Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

“Trying Not to Try” is a great book about wu-wei, spontaneous action

Has this ever happened to you? You're going to bed a bit early because you have an important meeting in the morning and need to be well rested. Reclining your head on the pillow, you say to yourself "I need to get to sleep, so I'll make sure I'm relaxed."  An hour later, you're still awake, even though usually you fall asleep in just a few minutes. It's dawning on you that trying to sleep is keeping you from sleeping.  So now you try not to try to fall asleep. Which, of course, is still trying. That doesn't work either.…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Roadside cross in Salem unconstitutional, says Freedom From Religion Foundation

There's a roadside memorial in the town where I live (Salem, Oregon) that features a four-foot cross. I have no problem with temporary displays of grief after someone has been killed in a traffic accident, but this memorial has been on Kuebler Boulevard for at least ten years. That's way too long. It needs to go. So says the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which has written Salem Mayor Chuck Bennett, citing legal decisions that a cross on public property is unconstitutional.  Download FFRF letter to Mayor Bennett Joe Douglass, a reporter for Portland's KATU television station, filed a story about…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

“Jesus Loves Strippers” sign removal gets lots of attention

Proving that I'm used my retirement time wisely, here's a video I captured from my TV of a KATU (Portland, Oregon) news story about the controversy over a "Jesus Loves Strippers" sign that was placed illegally in the public right of way in Salem, my home town. I was interviewed for the story! In my remarks I'm representing Salem Community Vision, a group I'm a member of that seeks to improve the vitality, vibrancy, and overall coolness of semi-sleepy Salem. A Salem Community Vision colleague has been keeping track of where the KATU story has spread since July 3. Here's the…
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Posted inTaoism/Tai Chi

Tai Chi has taught me that flowing is way better than forcing

I've been learning Tai Chi for about thirteen years. That makes me a near-beginner in this oh-so-subtle "soft style" martial art. Before taking up Tai Chi I studied "hard style" martial arts for about the same length of time. So I guess I've reached sort of a balance point. My previous Tai Chi-related posts are here, on my other blog. For some reason I haven't written about Tai Chi for five years. This hasn't been from a lack of interest. It must be because Tai Chi is something I do and experience much more than I think about it.  Well,…
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Posted inReligions Taoism/Tai Chi Vedanta/Advaita

Indian and Greek thought are both dualistic. Chinese thought isn’t.

Oneness has a lot of appeal. It's simple. Nothing is simpler than one. (Well, maybe nothing is simpler, but since there is no way to know what nothing is like, since it doesn't exist, who knows?) Also, oneness has a lot in common with love. Love brings us together, which is a big step toward being one. Duality, on the other hand (a good phrase to use when talking about duality), posits two things that are inherently different. Like most people, I've had the idea that Eastern forms of spirituality are more into oneness that Western forms are. The cartoon…
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Posted inPolitics Spiritual practice/meditation

How this atheist feels about prayers after another mass shooting

Another day in America, another mass shooting. A lone gunman shot Rep. Steve Scalise and four other people at a park where Scalise was practicing for a benefit Congressional baseball game.  This is a tragedy. So are the tens of thousands of other gun deaths that happen every year in this country.  But after dramatic shootings like this one, there's a familiar ritual: "thoughts and prayers" are directed to the victims and their families.  I wrote about this in 2015 after the San Bernardino shootings. Here's an excerpt from "Another mass shooting. No more 'thoughts and prayers.' Gun control ACTION!"…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Good criticisms of Guru Gurinder Singh and his spiritual organization

I enjoyed this blog post comment from "reet" so much, I've made it into a post. These are some great criticisms of how the Indian spiritual organization Radha Soami Satsang Beas operates, and the lavish lifestyle enjoyed by the RSSB guru, Gurinder Singh, and his relatives. The RSSB guru travels in private airplanes and in high end cars with high level security, his son is the CEO of a multimillion dollar company, his wife has million dollar stocks to her name, his relatives are rich billionaires. It's totally fine if you're a businessman and doing all this with your "earned"…
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Posted inReality Science

It isn’t all about us. Humans aren’t special.

We have no option but to use our human ways of knowing to understand the universe. However, this doesn't mean that us Homo sapiens possess the capability of accurately answering all the questions about the cosmos that come to mind.  Or even being sure that we're able to ask the proper questions.  More and more, I'm embracing the conclusion that human consciousness likely isn't capable of grasping the Great Big Questions (notably including why the universe exists at all), much less the answers to them. Here's a letter from the June 2017 issue of Scientific American on this subject. I've…
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Posted inGod Reality

Believers, be clear about what sort of belief you want others to accept

Someone recently emailed me, asking if I read the many comments (223, currently) on a recent Church of the Churchless post. Here's part of my reply. I admit that I haven’t read the many comments on this post in much detail. In my current irreligious frame of mind it just strikes me as mostly meaningless to discuss/argue about subjective experiences as if they reflect some objective reality. There’s no way to tell whether someone’s supposed “mystical” experience is anything other than a projection of their own mind absent some sort of convincing demonstrable evidence.   Logical or reasonable arguments can…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Why we can’t rely on the Bible for social and moral progress

My avid-atheist wife just had her monthly anti-religion letter to the editor published in our local newspaper, the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal.  Actually, her letter was published twice on the opinion page in the print edition -- yesterday and today. I'm tempted to call that a miracle, a sign from God tbat She is pleased with Laurel's message. (But for obvious reasons I'll resist that temptation.) Here's what Laurel said. The paper titled her letter, "Why community must not rely on the Bible for social and moral progress." Most social and moral progress in Western civilization has been brought about…
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Posted inFundamentalism

