Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Mother Teresa becomes a saint despite “spiritual darkness.” Hey, make me a saint too!

I was baptized Catholic. I'm immersed in spiritual darkness. I have grave doubts about God. So why can't I become a saint, since Mother Teresa has been canonized by Pope Francis despite her admitted spiritual darkness? Here's excerpts from an AP story, Mother Teresa: a Saint Despite Spiritual 'Darkness.' For nearly 50 years, Mother Teresa endured what the church calls a "dark night of the soul" — a period of spiritual doubt, despair and loneliness that many of the great mystics experienced, her namesake St. Therese of Lisieux included. In Mother Teresa's case, the dark night lasted most of her adult…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Personal/Stories

Great candidate for my last word: “Yes”

The older I get -- which, sadly, seems to be happening continuously -- the more I ponder the not-so-cheery question, "What should my last word be?" Now, usually we hear talk of last words, not word. But since I'm such a wordy guy, in writing at least, I figure I should do something surprising and limit myself to a single Last Word. (An aside: I enjoyed reading the "ironical sense of words said before a disaster" in the Wikipedia Last words article. These are so great, they almost -- but not quite -- made me want to do the last…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Preparing for certain future events vs. being prepared for anything

This afternoon, during some part of my all-important senior citizen nap time, I had another of my Aha! moments where everything in the cosmos becomes crystal clear for a brief moment of intuitive comprehensibility. And this time, astoundingly, I wasn't even under the influence of a psycho-active substance. Aside from my brain, which now and then approaches a genuine psychologically "active" state of being. As I felt it did today. I was mulling over some of the things I needed to do in the realm of my retired-person civic activism. For example, I'm engaged in a fight against a wastefully…
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Posted inPolitics Religions

Government shouldn’t be guided by irrational religious concepts

It's a pleasure to share a churchless opinion piece by my wife, Laurel. It was published yesterday in our town's alternative paper, Salem Weekly. Laurel was impelled to write this after going into the belly of the beast -- attending a large Franklin Graham (son of Billy Graham) religious rally at the state capitol grounds here in Salem.  Government shouldn't be guided by irrational conceptsby Laurel Hines Recently evangelist Franklin Graham visited Salem to urge Christians to vote their “Christian values.” But does basing government on religious beliefs supported by a book written in pre-modern times make sense? The Bible condones…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Fundamentalism

The Satanic Temple is a positive force for good. Praise Satan!

Satan, the Devil, is a religious myth. So I like how The Satanic Temple has taken this bit of dogmatic ridiculousness and made it into a way of promoting rationalism and free inquiry.  From their FAQs: DO YOU WORSHIP SATAN? It is the position of The Satanic Temple that religion can, and should, be divorced from superstition. As such, we do not promote a belief in a personal Satan. To embrace the name Satan is to embrace rational inquiry removed from supernaturalism and archaic tradition-based superstitions. The Satanist should actively work to hone critical thinking and exercise reasonable agnosticism in…
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Posted inFree will Science

Free will is a meaningless expression

Here's another episode in my so-far never-ending quest to convince readers of this blog that free will, as normally understood, is an illusion. (For previous attempts, type "free will" in the Google search box in the right sidebar.) Below is a letter to the editor in the July 30 issue of New Scientist, a British publication. Which explains the weird spelling of "randomize" and "recognize." Damn, can't those Britons speak English correctly, like us Americans do? Anyway, I digress. I thought Carpenter's last paragraph was right-on. Along with reflexes, intuitions seem to be another example of unconsicous brain processes that we…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Break the habit of separating body and mind

Almost always, it is best for our body and mind to be in sync. Meaning, whatever our body is doing, the mind should be focused on that activity.  This is a key conclusion I've reached after becoming churchless following several decades of believing the opposite: that mind was a separate entity from body, and it was desirable to view the contents of consciousness as distinct from bodily goings-on.  Back in those dualistic days, when I embraced an Eastern "leave this world and find a better one" meditation approach, my guru taught that a mantra should be repeated as much as…
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Posted inBooks Taoism/Tai Chi

Lessons for living from a fictional assassin: the “Gray Man”

Here's how far down the churchless rabbit hole I've burrowed: I'm able to find existential "spiritual" meaning in a book series about an unstoppable assassin, the Gray Man, a.k.a. Court Gentry.  Court Gentry is known as The Gray Man – a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible, and then fading away. And he always hits his target. But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness. Now, he is going to prove that for him, there is no gray area…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Why I stayed with a religion for 35 years

Today I responded to a person from India who had some questions about my experience with Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the spiritual guru-based group I belonged to for about 35 years. Here's what I said: _____, sorry for the delay in replying. I’m not qualified to “guide you through it all,” but I can offer some thoughts in response to the questions you posed.  The way I see it, one reason people don’t see through religions is because they strongly want to believe in a happy fantasy. That was one reason why I stayed with RSSB so long. I…
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Posted inFree will Reality Science

