Church of the Churchless

Desiring God isn’t a proof of God

Oh, my God! I'm absolutely loving "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality." So much so, this morning I finished it, fueled by a strong cup of pre-meditation coffee and the joy of reading good writing.

As I said before, Andre Comte-Sponville has a wonderful approach to spirituality.

I started to say "in spite of the fact that he's a philosophy professor," but there's no spite involved here. Comte-Sponville's book springs as much from his life experience as his philosophical experience (assuming there's a difference between life and philosophy, which, really, there isn't – living includes everything).

There's so much that I like in these 206 pages, it's hard to know what to choose as a blog subject. Here's a rundown on a subchapter that made me go Oh, yeah, so true: "Desire and Illusion."

First, some personal sharing, because it relates to what Comte-Sponville is getting at. My parents divorced when I was just a few years old. I had no contact with my father until my mid-30s. No phone conversations. No letters. No visits.

Just a Christmas card, most years, with a small check and a single word: "John." Not, "love, John," or anything else. Just his first name.

So my father was a lot like God to me as I was growing up: unseen and unknown.

I believed he existed, because my mother told me a few things about him (not much, though). And I wanted to know him, because I felt that I was missing something – a lot, actually – by not having a father, like the rest of my friends did (divorce was much rarer in the 50's and 60's).

I'd lie in bed as a kid, talking to God, asking why I didn't have a father and requesting that one be sent to me, ASAP. But no response. From God, or my father. Until events led to me seeing my father for one hour.

Here's what I said at the end of that post:

When the door shut behind me and I started walking down the corridor to my rented car, I was so happy. Not happy that I had finally gotten to meet my father—happy that I would never have to see my father again.

Which I never did.

Moral to this story? If there is one, it's that fantasies aren't reality and what you get in life often is better than what you want in life. Growing up, I wanted my father. When I was grown up, that one hour with him taught me that I was hugely better off fatherless.

Now, we could psychoanalyze the relationship between my physical-father and Godly-father desires. But, let's not. Believe me, I've done a lot of that over my 59 years, and it doesn't lead to much. Everybody's childhood was screwed up somehow.

That's the nature of life, of reality, of existence. Imperfection. Suffering. Desires, some fulfilled, some unfulfilled.

Here's the beginning of Comte-Sponville's "Desire and Illusion" section:

Yes, I desperately wish that God existed, and I see this as a particularly convincing argument not to believe he does. This is only apparently contradictory. To be an atheist is not necessarily to be against God. Why would I be against what does not exist? Personally, I would go even further and admit that I would definitely prefer that there be a god. This is just why, in my eyes, all religions are suspicious.

Isn't it amazing, a remarkable stroke of luck, the good news that every religion brings us: fulfillment of our deepest human desires is precisely how the cosmos has been fashioned, if we follow the tenets of a particular faith.

Now, what does religion tell us – and the Christian religion in particular? That we shall not die, or not really; that we shall rise from the dead and thus be reunited with the loved ones we have lost; that justice and peace will prevail in the end; and, finally, that we are already the object of an infinite love. Who could ask for more? No one, of course! This is what makes religion so very suspicious. As the saying goes, it is too good to be true!

If there's anything I've learned in my nearly six decades of life experience, it's that life doesn't always (or even usually) give me what I want. Hmmmm. I recall hearing that sentiment before.

Yet religions tell me that this evident fact actually is an illusion. I can have what I want; I just need to belly up to a particular religious bar and be served a divine drink that, Wow!, takes all my troubles away. Price: submission, faith, obedience.

What a deal! Like Comte-Sponville says, it seems too good to be true. For a good reason: almost certainly it isn't true.

I threw in "almost." I have to, just as Comte-Sponville does. Nobody knows whether God exists, what happens after death, if some religion really does have a corner on the Ultimate Truth market. We're simply talking about the preponderance of evidence here.

And that points to a different way of looking at life.

