Posted inChristianity/Jesus

What if Jesus died on the cross and was dead forever?

Since I'm an atheist who doesn't believe in Christianity or any other religion, I'm free to imagine alternatives to theological myths that would be more beneficial to society. For example, Jesus dying on the cross and then remaining dead.  I'd find this way more inspiring than the Biblical story of his subsequent resurrection. Sure, dying on a cross so that the sins of humankind can be washed away is an admirable thing to do. But Jesus' sacrificial altruism is markedly lessened if we assume that the final outcome was being brought back to life and spending eternity with God in…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Heart and head need to find agreement

I'm a big fan of Jack Haas' book, "The Way of Wonder." Click on that link to a Facebook post by Haas and you'll be able to read it. For free. Recently I came across an interesting comment by Chad Royer on a post on Haas' Facebook page. I don't claim to understand everything Royer says below, but maybe that's why I like what he said. Give it a read. I wrote the following to a friend who posted on FB “Never let your head overthrow your heart.”  (This was shortly before reading your book.)  I'd say the reverse is…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Here’s my darkly humorous irreligious 2017 Christmas letter

Old habits die hard. I still write a Christmas letter for my wife and me. Except we call it "Holiday Greetings."  Below is  the 2017 letter that I wrote last night. Oh, as long as I'm blogging... I'm not a strong law-and-order guy, so I'm not going to strictly enforce the commenting rule that I talked about in my previous blog post. I simply am hoping that Church of the Churchless commenters will keep preachiness to a minimum, and use the Open Thread for drastically off-topic comment conversations. Our Christmas letter can be viewed two ways: PDF: 2017 Laurel and…
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Posted inComments

Please keep comments on-topic

Reminder: as noted in Open Thread 11, comments on a post need to be related to the topic of a post. Don't veer off into using a comment as a way to preach about how wonderful your chosen faith is, or talking about some other subject. It's irritating for a reader of a blog post to click on comments, then find a bunch of irrelevant comment conversations. Use an Open Thread to talk about whatever you want (there should be an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar). 
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Posted inComments Open Threads

Open Thread 11 (free speech for comments)

It's been a while, but Open Thread has been resurrected. This blog has been getting comments that don't fit with the topic of the post in which the comment was made.

So here's another Open Thread (previous OTs are still open, of course). Leave a comment about anything you want to talk about. I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar.

Comments on other posts need to be related to the subject of the post, or they will be candidates for deletion. So an Open Thread is the place for pro-religion remarks and whatever. 

No PreachingBack in 2015 I wrote "No preachiness" reminder for commenters. Click on that link to learn what is acceptable as a comment on a post other than an Open Thread. I'll also copy in that post below for easy reading.

 
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

“The Prize,” my ready-to-steal spiritual screenplay idea

I've never written a screenplay. I've only read one screenplay. But I know from watching TV and movies that pitches for screenplays often take the form of X meets Y. And I can do that much. The Da Vinci Code meets Contact. There... million dollar screenplay contract, please. Major movie studios can reach me at the email address in the right sidebar. But actually I'm fine with someone stealing my idea, which is a mixture of spiritual (a la The Da Vinci Code) and far-out scientific (a la Contact), since I'd love to see the movie that I'm unable to…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

1986 murder of two RSSB initiates raises serious spiritual questions

I just came across a LA Weekly story, "A 1986 Murder Cold Case in the Mojave Desert is Finally Unraveling," about the gruesome killing of two members of an Indian spiritual organization that I used to belong to, Radha Soami Satsange Beas.    Here's some excerpts from the well-written piece about the disappearance of Barry and Louise Berman, whose bodies were found almost three years later after heavy rains uncovered a skull seven miles from a remote campground. The late summer of 1988 brought flash flooding to Saline Valley. On Nov. 12, 1988, a hiker stumbled upon a human skull.…
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Posted inBuddhism

Donald Trump has some (mild) Buddhist leanings

OK, I get what this guy is saying in "Donald Trump, Accidental Buddhist." Let's just stress the accidental. Have a read on the New York Times site.  Or, the piece is short, so I've shared it below.        Donald Trump, Accidental Buddhist By BEN DOLNICKDEC. 7, 2017 Donald Trump is the contemporary master of a little-used literary device: the narcissistic third person. On the indictment of Paul Manafort: “There’s not even a mention of Trump in there.” On the possibility of Russian interference in the 2016 election: “Perhaps Trump just ran a great campaign?” Even his very first…
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Posted inReality Religions

How deluded are you? (If you’re religious, you’ll score higher.)

The most recent issue of New Scientist has a story called "Delusional You." The online version is differently titled: Grand delusions: Why we all believe the weirdest things. Now, most of us consider that it is other people who are deluded, and that we're an exception, being nicely connected to reality. Which, I suppose, is another delusion. Here's an excerpt from the story. That we are all prone to delusions may not be so surprising. A range of cognitive biases makes the human mind fertile soil for growing all kinds of irrational beliefs. Confirmation bias, for example, means we ignore inconvenient…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Death and non-existence is scary. Not facing reality, even scarier.

I'm afraid of death. This is natural. It is normal for a living being to try to cling to life and avoid death for as long as possible.  But as I wrote about twelve years ago in "Death and the primal fear of nonexistence," I regularly get glimpses into what it means to not exist forever. I don't mean a glimpse into the actuality of non-existence, because I won't be around to experience either that, or anything. What I feel is an existential terror that seems different to me from a fear of dying. It is the stark reality that…
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Posted inMystics Religions

Militants kill 305 Sufis in the name of God. Religions are crazy.

