Posted inScience

Consciousness could be the mind’s way to explain unconscious actions

One of my favorite parts of New Scientist issues are the letters. Not surprisingly, given the readership, the letters typically are intelligent, insightful, and creative.  Below is one from the October 10 issue that grabbed my attention. It just seems like it could be so right, though I'm not sure how anyone could test this hypothesis.  The letter writer suggests that just as the human mind/brain has an inherent tendency to attribute conscious purpose to other people (basically, "theory of mind"), perhaps that same ability to construct a purposeful agent also is applied inwardly -- to one's own mind.So when we…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

Afterlife myths enabled early humans to cope with fear of death

Members of a wolf pack who are hunting prey with sharp horns don't stop and think, "Damn, if I keep chasing those animals, I could freaking die!"  Early humans did. Because we have self-awareness, while animals, almost certainly, simply are aware.  Meaning, a human can anticipate his or her death, even when the threat of that happening isn't imminent. Other animals also fear death, but only when their lives are immediately threatened. This is a huge difference. An important difference. A difference that makes all the difference between us and other species. It also is a central theme of a…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Mantra meditation basically is useless

First off, tonight I had another circular moment when I decided to search Google for "mantra meditation useless," the topic that I wanted to blog about. This has happened to me before when I've asked the Great God Google to enlighten me on some subject. I do a search, then find that some of my own Church of the Churchless posts are the top results.  So I turn out to be the answer to the question that I asked myself.  In this case, Google led me to my "Meditation is useless" and "Skeptical look at mantras and Transcendental Meditation" posts. …
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Posted inPolitics Religions

“Our God is a Woman! Our Mission is Protest! Our Weapon are bare breasts!”

FEMEN International has a good slogan -- the title of this post.  Recently they made good on those words, as described in "Topless female protesters manhandled after disrupting Islamic conference in France."  Members of a feminist protest group known for storming events topless has disrupted an Islamic conference in France and caught what appears to be a bit of a beating in the process....Even right-wing media sites like Breitbart were impressed when two young women, sans shirts, took the stage last weekend at what was billed as a “Muslim salon” in Pontoise, France, a town just outside of Paris. The salon, as…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Don’t care about what others think about you

A few days ago I had one of my mini-enlightenments -- a SO TRUE intuition that popped into my mind unexpectedly and unbidden. It felt like it came from a unconscious part of my psyche that is sometimes (or always) wiser than my conscious self. The intuition seemed really important at the time. Still does. Though it's kind of hard to put into words. Best I can do is this: Why the hell do I care so much about how other people look upon me? How I feel about myself is way more important than how they feel about me. When…
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Posted inBuddhism Morality

Tantra vs. Buddhist ethics (Tantra is a lot more fun!)

I don't know much about Tantra. I've had the impression that Tantra was all about wild spiritual sex -- which might have some truth to it, but possibly just a little. David Chapman, though, knows a lot about Tantra. The real Tantra. Also, Chapman is an expert on Buddhism. So he's just the guy to write a post called "Buddhist ethics": a Tantric critique. The post, like all of Chapman's writings (I'm a fan), is clear and nicely composed. Still, it will strike people not into this subject as rather Buddhist-geeky.  Which isn't a criticism. Just an observation.  I read…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

A walk in nature could be better than meditation

I've meditated every day since 1970. So obviously I'm a big believer in meditation.  But the more meditating I've done, the less I believe it is the best way to feel better and deal effectively with life's problems.  Sure, it is one way. There just are so many others -- as Brené Brown implied in an answer to a question posed to her in the "8 Questions" feature on the last page of a recent issue of TIME magazine. You say one of the keys to all this is spirituality. Why is that?I really wrestled with that. The way I define spirituality is a deeply…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

It is impossible for the brain to always “be here now”

I'm a big fan of mindfulness and meditation. I resonate with a non-religious, secular, scientific approach to Buddhism.  But I'm also an avid reader of neuroscience books. My current fave is Antonio Damasio's "Self Comes to Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain."  Much of the book is filled with more details about brain anatomy and functioning than I really care about. The overall theme, though, is fascinating -- how our sense of self is built up from more primitive primordial feelings, along with a less primitive core self and a possibly uniquely human autobiographical self. Today I came across a section…
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Posted inFundamentalism

Hindu fundamentalists are killing freethinkers in India

Well, a story in the New York Times, "India's Attack on Free Speech," makes me feel better about religious craziness in the United States. We have lots of fanatic Christian fundamentalists in this country. But we also have the First Amendment and a healthy respect for free speech. Our Christian nationalists don't kill anti-religion bloggers. (Good news for me!) In India, though, people are being killed for speaking their faithless minds. I'd thought that India was making progress on becoming a liberal democracy akin to ours ("liberal" means something different in this context from the usual liberal/conservative distinction). But apparently…
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Posted inGod

“Pascal’s Wager 2.0” — an interesting read

Most people are familiar with Pascals' Wager. (If you aren't, I've written about it here and here.) Pascal's basic idea was that it makes sense to believe in God, because if you're right the benefits are eternal and unlimited, while if you're wrong you lose nothing. (Or very little. Such as listening to a bunch of boring sermons and not eating meat on Fridays.) Over on the New York Times web site, there's an interesting piece by a philosophy professor, Gary Gutting. In "Pascal's Wager 2.0" he argues that doubting God is a better bet than denying God. The wager…
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Posted inMorality

Traditional Buddhist morality is worse than modern secular morality

Buddhism often is embraced by people who reject other forms of religion. It's sort of like a spiritual security blanket for those who no longer feel comfortable taking shelter under theistic theologies like Christianity. Something to hold on if it is just too scary to let go of religion entirely. I've used Buddhism in this way, being attracted to its non-supernatural aspects while rejecting rebirth, karma extending over multiple lives, and such. I don't see anything wrong with this. But there's a decent argument to be made that when the unappealing side of Buddhism is discarded, what's left isn't really…
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Posted inReality Spiritual practice/meditation

Wow. My wife convinces me she’s enlightened.