What I care about is not my own advantage, but truth – and nothing can guarantee that the two go hand in hand. Indeed, it is rather unlikely that they should, given the particular nature of my advantage and the universal nature of truth.

…Given an alleged reality that nothing attests but which corresponds to our most powerful wishes, we have every reason to suspect it of being the expression of those very wishes, and indeed (as Freud says) directly derived from them – to suspect it, in other words, of having the structure of an illusion.

…An illusion [quoting Freud] is "a belief derived from human wishes" – a desiring credo, you might call it, or a credulous desire.

…Thus illusion is not a particular sort of error; it is a particular sort of belief. To be deluded is to believe that something is true because one wants it to be true. Humanly speaking, nothing could be more comprehensible. Philosophically speaking, nothing could be more dubious.

Anything is possible.

My father could have turned out to be a sterling example of male humanity, simply one who, for some mysterious reason, chose to distance himself from me for some thirty years and engage in seemingly uncaring behavior (like never paying child support to my mother).

Likewise, God could turn out to be real, a being who loves us and will take care of us in every respect after we die, assuming we win his favor beforehand. Maybe God has his own reasons for not fulfilling our desires now. Maybe the cosmos really has been designed for our eternal, but not temporal, satisfaction.

Maybe. But it's doubtful.

"We are inclined by nature to find it easy to believe what we hope for, and hard to believe what we fear," Spinoza wrote in his Ethics. "Whence," he added, "the superstitions by which men are everywhere dominated." All the more reason to be wary of our beliefs, when they start resembling our hopes too closely!

Getting real at a coffeehouse Sunday “service”

I don't go to the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of church (satsang) anymore. But in a way, I still attend a service. And it's a lot more real and satisfying than the one way "sermons" I used to listen to, and give, back in my true believing days.

Yesterday I got together, as usual, with my Sunday coffeehouse conversing bunch. Most have had, or still have, a connection with RSSB. We're not dogmatic, though, and that makes all the difference.

Most of the time it was just me, Lynette, and Hans huddled at a table, sipping expresso and munching on nachos, making tremendous progress at figuring out the mysteries of the cosmos.

Next week, we'll do it all over again.

That's the beauty of open, unstructured, respectful discussion. You feel good about where you're going, even though you know that the road has no end.

I was able to try out some arguments from a book that I've halfway through reading, which I can tell is going to become one of my all time favorites in the What's It All About? genre. It's "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality" by Andre Comte-Sponville, a French philosopher and professor at the Sorbonne.

It's wonderful. And not only because I agree with almost everything Comte-Sponville says. It's the way he says it that grabs me just as much.

He'd fit right in with our coffeehouse discussing. He's got one of those marvelous minds that cut through intellectual crap and focuses right in on the essence of a subject. In this case, the nature (or non-nature) of God, and how we relate to God's existence (or non-existence).

Later I'll share some specifics from Comte-Sponville's book. For now, I'll relate how immersing myself in some right on philosophical writing affected my talking with Lynette and Hans.

Without being obnoxious, or so I hope, I kept trying to bring us back to solid ground. Reality. Here and now, rather than there and then.

Concepts are mind frothings, like the top layer of a latte. It's enjoyable to sip, but underneath is the heart of the drink. Same with speculating about the nature of the cosmos and human existence. Sticking with what we directly experience makes for much better musings.

Like Comte-Sponville, we'd start talking about God and I'd say, "First, let's ask What is God?" If that word, "God," is just a concept with no substantive reality behind it, discussing divinity is like analyzing unicorn behavior.

It's all make believe – though taken with great seriousness by the world's religions. Leaving the purely conceptual froth aside, what we're left with is communing in a community of fellow believers or seekers.

That's what we were doing at the coffeehouse. And that's what billions of people do in their own religious gatherings: enjoy the presence of other people with whom they share a common bond.

OK, I can't resist sharing some Comte-Sponville quotes along these lines.

