Church of the Churchless

Don't be 100% sure about anything, including God and life after death

In the course of looking through old blog posts yesterday to find those related to death, because I'm working on another book based on my writing on that subject, I came to a couple of posts that made me think, in my usual humble way, Dude, these are fantastic! They make so much sense, it's a freaking secular miracle!

So, behold...

Some ten years later, this is still my best guess about God. Also, about life after death, existence, and the nature of the self. Looks like I’ve reached a pretty stable stage of my atheism.

My best guess about God
May 3, 2010

Nobody knows what ultimate reality is, which religious believers call "God." All we have are guesses, some more defensible than others.

Here's mine — after some forty years of delving into mysticism, spirituality, religiosity, and philosophy. Subject to change, of course. If I've learned anything, it's that there's always more to learn. Or guess about.

I'll be as pithy as possible, a shift from my usual wordiness.

(1) God doesn't exist. Not in the sense of an all-knowing, all-powerful personal or individual consciousness. Or even a universal consciousness, though this is more likely than an anthropomorphic God.

(2) The cosmos is, always has been, always will be. In some form or another. Existence always has existed. If you want an eternal "God" to worship, there it is: existence.

(3) It may well be that our universe is just a very small part of the cosmos. But reality is thoroughly natural, not supernatural. Other universes, if they exist, are as natural as ours.

(4) We'll never understand the ultimate laws of nature. Or even know whether they exist. "Ultimate laws" probably is a human conception, not the way things really are.

(5) The biggest problem with being a member of Homo sapiens also is our biggest evolutionary advance: self-awareness. We are aware of being aware. Unlike other animals, we construct an ego, I-ness, by looping our awareness back onto ourselves.

(6) This creates a fear of death, because we know we're going to die. This creates a desire to exist forever, because we can ponder our non-existence.

(7) Thus springs up religion. Along with notions of God, soul, spirit, eternal life, heaven, and such. All are products of a self-created "self," which actually doesn't exist in the sense a stone, sunflower, star, or snake does. It is conceptual, not physical.

(8) Enlightenment — seeing reality as clearly as possible — is recognizing that ego, I-ness, selfhood, individuality, or whatever you want to call it doesn't exist.

(9) We're part of the cosmos. And the cosmos is part of us. We just happen to be beings who can conceptualize ourselves as separate from everything else, which we really aren’t.

(10) So when we die, we're dead, inasmuch as "I" consider myself to be a "Me." But the cosmos continues. And so will I. Just not as me. Whether this is a chilling or reassuring realization depends on how much "Me" is attached to my "I."

I’m confident that there’s no life after death. But not 100% confident. This is the way of science, and also of wise living. Never be absolutely sure about anything. Then you won’t fall prey to rigid dogmatism. And if a cherished belief turns out to be untrue, you’ll be more prepared for this.

Keep open a crack in your belief system
August 31, 2010

Ah, it feels so good to let in the light, to freshen the atmosphere, to relieve the pressure of a claustrophobic enclosure. Not anywhere outside — within our psyche.

All we need to do is keep open a crack in our meaning-of-life belief system, that conglomeration of thoughts, feelings, intuitions, knowings, and what-not which enable us to get out of bed in the morning, move through life with a sense of purpose, and offer us some answers to what's it all about?

Nothing is 100% certain. Including what I just said.

Hey, there might well be something that is 100% certain. So far, though, it isn't apparent. Even the most intensively validated theories of science, such as quantum theory, are considered by the scientific method to always be open to falsification.

So living in touch with reality requires that we remain open to the possibility that whatever we fervently believe to be true, isn't. Otherwise truth could smack us in the face and we'd pretend that we didn't feel a thing.

If you're absolutely sure that God exists, erase the absolutely in your mind. Ditto if you're absolutely sure that God doesn't exist. Double ditto for any other belief that you don't see yourself ever letting go of, or modifying.

Loosen your hold. Lighten your dogmatism. Lessen your certainty.

I'm not saying that we should uncritically embrace every alternative belief path that appears before us. The human mind generally moves along well-trod patterns for good reasons. Sticking with the tried and seemingly true allows us to learn from experience rather than having to figure out again today what was known yesterday.

However, whenever we find ourselves defending some position with unusually rigid zeal, that could be a sign that a retreat is in order. How far we move back from our personal 100% Certain Maginot Line is up to us.

I don't think it matters much how large the doubt gap is. Truth can slip through the eye of a psychological needle, or a wide open mental barn door.

What counts is that some crack exists in the otherwise solid structure of our belief system. This is where the benefits will come from that I mentioned above: lightness of being, freshness of attitude, relaxing of rigidity.

Recently I was lying in bed, about to fall into sleep, with thoughts of what one day will come, death, running through my mind. I mulled over one of my favorite frightening fascinating topics, non-existence.

I recalled how in a conversation with friends a few days ago, someone told a story about an atheist she knew who was in a hospice, close to dying. He kept asking staff and visitors, "What happens next? What happens next?"

Meaning, after death.

Now, since he was an atheist, one would expect that he already had an answer to his own question: nothing. When you're dead, you're dead. No more consciousness, no more existing.

