Posted inScience

Why science can be trusted

I'm an admirer of science. My mother played a big part in fostering this when, in my childhood years, she bought me science kits, chemistry sets, and the like. I fondly remember cramming a card table into my bedroom closet, putting a light bulb over the clothing rod, and happily conducting experiments in my very own "laboratory." Our home also featured a subscription to Scientific American, which I still get, along with the British science magazine, New Scientist. I rarely read religious or spiritual books anymore, because I'd rather learn about reality instead of myths. But until I finished reading…
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Posted inGod Religions

Ugh. Brady Breeze says fumble recovery in Rose Bowl was “gift from God.”

Well, obviously my 2004 request to God for no more sky-pointing in televised sports events was met with deaf divine ears, probably because God doesn't exist, so has no ears (nor anything else, of course.) Because here's Brady Breeze, safety for the Oregon Ducks football team (number 25), lifting his eyes skyward, along with his right hand, following his recovery of a fumble by the Wisconsin punter which he ran in for a touchdown. Being a big Oregon fan, living as I do in Salem, about 60 miles north of Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon, naturally I…
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Posted inMeaning of life Personal/Stories

Best wishes for an ordinary New Year

Here's my New Year's wish for visitors to this Church of the Churchless blog, myself, and indeed, everybody. Be ordinary. Do ordinary things. Feel happy in your ordinariness. I say this because now that I've reached the wise old age of 71, I've realized that overlooking the ordinary that's right at hand for some supposedly extraordinary thing that's around a corner has some serious drawbacks. One reason is what I talked about in a post last month, Why you should be happy today, right now, no matter what. Be happy today, right now, at this very moment and every following…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

I agree with Alan Watts. Except when I don’t.

Below is a quotation from Alan Watts that someone emailed to me, asking what I thought of it. I've shared my response after the quotation, but I want to add on a few additional thoughts that came to mind after re-reading what Watts said. I completely agree with Watts that there's a time and place for fully immersing ourselves in the lush sensuality of the world without putting on unnecessary coverings of thoughts, concepts, abstract ideas, and such. Likewise, a warm bath or hot sauna feels best when completely naked. But note my use of the word "unnecessary." Sometimes it…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus God

Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?

It's Christmas day here in the United States. Seems like a good time to put up a poll about Jesus' divinity. Finally, a post from an Oregon blogger will settle the question! (In my dreams.)  Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you want to expand on your poll answer, which is anonymous, of course. Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?    
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Posted inGod Religions Spiritual practice/meditation

Belonging is what we long for

I'm not religious now. But I used to be.  What turned me off about religions was how divisive they often are. Each religion has its own theology, its own rituals, its own moral codes.  I got tired of feeling special. I got tired of feeling different. My spiritual quest now is to find common ground, to come to grips with whatever universal human yearning leads people to seek solace in religions. Today I started reading a book about how psychedelic entheogens -- psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, LSD, and I'd add marijuana in a sense -- can produce a sense of divinity…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Politics

Christianity Today editorial about Trump also applies to religious leaders

During the fifteen years I've been blogging away here at the Church of the Churchless, I've mentioned the evangelical magazine Christianity Today twice in my posts -- here and here.  Not surprisingly, in both cases I disagreed with what Christianity Today had to say.  But yesterday Christianity Today published an opinion piece whose conclusions I heartily agree with. Namely, that President Donald Trump deserves to be impeached and removed from office for his immoral behavior. Way to go! It's great to see an evangelical standing up for what most Christians supposedly believe in: honesty, respect, truthfulness, selfless service, dedication to…
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Posted inGod Religions

What if God existed, but life after death didn’t?

I think the question I asked in the title of this blog post is an excellent one. After all, most religious people believe in these two things. (1) God exists(2) Life after death exists So what if only the first proposition was true? Would religion have such a hold over billions of humans if God was real and so was the finality of death? Meaning, no life in heaven. No life in hell. No life after reincarnation. No life at all after we humans take our last breath. I strongly suspect that religiosity would lose a large part of its…
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Posted inReligions Science

Science rocks at comprehending the universe

When has somebody using the faith-based method of religion made a spectacularly accurate prediction about how reality behaves? Never. Not ever.  But people using the tools of science have done just that. This is one reason, among many, why science rocks and religion sucks.  I've finished the marvelously informative and entertaining book about calculus, Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe, that I've written about previously here and here. Below is an excerpt from the final chapter, where Steven Strogatz, the author, discusses how amazing it is that calculus can be used to make predictions about reality that are…
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Posted inHumor Personal/Stories

I urge that Santa Claus be impeached

If you think I'm tough on religious leaders, check out what I wrote about Santa Claus in my HinesSight blog post, "Santa Claus must be impeached."  I credit my wife, Laurel, with coming up with the concept for our 2019 Christmas letter. Then I researched the grounds for impeachment and came up with four excellent reasons. There are more, of course. For example, I deeply doubt that Santa Claus is abiding by minimum wage and workplace safety laws in his present-making workshop staffed by elves.
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Posted inOpen Threads