What binds believers together, as seen by an outside observer, is not God, whose existence is open to doubt; rather, it is their communion within the same faith. Such, according to Durkheim and most sociologists, is indeed the true content or primary function of religion – it favors social cohesion by reinforcing communion of thought and adhesion to the rules of the group.

…The question of faith should not obfuscate the more decisive question of fidelity. Do I really wish to subject my conscience to a belief (or unbelief) that cannot be verified? Do I really wish to derive my morals from my metaphysics and measure my duties against my faith? That would mean giving up a certainty for an uncertainty, an actually existing humanity for an only possibly existing God. This is why I sometimes like to describe myself as a faithful atheist.

…I had given a lecture, somewhere in the provinces, on the idea of a godless spirituality. Among the people who had come up to chat with me after the lecture was a rather elderly man who introduced himself as a Catholic priest (and I saw there was a small golden cross pinned to his lapel). "I came to thank you," he said. "I enjoyed your lecture very much." Then he added, "I agreed with everything you said."

I thanked him in turn, but could not help adding, "Still, Father, I must admit it surprises me to hear you say you agreed with everything I said. Surely you can't agree when I say I don't believe in either God or the immortality of the soul!"

"Oh," said the elderly priest with a benevolent smile, "those are such secondary matters."

Beautiful. And so true. That's why our coffeehouse conversing was so enjoyable yesterday.

We zeroed in on immediate human reality and left the secondary matters – God, guru, soul, life after death – for the conceptualizers.

Get real. Is there anything else to do?

“From Taoist to Infidel” – sounds like me

It's too damn hot here in Oregon today (100 degrees!) to slave over a hot laptop trying to cook up a blog post.

So, thanks to Marcel Cairo, my favorite after life medium (also, the only one I know), I've got a readymade Church of the Churchless sharing for this over-heated Saturday.

Marcel emailed me a link to Richard Carrier's "From Taoist to Infidel," titling his message It could be you.

Yes, indeed. I saw a lot of myself in this essay. And I'll bet a lot of visitors to this blog will see themselves similarly reflected in Richard's journey from Christianity to Taoism to whatever he calls his philosophical leaning now.

His essay was written in 2001. Amazon has a 2005 book by Carrier, "Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism." Naturally, I just ordered it.

In his piece Richard says:

I still cherish the memory of seeing a picture of three holy men travelling a road together, all laughing with each other. One was a Buddhist, another a Taoist, and the third a Confucian. This image is in fact a regular motif in China. There, the three religions, despite being so doctrinally and intellectually at odds, get along peacefully, even happily, a friendship that is celebrated in such artwork everywhere.

A few years ago I also wrote about the "Three laughers at the tiger ravine." Great way to live – with laughter.

(Reading note: I don't like excessively wide web pages filled with text. Really tough to read. The human eye scans narrow columns much more easily, something newspapers know. So make your browser window smaller or narrower, and you'll be able to read Richard Carrier's essay quite a bit more easily.)

Platonic Zen exercises

Not many people find a connection between Zen and Platonism. I do, though these themes are more implicit than explicit in my book about the Neoplatonist philosopher, Plotinus.

So it was a pleasure to hear from someone who resonates with a Greek'ish blend of rationality and mysticism. That would be Nicholas Coleman, head of religious education at Wesley College in Melbourne, who wrote to me recently.

He had kind things to say about "Return to the One," which attracted me to him right off the bat.

Thank you very much for writing Return to the One. The margins of my copy are filling rapidly with affirmations of points well made. Admittedly I'm only up to p.249, but I can no longer resist jotting of this e-mail.

Nicholas went on to talk about his own spiritual approach.

I teach a philosophy of life called "Platonic Zen" which draws together what I've learnt of Perennial Philosophy from combing through the traditions of the West (Plato, Philo, Plotinus (!), Ps-Dionysius, Eckhart, Cudworth, Jung, Schumacher, Schuon, etc) and the East (Gautama, Lao-Tzu, Nagajuna, Shankara, Padmasambhava, Ramana, Chogyam Trungpa, etc) in order to find ideas that help make sense of my own spiritual experience.

