Posted inReality Science

Imagination permeates waking, as well as dreaming

Imagination. We tend to think of this as something special, an activity we engage in when, say, we're trying to do something creative like paint a picture, write a novel, or compose a song. Or as what the brain does when it dreams -- which seemingly is markedly different from the clear perception of reality in our waking state. But Evan Thompson's book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being," has given me a different perspective on imagination. From both a Buddhist and neuroscientific perspective, he sees imagination as permeating every form of consciousness. Here's a passage from his Imagining: Are we real? chapter.…
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Posted inGod

It’s stupid to say “God is everything”

Everything is God. God is all there is. As soon as I got to those words in a piece I came across, "Why Your Version of God is the Right One...for YOU," I knew that I'd disagree with the rest of the article. Download Why Your Version of God is the Right One…for YOU – Fractal Enlightenment It's meaningless to say God is everything. That's the same as saying God is nothing. If there is no way to distinguish something called "God" from everything else in existence, then God doesn't exist. Just call everything by a more accurate name. Here's…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Does religious belief dilute our enjoyment of life?

To answer my own blog title question: Yes, I do believe that religiosity tends to dilute people's enjoyment of life. Having been religiously-minded for about 35 years, and churchless now, I consider myself well qualified to address this question. Even though I was a member of an India-based spiritual organization, my experience seems to be applicable to devotees of Western religions also -- including Christianity. I used to believe in life after death, God, and "heaven." I put that word in quotation marks to indicate the difference between an Eastern/mystical conception of an ultimate divine reality, and how heaven is…
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Posted inBooks God

Halfway through “Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart,” I love this book

With Christmas just a couple of weeks away, it's time to start thinking about what to get your atheist friend who, of course, doesn't believe in Christ (but still enjoys giving and receiving presents). Here's a book idea: Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century, by Lex Bayer and John Figdor.  Yeah, it's a bit spendy, even in the Kindle version. That didn't stop me from getting a copy, though, because I was fortunate to get a free one from a publicist who thought churchless me would enjoy the book and write a review of…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Step out of the separate self, and you’re spiritual

Thanks to a regular Church of the Churchless visitor, I was turned on to a short interesting piece in The Guardian, "Spiritual but not religious? You're not alone." Oliver Burkeman wrote the piece. Though he has mixed feelings about Sam Harris (I do also), he approvingly observes: What Harris means by spirituality stems from the realisation that the feeling of being a distinct self – “the sense of being perched somewhere behind your eyes, looking out at a world that is separate from you” – is an illusion, and can be altered, even extinguished. Meditation and magic mushrooms are among the ways…
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Posted inBuddhism Taoism/Tai Chi

Nothing special: lucid dreaming and mindfulness

I dream a lot, as we all do. Lucid dreaming, though -- very rarely. That's when you're aware that you're dreaming, while still in a dream. Maybe I've had a couple of lucid dreams in my entire life. Three years ago I blogged about a semi-lucid dream experience in "I dreamed within a dream. Felt a lot like reality." The title of that post points to a notion Evan Thompson talks about in his book, "Waking, Dreaming, Being." It's the familiar philosophical conundrum: how can we be sure that we're not dreaming in everyday life, since dreaming while we're asleep…
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Posted inReality

Here’s what you actually know…

Hey, I can find quasi-philosophical churchless inspiration in all kinds of places. Yesterday it was in Carolyn Hax's advice column that appeared in the Sunday Oregonian.  Hax responded to a woman who was "feeling shaken in my own marriage" after learning that the husband of a friend of hers has been having an affair. The woman said, "My husband has never given me a reason to suspect he is anything less than a loving and devoted spouse and father, but I feel myself looking at our relationship with a more critical eye." I thought Hax's advice was well spoken and…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation

Meditation comes in two forms: “focused attention” and “open monitoring”

It's easy to be distracted by the seemingly many forms of meditative practices. Wikipedia offers a pretty good rundown of them.  Naturally, devotees of the various practices almost always believe that theirs is the best. I fell into this delusion during the 35 years or so when I meditated every day for one to two-and-a-half hours. After all, my meditation practice was based on a secret mantra -- the Five Holy Names! Which, actually, weren't so secret. But no matter. The power of the mantra supposedly came from the divine energy of the guru who initiated me. So even if some…
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Posted inPersonal/Stories

Ten years of Church of the Churchless blogging. I’m thankful.

With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up here in the United States tomorrow, I was trying to decide whether to write something thanks giving'ly for today's blog post.  Problem is, I don't like forced or expected expressions of any sentiment, including thankfulness. If it isn't spontaneous and natural, an emotion isn't truly genuine. At least, that's the way I feel. Telling someone, "Say that you love me" -- pointless. But then I thought about the month and year, November 2014, and realized that it's been almost exactly ten years since I started this Church of the Churchless blog. My first post…
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Posted inDeath/Rebirth

There are no believers in God at funerals

I really like Julian Baggini's retort to the oft-heard saying, "There are no atheists in foxholes." (Meaning, in desperate situations.) Which, by the way, isn't true. I can also affirm that there are atheists/agnostics in dentist's chairs.  Here's what Baggini said in his book, The Ego Trick. But third, it seems that the charge can be turned around: there are no theists at funerals. Many people say that they believe that death is not the end, but the way people behave at graveyards and crematoria suggests that they don't really believe it. You may cry and be upset at the…
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Posted inBuddhism Science