Open Thread 27 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread. I appreciate that off-topic comments have been going in a previous 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 an Open Thread. Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread…
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Posted inComments

Reminder: no trolling, flaming, or off-topic’ing in comments

A recent burst of comment activity in trolling, flaming, and off-topic'ing (new word!) leads me to once again remind visitors to this blog of its commenting policies.  That link, which is echoed in the Commenting section of the Navigation bar at the top of the page, replaces another post that said the same thing, but in a less detailed fashion.  I've copied in the commenting policies below. If you submit a comment and want it to be approved, be sure to read what follows closely and follow the policies.  Regarding irrelevant off-topic comments, it will be obvious from the title…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

Yes, I’ve changed my mind about spirituality. That’s a good thing.

Today a commenter on one of my blog posts said something astoundingly obvious -- that what I write about now is different from what I wrote about five or ten years ago. Well, duh... I'm constantly changing, as are we all. I learn, grow, evolve, change my mind, look upon things differently.  Since I've published a book that consists of Church of the Churchless posts from the early years of this blog, 2004 to 2006, I'm well aware of how my approach to spirituality has changed since then. If you read Break Free of Dogma, and naturally everybody should, you'll…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

I’m feeling the fear and sharing my Tai Chi video anyway

As the title of a book says, Feel the fear and do it anyway. So I'm taking that advice and sharing a video I made today of me doing a Tai Chi form. Watching the video was fear-inducing, or at least anxiety-inducing, because I do my best to avoid looking at myself in the lengthy mirror that's on one wall of the room where I've been taking Tai Chi classes. But since we've been learning the Compact form -- which lives up to its name by not requiring much space to do it in -- I figured it would be…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Indian Express story describes paradox of the RSSB guru

Today a commenter shared a link to a story by The Indian Express that profiles an Indian religious organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, and the guru who leads RSSB, Gurinder Singh Dhillon. (See below.) The story doesn't break new ground, but it is interesting nonetheless. What struck me is the contradiction between a quote from volunteers who guard the gates of the RSSB headquarters as they tried to explain why bags, mobile phones, and cameras have to be deposited before entering the headquarters, “you leave the material world outside as you journey to your inner self,” and the fact that…
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Posted inBooks Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Mindfulness is calculus made spiritual

OK, I'm wading into some deep philosophical waters here, given the title of this blog post, because I only took one semester of calculus in graduate school, and then only because I was forced to by the powers-that-be in control of the Portland State University Systems Science Ph.D program. I found calculus to be difficult. By contrast, I've gotten back to reading an engaging book by Stephen Strogatz about calculus, Infinite Powers, which I blogged about back in August, noting that it had some spiritual aspects. This morning, reading a chapter on "The Vocabulary of Change" before I meditated, I…
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Posted inIndia

New Yorker story about Modi’s India is disturbing reading

Having been an active member of an India-based spiritual organization for 35 years, I have a fondness for that country. (Including its food!)  I've spent a lot of time with Indian people. I've visited India twice. Heck, I even volunteered to write a book about the karmic rationale for vegetarianism, Life is Fair, which is still being sold by the group I used to belong to, Radha Soami Satsang Beas. But I've paid much more attention to Indian spiritual philosophies than to Indian politics. Sure, I'm aware that Narenda Modi became the Prime Minister of India, and that he's a…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Why the RSSB guru has broken an initiate’s heart

Here's a comment on a recent blog post from Alexander Black that I found to be moving. People put a lot of faith in the morality of gurus and other spiritual leaders. When a leader acts badly, it causes pain among those who trusted them. (I corrected a few typos in the comment.) As an initiate of Gurinder Singh it breaks my heart how he has lost the moral high ground by getting so deeply involved with the Singh brothers’ illegal and criminal financial dealings. As Satsangis we seek to find the spiritual truth by practicing meditation every day. Isn’t…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Don’t know” is a great thing to keep in mind

All of us are prone to making mistakes with our minds. That comes with being human. Nobody sees reality as it is, because there's no way to tell what as it is means, since every conscious being views the world through their own set of perception filters. But there's ways to come closer to the truth about reality. Basically, we need to accept true things as being true. Like global warming, gravity, and the honking of geese. And we need to to accept false things as being false. Like Donald Trump's claim that he didn't want the Ukraine president to…
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Posted inComments Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Great comment about RSSB truth-telling

Here's a comment by "j" on a recent blog post about Gurinder Singh Dhillon's involvement in a financial fraud investigation that I heartily agree with.  Truth needs to be spoken. Journalists, in India and elsewhere, do a good job of revealing truth, by and large. Yes, sometimes they make mistakes, as do we all. But the stories in the Indian financial press about the RSSB guru's alleged role in financial fraud have been almost entirely accurate, and I've been pleased to share them on this blog. I'll continue to do so.  Sure, I know that some devotees of Radha Soami…
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