The goal of Platonic Zen is for practitioners to attain God-realisation themselves. To that end I've devised five spiritual exercises, the second of which I see clearly echoed in your notion from Sara Rappe (p.30) that a distinction can be realised between the transient contents of consciousness and the consistent container of consciousness (again, that's my adaption of what you actually write).

I asked him to tell me more about Platonic Zen. In a second message Nicholas said:

If I may speak on behalf of the whole of humanity, I think we've generally got the wrong idea about ourselves. Instead of realising what we are, we think we're something that we're not. The ordinary empirical ego convinces us that it's real and in charge of what's happening in the material world. We let it get away with that pretense, although it isn't real and isn't in charge.

Why do we believe its false claims? Because it's easy and attractive to believe them. For they're accompanied by the (equally false) promise of enduring life. We can feel that something unborn in us will live forever and the empirical ego claims to be that unborn something. By believing ourselves to be the ego we think we might live on, not physically but in some kind of essentially ego-centric after-life.

Interesting. And pretty close to how I see things. I asked Nicholas if he'd be willing to share his Platonic Zen exercises. He kindly sent me the first three.

Here they are, in a Word file. Download 123_platonic_zen_exercises.doc

Nicholas asked for feedback on them, so comment away if you feel the spirit. Usually I'm not big on exercises – always skip them when I come across them in a spiritual book – but these are more intriguing than most.

Dobson’s illogical attack on Obama

"Illogical" and "fundamentalist" are so closely associated, it isn't big news when a closed-minded evangelist says stuff that makes me go Huh?

But James Dobson has broken new ground in crazy ass theological reasoning, as described in a CNN story: "Evangelist accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible."

Dobson is righteously pissed at Obama for making terrific religious sense.

In comments aired on his radio show Tuesday, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson criticized the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for comments he made in a June 2006 speech to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal.

In the speech, Obama suggested that it would be impractical to govern based solely on the word of the Bible, noting that some passages suggest slavery is permissible and eating shellfish is disgraceful.

Recently I wrote about Obama's speech, noting that he should get the churchless vote based on his well-reasoned sentiments.

Which, it turns out, also reflect the attitudes of most religious believers. Yesterday the Pew Research Center released more results from a major survey of Americans. Here's an excerpt from a summary, "Religion in America: Non-Dogmatic, Diverse and Politically Relevant."

A major survey by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that most Americans have a non-dogmatic approach to faith. A majority of those who are affiliated with a religion, for instance, do not believe their religion is the only way to salvation. And almost the same number believes that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion. This openness to a range of religious viewpoints is in line with the great diversity of religious affiliation, belief and practice that exists in the United States, as documented in a survey of more than 35,000 Americans that comprehensively examines the country's religious landscape.

That's good news. Because it puts fundamentalists like Dobson in a decided minority, where, the great Tao willing, they'll remain.

Somehow Dobson isn't able to see the absurdity of his theological position. He faulted Obama for referring to Old Testament injunctions, saying they are no longer relevant to New Testament teachings.

OK. So Dobson is fine with picking and choosing what to believe in the Bible. Yet the CNN story goes on to quote Dobson as saying, ""I think he's deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own world view, his own confused theology."

Well, Mr. Dobson, the traditional understanding of the Bible is that it is God's inerrant word, through and through – both the Old and New Testaments.

You just said that much of the Old Testament can be ignored. The stuff that's antiquated or irrelevant. Who decides what parts to ignore, Mr. Dobson? You've got your opinion. Other Christians and Jews would differ with you.

Where's the "fundamental" in your fundamentalism now? Gone. Except you won't recognize it. You should. Particularly if you want to appeal to the clear majority of religious believers.

Most Americans also have a non-dogmatic approach when it comes to interpreting the tenets of their own religion. For instance, more than two-thirds of adults affiliated with a religious tradition agree that there is more than one true way to interpret the teachings of their faith, a pattern that occurs in nearly all traditions. The exceptions are Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses, 54% and 77% of whom, respectively, say there is only one true way to interpret the teachings of their religion.