In Saudi Arabia, atheists are considered terrorists

Kind of jarring news, given that President Trump (geez, I hate to write those two words) just returned from his visit to Saudi Arabia, all enthused about how great his talks with Saudi officials/royalty were. So today I come across a 2014 story in the Independent, "Saudi Arabia declares all atheists are terrorists in new law to crack down on political dissidents."  In a string of royal decrees and an overarching new piece of legislation to deal with terrorism generally, the Saudi King Abdullah has clamped down on all forms of political dissent and protests that could "harm public order".…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Taoism/Tai Chi

The spiritual implications of drink when thirsty, eat when hungry

I'm a firm believer in living naturally. Not unnaturally naturally. Just naturally naturally.  Meaning, do what is natural. But don't make a fetish out of this, don't strive to do it, because trying too hard to be natural leads to artificiality.  When it comes to drinking and eating, here's some good advice: Drink when thirsty. Eat when hungry.  This sounds very Zen. And it is. But it also makes a lot of scientific sense. For example, check out "Just drink water when you're thirsty like a normal person, study finds." After much deliberation, a 17-member expert panel representing four countries…
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Posted inGod Radha Soami Satsang Beas

Gurinder Singh: the One is the goal, God without attributes

I no longer believe in God. Meaning, a God who is this or that, a God who can be described, who can be known, who can be experienced. But I'm very much open to the notion that One is at the heart of reality. Heck, I wrote a book called "Return to the One" about the teachings of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher.  After all, something has to have always existed, or existence wouldn't exist. So why not call this the "One"? Just don't ascribe any attributes to the One, because the One couldn't have any attributes, being, obviously, One. …
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Posted inFree will Science Spiritual practice/meditation

Experience of conscious will is an illusion

I don't believe in free will. But like most people, I have a feeling that my intention to do something is what causes that thing to happen.  So we have two things going on: (1) A scientific world view doesn't support a belief in free will. As I've written about a lot on this blog (type "free will" into the Google search box in the right sidebar to find the many posts), there is no evidence of an immaterial self/soul that somehow floats free of the material/physical goings-on in the human mind. So there's no entity within us which can…
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Posted inReligions Science

Compared to science, religion knows nothing about reality

Here's another of my wife's monthly letters to the editor of the Salem (Oregon) Statesman Journal newspaper. Her April offering was titled "Reader prefers science over religion" on the opinion page.  Me too. As we were driving around today, talking about this and that, including the ridiculousness of religiosity, Laurel mentioned that nothing in the Bible or any other holy book has led to any new understanding of reality in the way science does all the time. Meaning, one would think that the prophets, sages, gurus, enlightened beings, divine sons/daughters of God, or whoever would have been privy to some…
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Posted inGod Personal/Stories

My missing checkbook taught me a lesson about God

After getting a haircut a few days ago I reached into the pocket of my jacket where I'd put my checkbook. Problem was, no checkbook.  "I'll have to give you cash," I told Kim, my haircutter. "Cash is good," she said. "I like cash."  "Me too. But I also like my checkbook, and I'm pretty sure I stuck it in my jacket pocket before I left home."  The next stop of the day in my retired life was my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem (Oregon). After I'd gotten in my car, post-haircut, I looked through my backpack and the…
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Posted inReligions

Memes like “God promises life after death” explain popularity of religion

We usually think that religions require people to believe in certain things. Like God, heaven, life after death. But what if religiosity is more akin to a tune you just can't get out of your head than a consciously arrived-at system of beliefs? Memes, according to Wikipedia, are "ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme." They propagate and evolve much like genes do: through natural selection. Here's how Wikipedia says memes operate in the area of religion. Aaron Lynch attributed the…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

I’m not a Christian. So why is my athletic club closed on Easter Sunday?

Some holidays are secular, like the Fourth of July or President's Day. It doesn't bother me when businesses close on a genuinely national holiday.  But Easter? It's a purely Christian day, a celebration of Jesus supposedly being resurrected from the dead.  I don't believe in any sort of God, including the Christian variety. Naturally I also don't believe that Jesus was the Son of God, nor that he came back to life after being dead. Lots of other people have different reasons for not viewing Easter as any sort of special day. Many embrace some other religion.  So why does…
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Posted inBuddhism Radha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

Flexible improvisation is a better way of living than rigid religion

Rules are fine. Except when they aren't.  For me, one of the most enjoyable things about giving up on the ridiculousness of religion is no longer having to comply with rigid rules, dogmas, commandments, rituals, and such.  Every religion has its own peculiar absurdities. Of course, what is absurd to an outsider will make sense to an insider. At least if the insider doesn't think about what's being required too much.  Here's an example: the mystical meditation path I followed for about thirty years demanded that followers be vegetarians. This wasn't a problem for me, since I'd stopped eating meat…
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Posted inReality

Perhaps “why?” is a word without meaning

Like young children, we adults also love to ask Why?  It just seems so natural to want to understand why our car won't start, why our spouse is angry with us, why we've got a stomach ache.  I'm not denying the usefulness of why, of seeking causes, of fathoming the source from which a certain aspect of reality has sprung.  However, more and more, I'm beginning to sense that the question which we take for granted -- why? -- may lack meaning beyond the minds of us humans.  Of course, this could be said of anything. Even when it comes…
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