Posted inBuddhism

Sand mandalas are a symbol of impermanence, that nothing lasts

Today the Daily Calm guided meditation by Tamara Levitt on my iPhone app was about mandalas. I've transcribed the last portion of what Levitt said, because I found it inspiring.  It's so true. Nothing lasts. Everything is impermanent. Our wanting to make the impermanent permanent isn't the only source of suffering, but it certainly contributes to our dissatisfaction with life.  The image below came from a web page about sand mandalas. It describes the process used to create them in the Buddhist tradition. Here's the transcript: Today we’ll be discussing the transient nature of all things. In Buddhism there is…
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Posted inUncategorized

Life demands some judicious denial of reality

Today I stopped for lunch at Lifesource Natural Foods here in Salem, Oregon -- where a fairly healthy slice of pesto pizza captured my stomach's attention.  There was only one table unoccupied in the eating area, so I grabbed it. Not long after, a woman appeared, lunch plate in hand, and asked if she could sit with me. Naturally I said, "sure." At first both of us started to look at our phones, the usual way to pass time these days, since simply eating without any distraction would be too damn boring. But then she glanced at my pizza slice…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Each of us is much more than our religious beliefs (or lack thereof)

Many things amuse me when I peruse comments on this Church of the Churchless blog by religiously-minded people. One class of comments that generates an especially large smile is Brian, you spend all of your time bashing religion, so you're obviously obsessed.  When I see someone saying this, I know that just as they're prone to drawing inaccurate conclusions about the cosmos from biased beliefs, they also draw false conclusions about me from a very limited body of evidence -- my posts on this blog.  Actually, almost everybody is a complex mix of varied interests that include much more than…
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Posted inBooks

Why John Dewey likes the notion of “religious,” but not religions

Often finding books is akin to a secular miracle for me. I'll be reading a book, then see a minor mention of another book in it, pass that mention by, then decide to flip back a few pages and revisit the mention again -- which sometimes leads me to a literary gem I never would have discovered on my own.  Such was the case with John Dewey's "A Common Faith." It's  a short (80 pages, plus an introduction by someone else) sharing of lectures Dewey gave at Yale in 1934 on the subject of religion. We tend to think of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Sam Harris on not finding a center of consciousness

Some time ago, can't remember exactly when, I added guided meditations via Sam Harris' Waking Up iPhone app to my morning meditation routine. (I also enjoy listening to the daily guided meditations by Tamara Levitt on the Calm app.) Sam Harris Here's a transcript I made of part of one of Harris' guided meditations. It followed an exercise where Harris asked the listener to breathe in a vision of the world on an inbreath, and to breathe out themselves into the world on the outbreath.  Well, the point of that exercise is to notice, once again, how much the sense…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s my 12 favorite churchless blog posts of 2018

Why, this is almost like the Twelve Days of Christmas -- aside from the Days and Christmas part. It's my Twelve Favorite Blog Posts of 2018 here on the Church of the Churchless. (Image below came from here.) I picked one post from each month, because that was easier. And I generally chose posts that I'd written mostly by myself, rather than posts where I quoted a lot from someone else. But since rules are made to be broken, a few posts don't contain mostly my own words. So here they are, the decidedly non-sacred Twelve Favorite Blog Posts of…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Religions

Great message from someone who doubts dogma about Gurinder Singh and RSSB

Getting an email like the one below makes me feel good about what I've been able to accomplish through this blog from its founding in 2004 to the present.  Every person who comes to recognize the downside of religiosity -- whether this be in an Eastern or Western guise -- contributes to an upswing in the world's respect for truth.  And truth-telling is in danger right now, as evidenced by TIME magazine choosing the 2018 Person of the Year to be journalists, guardians of the war on truth. But really, we all need to take on that job, guarding truth.…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s our irreligious 2018 Hines Christmas letter

Trigger alert: if you're religious or conservative (i.e. a Donald Trump lover), or worse, religious and conservative, you may find the 2018 Christmas letter fashioned by my wife and me -- well, actually, just me -- to be not your cup of Holiday tea. Anyway, here it is in all its semi-dark glory. Enjoy.  And Merry Christmas to all, churchless of the world and religious believers of the world alike. Deep down, there's more that binds us than what divides us, even though this is difficult to discern if you spend a lot of time on Facebook, or watch cable…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Jesus without Christianity makes a lot of sense

Wow. Atheist me is sharing a USA Today opinion piece about Jesus. That's because the only problem I have with Jesus is his connection with Christianity. Take that away, and we're left with the teachings of a regular human being. This assumes, of course, that Jesus actually existed, and the New Testament contains at least a somewhat accurate description of what Jesus said and did -- two debatable assumptions. Nonetheless, I like the general thrust of this opinion piece. I've added some comments on it in red.  Jesus doesn't need Christianity. His example is powerful without any religion at all.Tom Krattenmaker, Opinion columnist…
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Posted inMeaning of life

If this life is all there is, what should we do during it?