Well, what would you expect? Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are way out there, even when compared to normal unfounded religious speculation.

Here's more evidence of Dobson's illogical way of looking at the world: he completely misunderstood Obama's call to frame religious beliefs in a universal fashion when debating public policy. Obama has said:

I do make the argument that it's important for folks like myself, who think faith is important, that we try to translate some of our concerns into universal language so we can have open and vigorous debate rather than having religion divide us.

And Dobson mistakenly takes this to mean:

Am I required in a democracy to conform my efforts in the political arena to his bloody notion of what is right with regard to the lives of tiny babies? What he's trying to say here is, unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.

No, Mr. Dobson, that isn't what Obama is saying. Like most zealots, you only hear what fits with your rigid preconceptions. Open your mind – just a crack. Let some reality in.

The Pew Survey shows that most Americans realize that ours is a pluralistic society, religiously and in many other ways. People believe all kinds of things. There's no unanimity of belief even among Christians.

So if we're going to talk and debate with each other, about abortion or any other sensitive social subject, we've got to go beyond narrow theological confines. As soon as you start citing Scripture, I'm going to tune you out. And so are countless other citizens who don't have the same view of the Bible as you do.

How would you like it if I demanded that you agree with the teachings of the Tao Te Ching, because they're obviously the way society should be governed. No debate possible. I'm a Taoist fundamentalist.

That would irk you no end, wouldn't it? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Sound familiar, Mr. Dobson? Check out Matthew 7:12. Some parts of the Bible are worth taking seriously.

Lowering our spiritual center of gravity

I was walking along the Metolius river in central Oregon, semi-lost in thought. Which isn't unusual for me. Like most people, I spend a lot of my day focused on what's going on inside my head.

That's as far from earth level as my six foot bodily consciousness can rise.

Since I've been reading "Tajiquan Theory" in the morning before I meditate, some Taoist lessons came to mind.

Breathe. Focus on your abdominal center, the lower dan tian. Simply be aware. Without thought.

I've heard this in each of the Tai Chi classes that I've been taking for three and a half years. "Rise from above. Sink from below."

Where does that leave you? Centered. Often we carry a lot of tension in our upper arms and shoulders. Letting it go, relaxing the elbows, softening the knees, we settle into a comfortable wu chi stance, rooted.

As in the Tai Chi dojo, so on the riverside trail.

Attention to a few breaths, feeling my abdomen expand on the inhale, contract on the exhale, and my psyche was several feet lower, seemingly. I wasn't teetering along inside wobbly mental confines any longer. Nature and me were much more intimately connected.

That's how I've been feeling ever since I entered my churchless phase: more attuned to the world that exists outside of conceptual thought.

Or at least, on the far edges of it – since I'm not sure that it's possible to completely separate sensation from cognition. The human brain isn't wired in such a dualistic fashion.

It's strange that I hear so frequently, "Brian, you think too much." This advice (or criticism) usually comes from true believers who question my leaving a religious fold. They view themselves as having gone beyond thought into pure spiritual experience.

Yeah, right. I don't see it this way at all. And I feel like I know whereof I speak, because I've been there and done that – the true believing thing.

Belief involves thought. So does faith. Each adds on something to direct experience that isn't naturally there. A complex conceptual superstructure is constructed on top of simple sensation, leaving the psyche top-weighted.

Christians believe in the presence of Jesus. But there's no Jesus actually there in prayer or a church service. Without all the dogma and theology of Christianity, Jesus wouldn't exist. He's only evident when the thought of a believer is active.

Same with guru worship in Eastern faiths, something I know a lot about. The elevation devotees feel in the presence of the guru comes from believing in his (or, rarely, her) divinity. No belief, no elevation.

