Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Billionaire Shivinder Singh plans to volunteer for Indian guru

Recently someone left a comment on one of my blog posts that had a link to a story, "Shivinder Singh's ties with low-profile sect go beyond spirituality." Download Shivinder Singh’s ties with low-profile sect go beyond spirituality - Livemint The commenter said: Looks like Shivinder is on his way to become the next Guru ..... What do you think Brian and Dr. Lane? Well, I don't have an answer to that question, because I have no idea what is behind Shivinder's decision to give up being a billionaire Indian businessman and do volunteer work at the headquarters of a spiritual…
29
Posted inReligions

Malheur Refuge militants praying to God while calling the FBI evil

There's high drama playing out here in Oregon right now. Four remaining armed militant militia members (is there any other kind?) who have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County are now surrounded by the FBI, who apparently have moved in to within 50 feet of them with armored vehicles. The Oregonian newspaper has a story on this, which includes an embedded You Tube live audio feed of the militants talking among themselves, and to some supporters who currently are driving to the refuge from Portland.  The militants see themselves as Christians standing up for their twisted…
No Comments
Posted inReality

Since everything is “sacred,” no particular thing is

I liked this letter in New Scientist a lot. It won't please religiously-minded people, because religions like to divide the world into parts -- like sacred and profane, godly and devilish, spiritual and material.  That sort of thing. But as letter writer Howells says, the word universe starts with uni, one. Meaning, a whole. Once we start making manmade divisions such as sacred and profane, we're moving away from reality and into unproductive abstractions. Wisdom leads us to either think, everything is sacred or nothing is sacred. They really amount to the same thing. Read on to understand why. Editor's pick:…
1
Posted inReligions

Atheism is perfect. So says David Silverman.

My wife, who in some ways has become even more fervently churchless than I am, was the one who recommended David Silverman's book to me. "Fighting God: An Atheist Manifesto for a Religious World" takes no prisoners. After reading the first few chapters, I can tell that Silverman makes other anti-religion writers like Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Christopher Hitchens look like comparative pussies.  In the book's introduction, he says: But religion is not just incorrect, it is malevolent. It ruins lives, splits families, and justifies hatred and bigotry, all while claiming to be the source of morality.…
9
Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Another disillusioned RSSB devotee tells his deconversion tale

I'm a big fan of religious deconversions. They're just about as common as conversions, since few people stick with a chosen religion for their entire life.  (See here, here, here, here, and here.) Below is a mildly edited message that I got a few days ago from someone who has deconverted from the India-based religious/spiritual/mystical group I belonged to for many years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas. At the sender's request, who wishes to be anonymous, I took out names and other personal references. I also added in some explanations (in italics) for words that will be unfamiliar to most readers,…
15
Posted inGod

Absurd question: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

It's hard for me to get my atheist head around the furor over the assertion of a Wheaton College professor that Christians and Muslims "worship the same God." Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois, had placed associate professor of political science Larycia Hawkins on administrative leave after she made a controversial theological statement on Facebook that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The school has now begun the process to fire her due to an “impasse,” it said in a statement released on Tuesday. Hawkins said on Wednesday that she is “flummoxed and flabbergasted” by the college’s decision. Well, I'm flummoxed…
1
Posted inReligions

Brainwashed by religious beliefs

Below is a Church of the Churchless guest post by Osho Robbins. My wife and I had some new neighbors (husband and wife) over for dinner last night. The man used to be a hypnotherapist. He had a lot of interesting things to say about hypnotism, a topic Robbins raised in his email message to me. Hi Brian, I've been reading some of your recent postings. The following might be of interest to you to post as a new topic.  A lot of people who follow a certain belief (whether Radha Soami, Islam or any other) don't realize that they are simply…
11
Posted inReligions

Are roadside memorials justified on public property?

My wife, Laurel, is just as much a fervent scientifically-minded secular activist as I am. A few days ago she wrote a letter to a city official here in Salem, Oregon about religiously-themed roadside memorials on public property. Roadside memorial in Georgia What she said makes a lot of sense. Sure, the desire of relatives and friends to put up a cross, flowers, and such at the place a loved one was killed in a traffic accident is understandable. But not all intuitive impulses deserve to be allowed as lawful acts, especially when they appear to go against the grain…
1
Posted inHumor Religions

Book of Mormon musical: weirder is better when it comes to religion

My wife and I hugely enjoyed seeing The Book of Mormon musical in Portland last night. I enjoyed the show much more than I thought I would.  My uncertainty about The Book of Mormon wasn't because it is the creation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who came up with the animated South Park series. I'm a big South Park fan. I love profanity, bathroom humor, and gross jokes. I expected these marvelous qualities to be in The Book of Mormon, and they were! What I was unsure about was how funny Mormonism could be. Sure, Mormons have weird beliefs…
1
Posted inReligions

More evidence that religions are completely crazy

Are you fucking kidding me!? No, of course not. Because there is no limit to the craziness religious believers can create in the name of their non-existent God. LAHORE, Pakistan — Late one night, the imam Shabir Ahmad looked up from prayers at his mosque to see a 15-year-old boy approaching with a plate in his outstretched left hand. On it was the boy’s freshly severed right hand. Mr. Ahmad did not hesitate. He fled the mosque and left the village, in eastern Punjab Province. Earlier that night, Jan. 10, he had denounced the boy as a blasphemer, an accusation…
No Comments
Posted inReality Religions

The universe is indifferent to us. But religions believe we’re special.