If you think I'm churchless and irreligious, you haven't met my wife, Laurel -- who is now surpassing me in skepticism about all things godly.  She's even enlightening me about enlightenment.  Driving home from central Oregon this afternoon, with plenty of time to converse during the two hour trip, Laurel said: Why are so many people concerned about being enlightened? It's just about embracing reality. Which is right here, right now. So understanding there's no such thing as enlightenment, just reality, is true enlightenment.  I couldn't add much to this bit of wisdom. Mostly I just marveled at Laurel's evident…
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Posted inReality

John Gray’s “The Soul of the Marionette” — perplexing and persuasive

I enjoy books that present familiar ideas in a fresh way. I also enjoy books that, when I read the last page, leave me with as many questions as answers. John Gray's "The Soul of the Marionette: A Short Inquiry Into Human Freedom" is such a book.  I finished it last night, having read the 168 pages in just a day and a half. Once I started Gray's book, I found it so fascinating, I felt compelled to get to the end as soon as possible -- so I could grasp its conclusions. Problem was (if it is a problem,…
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Posted inMystics Religions

Tough talk about Rajinder Singh from a disillusioned ex-disciple

Recently I got an email from someone who was initiated by an Indian Sant Mat guru, Rajinder Singh, and now realizes that this supposed divine being isn't really what he claims to be. This person gave me permission to share the message, which I've done below with some mild editing in line with the person's wish to remain anonymous. I'm always pleased to hear about someone's disillusioned experience with a religion or religious teacher. This is a wonderful thing, waking up from an illusion.  Feel free to share your thoughts about what this person says in a comment, as my…
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Posted inReality Religions

Why religious Personal Beliefs are usually Personal Delusions

A few days ago astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted out something so-true: If your Personal Beliefs deny what's objectively true about the world, then they're more accurately called Personal Delusions. Beautifully said.  This makes most religious dogma delusional. In fact, I probably should have said all religious dogma, since if something is objectively true it belongs in the realm of science and other forms of generally accepted knowledge, not the realm of religion. Now, in a reply to someone who commented on this tweet, Tyson clarified what he meant. He was asked, "What if your personal delusions don't deny what's…
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Posted inReality Science

The weird interwoven world of general relativity

Let's get this straight right away: I don't really understand general relativity.  I've read a lot of explanations about it. Briefly I'll feel like I grasp what general relativity is all about in a non-mathematical sense.  A few days later, or even sooner, that understanding has slipped away and I'm basically as clueless as I was before. Which is strange, because usually I can conceptually grasp scientific truths much more fully.  So there's something weird for me about general relativity. Which probably is best explained by the fact that almost everybody feels the same way.  Spend two minutes watching this…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Spiritual practice/meditation

David Lane explains why he meditates

Here's a link to a fascinating essay by David Lane, "Why I Meditate." It starts off with: Recently there was an intense discussion on spiritual matters on Brian Hines’ widely read blog, The Church of the Churchless, and an Indian gentleman wrote to me via email providing a link to it, primarily because there was a question about why I still meditate given my skeptical outlook on most things religious. He too was curious and wanted to know more about my daily practice and my reasoning behind it. The following is my response. At this point I don't really want to…
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Posted inScience

“I don’t believe in conscious decisions”

Here's a brilliant letter to the editor in a recent issue of New Scientist. I've read Castaldo's letter several times. Don't claim to understand it fully. But I love this sentence, particularly:  I believe that what we call a conscious decision is just an awareness that our myriad subconscious systems have collectively resolved a course of action or state of belief.This makes a lot of sense.  Like... yesterday I noticed that my wife had left a page in our local newspaper open to a Best Buy ad. A Labor Day sale was on for televisions. We'd talked a bit about…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Letting the mind be free is a good way to control it

Ooh, ooh! I wrote a Zen koan blog post title. And I don't even practice Zen.  How does one control the mind? By letting the mind do whatever it wants. This could be the key to... everything! Or maybe... nothing. Which could be the same thing. Whatever, it's one of the main things I've learned since I signed up for Headspace, the trendy meditation app/approach that I started trying out a few months ago and wrote about here and here. Since, I've done Andy Puddicombe's guided meditation thing every morning. I've worked my way into Day 28 of the Self-Esteem…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas Taoism/Tai Chi

What is seva in the RSSB organization?

Here's a provocative piece by Osho Robbins, a frequent commenter on this blog who emailed it to me. He writes about a recent experience where volunteers ("sevadars") acted in a high-handed manner at a large gathering of RSSB (Radha Soami Satsang Beas) followers -- an India-based group that I was a member of for many years. What is seva? What is selfless service? Great questions. What is seva in RSSB? by Osho Robbins This is an interesting question for an RSSB follower to contemplate. It is just (a) following orders given from those above you? Or is it (b) using your…
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