It's all in the head, another example of top-weighted experiencing. This was the point of my "Did I see God in first class?" post. The ahhhhh from being a few feet away from a purported God-man erupted only from those who believed in him.

By contrast, when I walk along the Metolius there's no believing involved in recognizing the river's beauty. My thoughts keep me from fully experiencing what's really there, rather than being essential ingredients of the experience – as is the case with Jesus or guru worship.

There's nothing wrong with thinking. But when it's the foundation of religious or spiritual faith, we're out of balance, way up there in our own head, not grounded in natural reality.

I'll end with some Alan Watts.

The first element of Chinese Taoist yoga is to stop talking to yourself. Don't explain the world…So one has to get to the nameless state, the nonthinking state, which is called in Chinese wu nien. Wu means "not" and nien means "the heart-mind."

…Now, you will find, if you try, that it is a very difficult thing indeed to stop thinking. "Stopping thinking" doesn't mean to stop using your eyes and your ears and your hands and all your senses. It means that when you see a dog, you don't say "dog" to yourself; you just see what is there. The Buddhists call this the state of suchness.

…When in ancient texts of mysticism you read that it is necessary to go beyond the senses, that necessity can very easily be misunderstood. The texts are not saying that it is the senses – the eyes, the ears, and so on – that falsify.

It is our conceptions of what the eyes and the ears bring to us that cause the falsification…The splendor of a river is that it is the meaning and has none, and there is about it a quality of meaninglessness, of having no meaning and yet being meaning to all nature.

Are you God? Take the test.

Lots of people believe that God can manifest in a human form.

So, why not yours or mine? Speaking for myself (though if I'm God, I'm really speaking for everybody), I'm hugely attracted to the notion that I'm worthy of worship.

Unfortunately, other people aren't as attuned to my potential divinity. Notably, my wife. For eighteen years I've been trying to convince her that the way I load the dishwasher is The Way It Should Be, by divine decree.

For some reason she can't recognize my husbandly perfection. So today I was excited to see a post on the Radhasoami Studies forum, "How to Tell Whether You Are God," anticipating that it could convince my wife that I am.

Big letdown. I scored zero. Here's the test.

Some individuals on this forum may have difficulty discerning whether
or not they are God in Human Form. The following easy test should
help you determine this.

1. Can you fly through the air, without an aircraft? Tornadoes don't
count. If you feel you can do this, try flying from home to New York
City to Los Angeles and back home, to confirm your capability in this
regard.

2. Can you dematerialize and rematerialize at any location, at will,
instantly? Try hopping to Istanbul, Belfast, Moscow, Toronto,
Auckland, Delhi and Ulan Bator.

3. Are you omniscient? Get the closing prices for all stocks on the
major US exchanges for the coming week, and post them on an
investment web site, in advance. Ask the readers to see whether you
are God in Human Form.

4. Can you resurrect the dead? Try resurrecting 14 famous people who
have died in the past year, and while you're at it, cure the medical
conditions (including old age) that caused their death. Then hold a
press conference in which you present them. Make sure to have a
medical doctor present to take DNA samples to confirm their identity.

5. Can you post to the Internet without using a computer? Try it.

6. Can you time-travel? Bring back some extinct species for the
perusal of scientists.

7. Can you materialize objects at will? Go to a homeless shelter, and
materialize one million dollars in $20 bills for each resident.

8. Are you perfect in mind and body? Take an IQ test and see whether
you get the highest possible score. Time how long it takes for you to
run a mile.

9. Are you invulnerable, like Superman? Try going through a wood
chipper.

Scoring: If you pass all the tests, if you are not God, at least you
are a contender. If you missed any questions, sorry!

Though this test is humorous, it's got a serious side. There really are people walking around today who believe that they are God. Many others revere a living human being who is considered to be an incarnation of God.

Yet godly characteristics or abilities are nowhere to be found. That's why I enjoyed this post by ratnagarrao. If God has come down to our level, shouldn't there be something miraculous in the air?