Genuine enlightenment is a simple intellectual understanding

Ooh! I bet the title of this blog post will irk spiritual types who believe that enlightenment is some sort  of mystical transformation of consciousness requiring lots of meditation and/or other practices to achieve. I certainly would have felt that way myself prior to my enlightenment about enlightenment. But as noted in this recent post, I've come to the understanding that spiritual realization (if this term really means anything) involves seeing through the illusion of a soul/self that is separate and distinct from the body and brain. In short, there is no self. No soul. No person sitting inside our…
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Posted inReligions

No special rights for religion: three churchless thumbs-up

Here's three godless good news pieces that popped into my web browser recently.  I liked Russ Belville's (a.k.a. Radical Russ) "No More Special Rights for Religion" a lot. I learned about Belville, who lives in Portland, via our shared interest in supporting Measure 91 -- which was passed by voters this month, leading to legalized recreational marijuana in Oregon. Along with him, I've also wondered why religious reasons for doing this or that should get more legal standing than personal reasons for doing this or that. After all, holding a religious belief is a personal decision. Why should it be treated…
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Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Wu Project

Who do you want to be? Someone, Anyone, or Nobody?

The existential alternatives in the title of this post were named by brain researcher Susan Greenfield. I came across a mention of them in Julian Baggini's intriguing book, "The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to be You?" Here's how Baggini describes the alternatives, based on an interview he did with Greenfield at the 2009 Bristol Festival of Ideas. After sharing these excerpts from his book, I'll add some observations of my own. Where Greenfield gets a little more speculative is when she imagines the variations in types of selves which might emerge if different types of connections become dominant.…
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Posted inHumor

South Park’s “Grounded Vindaloop” holds key to reality (or…not)

I'm a big fan of getting my cosmic inspiration from the comic pages and Comedy Central. This week has been a bonanza in that regard.  Here's what today's Pearls Before Swine had to say about the meaning of existence. In three panels, it nicely encapsulated the human condition. (click to enlarge) Even more profound was the most recent South Park episode, "Grounded Vindaloop." It blew my mind, and I wasn't even under the influence of any psychoactive or hallucinogenic substances.  If you watch the episode after taking LSD, I predict that instant enlightenment will be yours. Or insanity. Or both. …
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Posted inReligions Spiritual practice/meditation

Why atheists are more “spiritual” than religious believers

Maybe this statement seems paradoxical to you: I feel more genuinely spiritual now that I've stopped believing in God.  But it makes good sense to me. Here's the main reason why. I no longer feel special. Virtually every religion and spiritual path considers that its adherents have a special relationship with God or whatever other supernatural entity they believe in.  There are so many chosen people on Earth, they vastly outnumber the unchosen, the non-special group I'm pleased to be a part of. I understand that feeling special has its own delights. In my case, I was a member of…
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Posted inReality Science

“Spiritual oneness” is embracing your bodily being

Having written a well-received book called "Return to the One," I've obviously thought a lot about oneness. My views have changed considerably since I wrote the book. I used to believe that the goal of a spiritual or self-realized life was to merge the soul's immaterial consciousness with universal consciousness, which often is termed God or The One.  Now, I've got another view of oneness. A simpler one. A more easily achieved one. A considerably more scientific one. What I am, what we all are, what everything in the universe is -- its the stuff of physics. Julian Baggini puts…
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Posted inBuddhism Science

The self exists, but not independently of its parts

My journey from churched to churchlessness pretty much can be summed up in this fashion: I used to believe that I had (or was) a distinct, unified, immaterial soul or self. Now, I rejoice in the understanding that there's no non-physical "pearl" of Me; I'm a collection of material stuff just like everything else in the universe is. Julian Baggini says this in his terrific book, The Ego Trick: What Does It Mean to Be You? A cart is not an illusion just because it has no existence other than by the correct arrangement of its parts. The only thing that…
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Posted inRadha Soami Satsang Beas

Thoughtful criticism of the Radha Soami “cult” by an Indian woman

A few days ago "Tanvee" left a great comment on a recent post, "More weird news from the world of Radha Soami Satsang Beas." It deserves to be upgraded to its own post, which I've done below. This is a thoughful, well-written look at how the RSSB way of life can turn into a hypocritical, judgmental, rigid, dogmatic pseudo-spirituality. What is said below fits with my own thirty-five year experience with this Indian religious-mystical organization, which is currently led by Gurinder Singh Dhillon -- who has grown wildly rich while serving as the RSSB guru. Read on.... Being married into an…
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Posted inMorality

Why I feel killing animals for sport is wrong

I just wrote a post on my other blog, "Why a photo of a dead deer makes me feel hunting is wrong." The post includes thoughts about the nature of consciousness, the value of wildness, and such. Give it a read.  Here's an excerpt. It bothers me when people de-animalize themselves. Humans are animals. After billions of years of evolution, we are related to every other living entity, including bacteria, insects, fish, and other animals. There isn't any sort of gulf or divide between us and them. Life on earth is a continuum. I've read a lot of books about…
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Posted inChristianity/Jesus

Atheist middle-school girl gets preachy church official kicked out of Salem school

Here's some great churchless news from right here in Salem, Oregon.  The Friendly Atheist blog picked up on a local newspaper story and described the beginning of what happened in "Young Atheist Gets Youth Pastor Banned from Middle School After He Preached to Her At Lunch." Tim Saffeels volunteered at Straub Middle School in Salem, Oregon, meaning he supervised during lunch periods, reminded students to clean up after themselves, and served as a role model during his time there. Last week, he sat near a group of students, including one who attended Salem Heights Church, where he serves as youth pastor.…
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