfection. There's no such thing. Perfection, she says, is an idea, not a fact. This rings true for me, based on my 35 years of experience with an Indian religious organization whose teachings wrongly proclaim that there is…
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Posted inBooks Meaning of life

We make our own meaning in an indifferent universe

Here's a great question that Lesley Hazleton asks at the start of the Making Meaning chapter in her book, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto. What do you do when someone tells you about a treasured experience that you know is in all probability untrue? True to that person that is, but not objectively true. Since people share all kinds of religious and mystical experiences in comments on my blog posts, I'm confronted with this question often. Usually I have the same answer Hazleton chose when a woman told her about orca whales lining up and singing to her as she stood…
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Posted inBooks Spiritual practice/meditation

Embrace uncertainty, doubt, and open-minded faith

I'm an ardent worshipper of Amazon, because it brings me so much inspiration. My current object of literary worship is a compelling little (204 pages) book by Lesley Hazleton, Agnostic: A Spirited Manifesto. Now, I don't see much difference between atheism and agnosticism, but Hazleton does, so I'm good with that. I'd still argue that at times she views atheism as excessively certain God doesn't exist, because every atheist I know (including myself) would be pleased to acknowledge the existence of God if there was good reason to do so.  Which, there isn't. But this is a minor quibble with…
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Posted inBooks Science

Physicist Brian Greene talks about the cold, cruel, wondrous universe

Here's an excerpt from a story in the most recent issue of TIME magazine about physicist Brian Greene and his new book, Until the End of Time. (I've ordered it, naturally.) I get hugely more inspiration from science books like this one, because they're founded in reality, not fantasy, as religious writings are. I've been there and done that. Now, like Greene, I embrace the cold, cruel, wondrous universe. There's a lot of satisfaction in such neat solutions to head-cracking problems. But there is an equivalent neatness to the ostensibly dispiriting conclusions Greene reaches in his books and in his…
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Posted inIndia

John Oliver shows how bad India’s Narendra Modi is

I'm not a fan of political leaders who base their policies on religious fundamentalism. Since the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, is doing just that, I enjoyed John Oliver's humorous takedown of Modi on last weekend's "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver."  Here it is, for your own enjoyment.  
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Posted inOpen Threads

Open Thread 30 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread. Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread.  This hasn't been happening recently, as some commenters have been using blog posts as a "chat room," basically, so from now on I'm going to vow to do better at not approving comments submitted on a regular blog post if the comment doesn't deal with the subject of the post.  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,"…
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Posted inGod

Religious people, why do you believe in God?

This blog attracts quite a few religious people, probably because my rational, reasonable, intelligent posts appeal to their subconscious mind, given how much of their conscious awareness is filled with faith-based religious dogma. So I'd like to offer an opportunity to religious people to explain why they believe in God or some other divine entity. This includes the notion that there's such a thing as "God in human form," which is the basis of Christianity and some other forms of religion. Leave a comment with you best explanation of why you believe in a higher supernatural power. I'm curious whether…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Religious belief is an untrue concept

So why do so many people, billions really, believe untruths about God, heaven, spirit, soul, angels, devils, and other unseen entities of which there is zero proof of their existence? Because of the Cognitive Revolution, according to Yuval Noah Harari, a historian who has written three compelling books, Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (I've read all of them). The February 17/24 issue of The New Yorker has a lengthy story by Ian Parker about Harari. Here's an excerpt from "The Really Big Picture."  I think Harari is absolutely correct about religious belief being an example…
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