Of course, we can redefine "God" so that the meaning is equivalent to the qualities of whoever claims this title. I've been taking this approach when I tell my wife that how I load the dishwasher is the ideal way it should be loaded.

Then, after I see her shake her head, I step back and let her rearrange the plates, cups, and wine glasses.

Faith healing is child abuse

Religions are dangerous. Nowhere is this more obvious than in cases of child abuse. The Catholic Church is #1 in this area, but to me killing children in the name of faith healing is even more abhorrent.

You can recover from sexual abuse. You can't recover from dying.

Yesterday an Oregon boy died of a urinary tract blockage. A radio news report I heard this afternoon said it's an exceedingly painful way to die. A catheter probably would have saved him.

I hope his Followers of Christ parents rot in hell. I don't believe in hell, but if it exists, parents who kill their children deserve priority admission.

The crazy thing is that Oregon law allows anyone 14 years or older to deny medical treatment. So if the boy had been sufficiently infected with Followers of Christ insanity and refused the catheter, his parents may not be able to be criminally charged.

But they should be, as the parents of a 15 month old girl – members of the same Followers of Christ congregation – have been (also yesterday, coincidentally).

Ava Worthington died March 2 at home from bacterial bronchial pneumonia and infection, according to Dr. Christopher Young, a deputy state medical examiner. He said both conditions could have been prevented or treated with antibiotics.

The child's breathing was further compromised by a benign cyst that had never been medically addressed and could have been removed from her neck, Young said.

That's outrageous. Equally outrageous is how legislators in this country allow ignorant religious loonies to kill their children in the name of their imaginary God.

If people were sacrificing children in the name of an Aztec deity, they'd be punished. But if they do it in the name of Jesus, the law generally looks the other way.

As reported in "A child's death and a crisis of faith," most states give some sort of free pass to religious child abuse.

In all, 45 states offer some legal accommodations in child-protection laws for parents who use spiritual healing, according to the Christian Science church. The laws vary widely, with some states protecting parents or guardians from felony abuse or murder prosecutions, while others exempt prayer practice only in misdemeanor cases, according to Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty Inc., a nonprofit group based in Sioux City, Iowa, that opposes such laws.

Wisconsin has three statutes providing religious healing exceptions: one in the child-abuse laws, one in the laws concerning crimes against children, and one that bars the state from forcing medical care on someone who chooses Christian Science prayer. The state's child-abuse laws were amended in 1987 to say: "A person is not guilty of an offense ... solely because he or she provides a child with treatment by spiritual means through prayer alone for healing." The wording was requested by the local Christian Science government-relations office, according to the Wisconsin Legislative Council, a state agency.

Ridiculous.

Whenever I hear someone say "What's wrong with believing in God?" I think of all the children who have died in the name of faith. Not to mention the countless others who have otherwise suffered at the hands of religious believers.

Feeling the spirit…via body or soul?

Here I am, someone who's pursued spiritual practices for almost forty years, and I can't tell you what "spirit" is. Go figure.

But seemingly such figuring is impossible, because whatever spirit is (assuming that word means anything at all), there's general consensus among mystics, meditators, and metaphysicians that it's something beyond the bounds of rationality, explanation, experimentation.

Just like life, consciousness, and existence – which to me are pretty much synonymous with spirit. Meaning, the foundational aspect of the cosmos, that which there is no deeper which'er. Or, that'er.

For those inclined to going off the deep end, a club I'm proud to belong to, a central question is: Where's the diving board?

The two basic answers are: body and soul.

Some believe that spirit is realized only by going beyond physicality into a more ethereal realm of reality. Meditative exercises are aimed at drawing one's consciousness away from material sensations so that the soul can escape from the cage of the body.

Bad body! Bad body! That's the essential attitude of the soul'arians, though usually the big problem is considered to be one's attachment to the physical frame, not the flesh and bones themselves.

Regardless, spirituality is viewed as an ascent from the crudity of matter into airy skies where the soul can soar freely, unencumbered by bodily ties.