Here's a big reason why religions appeal to people: they claim that humans are special. Christianity says we are made in God's image. Eastern religions like Hinduism have a similar notion, since the soul (Atman) supposedly is essentially the same as God (Brahman). Not only that, but almost every religion teaches that the cosmos has a special relationship with us Homo sapiens. We're being looked out for, guided, loved, and embraced by the Creator of It All.  Even when it comes to the Devil or other sorts of negative cosmic powers, human beings are viewed as being the special focus…
4
Posted inScience Spiritual practice/meditation

“Higher” states of consciousness actually are lower

I was turned on to an intriguing TEDx talk by neuroscientist Arne Dietrich about Surfing the Stream of Consciousness by a reader of this blog. His description of the core theme of the 17 minute video starts at about the 13 minute mark, if you want to get the gist in only four minutes.   A blog post on The Peaceful Self site, "Flying With the Pixies," includes a transcript of part of Dietrich's talk.  "Your mind, your soul, your hopes, your dreams, your emotions is about a cantaloupe size of meat crackling with electricity inside your skull. There's nothing sacrosanct…
5
Posted inReality

Deal with these scientific facts, religious believers

I'm a proud believer in reality. That's my god, now that I've deconverted from religious belief: natural reality.  Science is the best, and arguably the only, way we humans have of knowing solid facts about the universe, which is the only natural reality available to us. One of the reasons I'm enjoying re-reading "The Atheist's Guide to Reality" (by Alex Rosenberg) so much is that Rosenberg -- though a philosophy professor -- has a solid background in science.  His philosophical conclusions don't come out of thin air. They're grounded in fundamental understandings of modern science.  Below are some of those…
9
Posted inReality Science

“The Atheist’s Guide to Reality” — a mind blowing book

I like books that take some of my cherished assumptions about how the world works and chew them up into tiny pieces before putting them in a Truth Blender where they're dissolved into unrecognizable thought-mush. "The Atheist's Guide to Reality" by Alex Rosenberg is such a book. After reading it four years ago (I blogged about it here, here, and here) I've finished re-reading the second half of the book.  And, yes, once again it has blown my mind. But in a different way from the first time, because I'm a different person now.  Being a habitual highlighter and back-of-book…
15
Posted inPersonal/Stories Religions

The joy of deconverting from religious belief

Given how easily religious believers can accept the existence of a god they've never directly experienced, I always find it surprising when they can't accept a much more believable hypothesis: Giving up religiosity brings more happiness and contentment, not less. This is what's happened to me, though I readily admit that comparing states of happiness at various times of one's life is very difficult to do. After all, it isn't as if we can lay them side by side and measure how much contentment they contain. I was happy as an atheist. I was happy as a religious believer. I'm…
3
Posted inGod Politics

No, Ammon Bundy, that voice in your head isn’t God

Religious craziness is a form of socially-acceptable insanity. Case in point: Ammon Bundy is one of the militants who have taken over buildings at the federal Malheur Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon.  Here's a short 90-second excerpt from a longer video Bundy made where he talks about what led him to try to help Dwight and Steven Hammond, ranchers in Harney County who were convicted on arson charges when they burned rangeland illegally -- endangering hunters and firefighters.   Somehow Bundy believes that when he needed to clear his mind about what to do, it was the Lord who did…
13
Posted inGod

Sure, an atheist can believe in God. Here’s how.

I'm an atheist who believes in God. This isn't illogical. Or a contradiction. I just define "God" differently than religious believers do. Which is pretty much how Paul Harrison does in his book, "Elements of Pantheism: A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe." The word Pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (="all") and theos (="God"). Literally, Pantheism means: All is God. In essence Pantheism holds that the universe as a whole is worthy of the deepest reverence, and that only the Universe and Nature are worthy of that degree of reverence.  The statement "Nature is my god" is perhaps…
6
Posted inPersonal/Stories Spiritual practice/meditation

Advice about marijuana “paranoia” from an ex-hippie pothead

In case you're wondering... sure, this post does indeed belong on this here Church of the Churchless. After all, I've written at some length about why "Marijuana is my secular sacrament." Excerpt: I’m grateful to Mother Nature for bringing forth a substance that elevates the spirit. There’s a reason we speak of getting high. Cannabis has a way of making my usual worries and anxieties appear much smaller, as if I were standing on top of a mountain, looking at them from a distance rather than close-up. At the same time, I don’t feel like I’ve lost touch with reality. Rather,…
2
Posted inBooks Religions

Worst and best part of being human: imagining what doesn’t exist

Imagination is wonderful. Except when it isn't.  That's one of the core messages of psychologist Daniel Gilbert's marvelous book, "Stumbling on Happiness."  I'm re-reading the book after first discovering it in 2006, when I wrote "Happiness is a new mountain bike. Maybe." On the same day I bought myself this present, I received a few other gifts from myself after a visit to my other favorite Sisters store, Paulina Springs Books. I saw “Stumbling on Happiness” by Daniel Gilbert on the new non-fiction table. At first I figured that the book would tell me how to do just that. But…
1