All terrorist attacks are despicable and difficult to comprehend. But when Muslim militants killed 305 Sufis, members of their own religion whose supposed crime is viewing Islam differently -- that's freaking insane.  Back in my true believing days, before I saw the atheist light, for several years I became a huge fan of Rumi. I bought just about every English language book about Rumi and his teachings. Rumi was a Sufi. So this helps explain my outrage at the killings in the Sinai Peninsula.  Here's some excerpts from a New York Times story, "Who Are Sufi Muslims and Why Do…
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Posted inReligions

America versus the Godless Civilized World: we’re crazily religious

I just finished reading a disturbing chapter in Kurt Andersen's book, "Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire." Disturbing, because in America Versus the Godless Civilized World: Why Are We So Exceptional?, Andersen presents facts about our zealous religiosity that sent chills up my atheist spine. These facts weren't totally new to me. But they were conveyed in a way that made it clearer than ever how religiously wacko the United States is -- not only compared to other advanced countries, but even countries with a reputation for religious mania. Here's some quotes from the chapter: According to a Gallup Poll in 1968,…
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Posted inScience

What does it mean if you are, because you have to be?

The title of this blog post sounds like a theological or philosophical question. Actually, it is an outgrowth of a scientific theory, that of eternal inflation.  Which doesn't mean that the price of stuff keeps going up forever. In this context it means universes being created without end. So in an infinity of universes, there is room for anything and everything to happen.  However, even though the question of meaning in an inflationary universe has a scientific origin, physicist Brian Cox says that answers to this question can arise from anyone, which naturally includes you and me. Here's an excerpt from…
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Posted inBuddhism Spiritual practice/meditation

Meditation practices only “work” in specific cultural settings

Some people claim that specific sorts of meditation practices are akin to a science that produces the same results, no matter who is doing the meditating or where the meditation is being done. A thoughtful piece by David L. McMahan, "How Meditation Works: Theorizing the Role of Cultural Context in Buddhist Contemplative Practices," casts doubt on this claim. I came across McMahan's essay in a re-tweet by David Chapman of someone else's tweet: I had to jump through some online hoops to download the PDF file. Here it is: Download How_Meditation_Works_Theorizing_the_Role The general thesis seems totally believable to me. People…
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Posted inPolitics

Prayers are useless. Murdered victims were in a church.

Wil Wheaton, an actor, is getting criticism for this Twitter tweet that was in response to a call for prayers by House Speaker Paul Ryan following the murder of 26 people in a Texas church.  Wheaton apologized to offended religious believers, but the points he was making really don't deserve an apology.   First, it is absolutely true that prayers are useless. There's no evidence that praying changes anything in the absence of some physical action. The most scientifically rigorous study of prayer showed no effect on the recovery of people who had heart surgery (prayed-for people actually had more complications,…
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Posted inGod

Ancient religious writings couldn’t predict modern science

My wife, Laurel, has had another faithless letter to the editor published in our local newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal. The paper titled it, "Newspaper can't be faulted for decline in respect for God." Enjoy: A recent letter to the editor suggested the a decline in "respect for God," even by newspapers, is responsible for an increase in crime (as supposedly evidenced by the space given to sports versus religion). The newspaper is merely keeping up with the times and focusing on fact versus fiction. In this day and age, people are smarter than in the past, (especially younger people) and as…
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Pros and cons of faith, nicely expressed

To have faith, or not to have faith. This is a big question. I was pleased to see a thoughtful comment interchange between Spence Tepper and Appreciative Reader on a recent post of mine, "The most amazing thing about religions is that everybody believes they're right." Here's how Spence Tepper views faith: quite positively. Hi Appreciative Reader!Great comments. Thank you for posting a moment of rational thought here.I suggest that everyone, Atheist, blind adherent, "Faithful", or Mystic, has a built in psychological tendency to believe they are generally right. Who doesn't think they are right?And if we are wrong, we…
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Posted inReligions

The most amazing thing about religions is that everyone believes they’re right

Religious people believe in the miraculous. Atheist me finds a different sort of miracle embedded in religiosity: the fact that almost everyone who embraces a particular religion is highly confident, if not absolutely certain, that their particular faith is The True One.  Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and followers of many other creeds (including the Eastern mystical/spiritual teaching I followed for many years, Sant Mat) -- with just a few exceptions each devotee considers that somehow they've been fortunate enough to find the truth about an ultimate divine reality, while billions of people who believe otherwise are sadly deluded. This…
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Posted inBuddhism

No need to have a “calling.” Just live your life.

Someone emailed me a link to a short essay on the Secular Buddhist Association site, "What's your  calling or purpose in life?" I like the author's conclusion: there's no reason to feel that you have a special calling. After all, where would that come from?  The notion of a calling or purpose in life presupposes that such exists somewhere outside of the person's own mind, that somehow we're supposed to identify what we're meant to do with our life as if that was a law of nature akin to gravity or electromagnetism.  Or maybe a better analogy is finding our…
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Posted inBooks Buddhism

Buddhism doesn’t believe in a soul, which is fine with soulless me

During my religious days I took solace in feeling that I had, or was, a soul that would survive my bodily death. Now, I'm more attached to truth than to fond beliefs, even when they feel good.  So I enjoy many Buddhist writings (just not the ones that talk about reincarnation and other supernatural stuff).  Back in 2012 I resonated with Owen Flanagan's naturalistic take on Buddhism, as I wrote about in "Buddhism says I'm a soulless Heraclitean river. Cool!" So everything is changing. Including me, you, beliefs, brains, selves, Mt. Everest, ants, galaxies, subatomic particles, who is ahead in…
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