I used to march to the beat of this philosophical drummer. Big time. That was how the Sant Mat cosmology of Radha Soami Satsang Beas viewed reality. And it also was the Neoplatonic teaching of Plotinus, about whom I wrote a book.

Now, though, I lean toward beginning (and maybe ending) with the body. From my social work graduate school days, I remember a central adage: "Start where the client is at."

Well, where I'm at right now is being a body.

Yes, maybe I'm something else also. Soul, spirit, whatever you want to call it. But what I'm aware of currently is physicality (along with recollections of it, which form my dreaming and imaginative realities).

This helps explain why I'm so attracted to Taoism and Tai Chi, which I've been practicing regularly for almost four years. Tai Chi is the bodily expression of some ethereal Taoist philosophy.

But Taoism doesn't find any conflict between spirituality and physicality, since they blend seamlessly into each other. That's the goal of Tai Chi, as described in Yang Jwing-Ming's "Taijiquan Theory."

Taijiqiuan [or Tai Chi Chuan] was created in Daoist monasteries and is a Qigong practice for enlightenment. The only difference is that this Qigong practice can also be applied in martial arts.

The author translates a Tai Chi song or poem:

The purpose of learning Taijiquan is to aim for the comprehension of Taiji and Yin-Yang so (we) are able to reach the Dao [Tao], therefore (allow us) to protect (our body), strengthen (our body), and enjoy longevity. Furthermore, by nourishing and cultivating (our) human nature, (we are) able to reach the final goal of unification of heaven and human spirit.

If spirit is the essence of life (again, assuming "spirit" is something more than a human concept), it makes sense to get in touch with it through the life we're living now.

Thus Tai Chi finds a resonance between heaven and earth, spirit and body, mind and matter, subtle and gross energy. I don't know to what extent this is true, but the notion that reality has gradations rather than sharp distinctions strikes me as pleasingly scientific.

Most religions would have us believe that spirituality is other-worldly, a state to be achieved by denying physical desires, ignoring physical sensations, eschewing physical wisdom.

Well, like I frequently say, maybe. It's just not the way I choose to pursue now.

[Here's the first thirteen pages of "Taijiquan Theory," courtesy of the YMAA website. It's a fine summary of Taoist philosophy, including how Wu Chi, Tai Chi, and Yin-Yang relate.]

Obama recognizes limits of faith

This is a great speech by Barack Obama on the proper place of religion and faith in public policy. He should get the churchless vote with these sentiments. Obama certainly has mine.

I just wish he'd repeat it now, saying the same things he did in 2006, since he has a much bigger audience as the Democratic presidential candidate.

For the broadband impaired (I'm not aware of a transcript of this video), here's some of what Obama said in the five minutes. These aren't quotes, just a summary of main points.

--This is a nation not only of Christians, but also of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, many faiths. It's also a nation of unbelievers.

--In the public arena, we need to focus on universal rather than religion-specific values. Values that everyone can understand and accept, no matter a person's variety of belief or unbelief.

--Arguments about public policy have to be based on reason, not faith. Religion doesn't allow for compromise, but in the public sphere compromise is essential.

--People are tired of seeing faith being used as a tool to attack.

I enjoyed the comments on the Pharyngula post containing the video. Steve liked it, but didn't want any compromising on faith.

Pretty good, up until the end, when he says, "they don't want faith to belittle, they don't want faith to divide."

Faith is inherently belittling and divisive. It belittles the intellect of those who subscribe to it -- "don't think, just believe." It divides, because those who subscribe to faith invariably see their subscription as a virtue, and thus, those who don't subscribe, as lacking that virtue.

Faith sucks completely and utterly and is without a single redeeming feature.

But to hope for a politician to say as much, and remain a viable politician, is to hope for too much, too soon.

So, good enough, and far better than what we've had recently.

For sure. Probably he's referring to Bush, but here's John McCain blathering on about the United States being established as a Christian nation.

I'm praying that he loses. Big time.