Free will is an illusion: convincing Sam Harris video

Below is a 9-minute video that encapsulates Sam Harris' views about free will. Which, in short, is that it is an illusion. And that the world would be better off if people recognized this, rather than wrongly believing that humans are able to freely choose what to do at any given moment. The background music in the video is a bit distracting. But Harris' message is so convincing, and the video is so well done (aside, perhaps, from the music selection), I urge you to watch it.Now, I realize that some people don't look upon free will in the way…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Tai Chi “sensing skills” — a good guide to harmonious living

I'm a dozen years into learning Tai Chi. Which just means, I'm not a beginner. Tai Chi, an internal-style martial art, is so exquisitely subtle, most practitioners never feel like they have come close to fathoming it.  But every class I take, I get further insights into what Tai Chi is all about. Which really is what life is all about. (Links to my previous posts about Tai Chi can be found in "Me and Tai Chi -- eight blog posts about 'Taoism in motion.'" Last Thursday I experienced a better understanding of the key notion of sensing skills. Robin…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Behold my humble web page devoted to… ME!

Let's see. There's got to be some way for me to publicize my totally revamped www.BrianHines.com web site and also make this blog post into something philosophical. Or pseudo-spiritual.  I'll give it a shot... When I sat down yesterday at my MacBook Pro laptop, determined to replace my hugely outdated old personal web site with an Adobe Spark page, I started with a blank Brian Hines slate.  Meaning, I had to decide what I wanted to say about myself.  Since I've got 67 years of living as raw material, obviously I had plenty of options to work with. An Adobe…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

“Be Here Now” — actually, it isn’t possible to do anything else

I started studying yoga and meditation in 1969, when I was a student at San Jose State College. I've got a well-thumbed 1972 sixth printing copy of Ram Dass' "Be Here Now" book, which was published in 1971.  I haven't re-read the book for a long time. I guess the title alone was enough for me to keep in mind.  But today, when I was meditating in the morning, as I have virtually every day for the past 47 years or thereabouts, I was struck by how meaningless those words, Be Here Now, seemed to be in my present churchless approach…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus Science

“#Pray for Turkey” — a demonstrably useless gesture

Prayer has no effect on anybody or anything. Except, perhaps, the person praying. There is no scientific or other sort of demonstrable evidence that praying helps make the world better.  In fact, the largest research study on the efficacy of prayer found that not only was it useless in helping heart bypass patients recover, patients who knew they were being prayed for had a slighter higher rate of complications.  Dr. Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical School and other scientists tested the effect of having three Christian groups pray for particular patients, starting the night before surgery and continuing for two…
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Posted inFree will Science

Free will exists. Freedom of the will doesn’t.

I've written a lot about free will on this blog. To me it seems obvious that free will doesn't exist. At least not in the way most people believe that it does.  (You can find my numerous posts on this subject by typing "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar.) But after finishing Paul Singh's book, "The Great Illusion: The Myth of Free Will, Consciousness, and the Self," I realize that when commenters on my posts object to free will being an illusion, they're usually thinking of free will of being something different than how I…
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Posted inHumor

Comic strip wisdom: happiness is now, or never

After many years of searching for wisdom in all the wrong places -- holy books, teachings of gurus, new age'y claptrap -- I've found a better wellspring of inspiration. The Sunday comics.  Though this "Pearls Before Swine" strip refers to the futility of worldly pursuits where the carrot of fulfillment is always just out of reach, it points equally at religious promises that are continually around the corner: salvation, enlightenment, bliss. Benny the Beach Bum has seen through all that. (click to enlarge) This comic strip reminds me of an anecdote I related in a 2006 blog post, "Paving over…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth Religions

Role of religion in Orlando gay nightclub shootings

Over on my other blog, HinesSight, I've talked about how tough it is to figure out how to stop more mass shootings in this gun-crazed natiom.  The main problem is that the United States has both way more guns than any other industrialized country, and also way more gun deaths. While it's obvious that the two are connected -- more guns means more gun deaths -- it won't be possible to make those guns disappear.  Religion seemingly also played a role in Omar Mateen's attack on a gay nightclub. He pledged allegiance to ISIS during a 911 phone call in…
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Posted inReality Science

Science warns: don’t get sucked into a black hole of belief

When I was in college forty-six years ago, back in the ancient year of 1970, I was attracted to a Eastern form of mysticism that went by various names, including Science of the Soul.  I really liked the idea of being able to do a spiritual "experiment."  Become a vegetarian. Live a moral life. Meditate for several hours a day as instructed by the guru. Observe what happens in meditation. Explore the hypothesis that there are higher non-physical domains of reality. Attempt to enter these via an altered form of consciousness. For about thirty-five years I diligently conducted that experiment.…
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Posted inReality Universe

“Existence exists” — the cosmic lock to which humans have no key

I'm obsessed, in a pleasing way, with a cosmic notion: existence exists.  (A Google search of my blogs reveals the posts where I've tried to "eff" this ineffable subject. Some are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Seemingly there's not much I could add to what I've said about this ultimate mystery. Except... what I'm going to add right now. Which is another attempt to speak about the unspeakable feeling that comes over me when I contemplate the fact that existence exists. This feeling can't be produced on demand. Right now I'm talking about a memory of it,…
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