Poet Mary Oliver asked a great question in the last two lines of "The Summer Day." The poem ends with: I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life? Obviously the question isn't for others…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Attention isn’t what meditation is all about

I'm in book bliss. Someone emailed me with a book recommendation, "The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness," and I'm loving what I've read so far -- the first couple of chapters. Here's a few early thoughts about the book. First, it confirms my belief, which isn't shared by some religious fundamentalists (Eastern mysticism variety) who've been frequent commenters on this blog, that there are many forms of useful meditation.  In fact, the inward looking, world-denying, mantra-focused type of meditation favored by Sant Mat/Radha Soami Satsang Beas, which I embraced for…
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Posted inReligions

The danger of religious abstractions

Here's an interesting letter in the October 6, 2018 issue of New Scientist: From Steve Brewer,St. Ives, Cornwall, UK Sofia Deleniv describes self-awareness as an illusion, and on your cover you call it a "delusion" (8 September, p 28). What wasn't discussed was its power to turn the whole world as we view it into "illusions" by the process of forming abstract concepts and ideas about it. By developing and interconnecting these abstractions, we have produced our various sciences. Through them we have achieved enormous power over ourselves and the natural world. Self-awareness may yield this great power, but it…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Christian weirdness: same-sex sex considered a sin

Following up on my previous post, "Churches shouldn't be able to discriminate against gays," yesterday I wrote another post on my Salem Political Snark blog about how a sermon given by the Salem Alliance Church lead pastor said in no uncertain terms that same-sex sex goes against the grain of God. I transcribed part of a podcast of  a sermon given by Pastor Steve Fowler in 2016 sermon and shared it in the post (Boldfacing is mine, obviously.) This is how Fowler supported his conclusion about the sinfulness of same-sex sex. When Adam and Eve have sex, it is not…
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Posted inFundamentalism Gay rights

Churches shouldn’t be able to discriminate against gays

On one of my other blogs, Salem Political Snark, I wrote a post this afternoon that already is getting a lot of online attention here in semi-sleepy Salem, Oregon -- the state capital that often is referred to (especially by me) as the centerpoint of places in Oregon that people really want to go to: the coast, the Cascade mountains, Portland, and Eugene. Check out "Two reports of how Broadway Coffee House/Commons discriminates against LGBT people." Excerpts: Someone contacted me about a year ago about how the Broadway Coffee House here in Salem refuses to allow gay people to be…
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Posted inComments

Want to be preachy? Head to this other blog, please.

Preachiness, fundamentalism, dogmatism... not welcome here. If you've got an overwhelming urge to leave a comment praising God, a guru, your spirit guide, or any other religious entity, do it on Atheist and Believer, a blog that welcomes proselytizing (within bounds). Comments may be moderated here, and won't be approved if off-topic or preachy. If not moderated, a comment may be removed if off-topic or preachy. Scroll down for the real posts. 
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Posted inComments

“Atheist and Believer” blog begins, so comments have returned here

My atheist "prayer" has been answered. Praise No-God!  As noted in an earlier post today, I said that I'd bring back comments to this blog if someone would start a different blog where true believers in Sant Mat/RSSB could discuss their adoration for the guru and his teachings rather than cluttering up the Church of the Churchless with religious dogmatism -- where comments like that aren't welcome. Spence Tepper, a frequent commenter on this blog, has started the Atheist and Believer blog. An initial Welcome post presents an appealing perspective. To keep my end of the blog post bargain, I'm…
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Posted inComments

Comments could come back if someone sets up a RSSB/Sant Mat blog

I've gotten emails from several regular commenters on this blog who wish that comments on my posts would be allowed again. Here's what I said to one of these people. It’d be great if someone, like you, would start a blog or message board — blogs are easier to set up and run, in my view — focused on discussions of Sant Mat and the RSSB teachings. Then I could publicize that blog/board as The New Place to share comments and messages on those subjects, including the RSSB gurus, both past and present.    Yes, David Lane has been doing…
Posted inComments

Break-in attempt to my account

So, after turning off comments on this blog last night because religious crazies were spewing wildly off-topic comments on my posts to a greater degree than ever before, I wake up this morning to find from my email inbox that one of those crazies has been trying to break into my Typepad blogging account. My laptop's screen couldn't show all of the attempts to reset my password. There were 126 in total.  They failed, and I've notified Typepad of the break-in attempts. I've also asked Typepad, which is familiar with hacking, to do their best to identify the person who…
Posted inComments

Religious crazies cause no more comments on this blog

I'm done with comments here on the Church of the Churchless. Comment moderation means more work for me. But when I allow unfettered comments, the religious crazies who have chosen to abuse this blog as a forum for them to blab about their chosen form of dogmatism litter their comments with abandon -- paying no attention to my oft-repeated request to keep comments on-topic with the subject of a post, and to limit their religiosity to Open Threads where I've allowed complete free speech. So I've decided to do two things: (1) turn off comments on new posts, and (2)…
Posted inMeaning of life

Woody Allen talks about the meaning of life, or lack thereof

Thanks to Jen for sharing this Woody Allen video in a comment. Allen says that artists, and I guess we're all artists of life, have to provide reasons for living in a universe that doesn't possess inherent meaning. Meaning is provided by us humans, not by the cosmos. Allen also observes at the end of the video that everybody needs illusions to get us through the harsh realities of life. I agree. But our goal should be to embrace the wisest sorts of illusions. (Defining "wise" in this context is what keeps this blog going, along with almost everything else…
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