But that prospect can be scary, especially if life feels like it's well worth living. If you're happy being alive, it's only natural to want to hold onto that good feeling for as long as possible.

That's why eternity is so appealing to religiously minded people. They don't believe they'll ever stop existing. To them death is just a transition to an even better life.

I could feel some familiar anxiety arising as I visualized my own non-existence (yes, I know that's impossible). I could tell that it was going to be difficult to fall asleep so long as I felt trapped within the bounds of a reality marked by an absolute finis at the moment of my last breath.

Then I thought, "That isn't absolutely certain. No one knows for sure what happens, or doesn't happen, after death. There's a slight possibility that my consciousness will continue to exist, just as I used to believe.”

Instantly I felt the mental pressure subside, like I'd opened a stress-release valve. I relaxed into a pleasant state of who knows? Sure, I still considered that the vastly most likely possibility is that death is The End.

But allowing even a small likelihood of To Be Continued into my mind changed everything. And the same would have been true if my certainty had been in life after death.

Cracks in belief systems are beneficial no matter what the content of our convictions are. It's never healthy to believe that you can't be wrong. That's egotistical, dogmatic, and, well, wrong.

In one of Huston Smith's books he talks of meeting a Zen practitioner who tells him, "I've got a new koan: I could be wrong.” Beautiful. Fully embrace that koan and it seems like enlightenment would be close at hand.

Another mini-enlightenment visits me on a yoga mat

I'm assuming, and hoping, that my many mini-enlightenments are adding up to an eventual maxi-enlightenment -- in the same way saving spare change found in pockets eventually totals to some real money.

Today I added to my mini-enlightenment score card while standing on a mat in an exercise room at my athletic club where I do some Tai Chi and yoga after doing my elliptical trainer and weight lifting thing.

I decided to take a photo of the just-after-mini-enlighentment moment in case I ever attain maximal Buddha nature, and those who revere me want documentation of something analogous to the Buddha's realization under the Bodhi Tree. Plus, I like how the sunlight illuminated the mat, and how marvelously the color of my Darn Tough socks matched the mat.

Naturally the wisdom that flowed into my psyche as I was doing a yoga movement can't be expressed in language, being an ineffable showering upon me of cosmic truth. 

But I'll try to distill my mini-enlightenment into a few inadequate words.

This, right here and now, that's all there is, and will ever be. Experiencing that truth had an immediate emotional impact on me. Namely, relief.

I recall that I'd been thinking about what to have for dinner, what time the Democratic presidential debate tonight was, and other mundane thoughts. But when my mini-enlightenment hit, I realized that no matter what happens in my life, no matter what I do, no matter if pain, pleasure, or anything in-between becomes my lot -- in a very real sense, it's all the same.

Reality. This. Right here and now.

Sure, the details of here and now are ever-changing. But that everything anyone ever can be aware of is localized in here-and-now was a realization that relieved any pressure on me to be somewhere there-and-then.

Because that place would turn out to be another here-and-now.

And so it goes, for every moment of every person's life, until a last breath brings an end to here-and-nows. (Since I'm a proud atheist, I view life after death as an extremely low probability; greater than zero, but not much greater, like maybe .0001%, or a thousandth of one percent.)

If you want to peruse some of my other mini-enlightenments, the Great God Google has revealed them to me. See here, here, and here. Pleasingly, one of them involves another photo of my legs and feet!

Money laundering case leaves questions about Dhillon family involvement

It's difficult to know what to make of a development in the financial fraud saga involving the Singh brothers, Sunil Godhwani, and Gurinder Singh Dhillon, the guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

Godhwani was the guru's right-hand man and personal financial advisor.

An India Today story (see below) says that India's Enforcement Directorate has charged Shivinder and Malvinder Singh, plus Godhwani, with money laundering. But details are lacking as to how and why this occurred, and who the ultimate beneficiary was of the laundered funds.

Also, the story says that the amount of money in question is only Rs 150 crore, which I believe is about $20 million. Yet the total amount Religare Finvest Ltd. reportedly lost via fraudulently diverted funds was 2,397 crore, or over $300 million. So this seems to be an initial step by the Enforcement Directorate, not a final one. 

The company involved here, Star Artworks Pvt Ltd, was one of 21 entities mentioned in a March 2019 Business Today story that I cited in a blog post, "RSSB guru had better have a big bank balance."

I titled the post the way I did because it's been reported that the Dhillon family was the recipient of hundreds of millions of dollars from companies once controlled by the Singh brothers and Godhwani, money that now is being required to be paid back by Indian courts.

A graphic I included in the blog post indicated that the Dhillon family got huge amounts of money via loans from RHC Holding, a holding company of Malvinder and Shivinder Singh. The address of Star Artworks Pvt Ltd. is the same as RHC Holding Pvt Ltd, which points to the tangled web of shell companies and financial transactions that authorities in India are trying to unravel.

Here's the January 10 India Today story.

The Enforcement Directorate Friday filed a charge sheet against former Fortis Healthcare promoters Shivinder Singh and his brother Malvinder before a Delhi court in a case related to alleged misappropriation of funds at Religare Finvest Ltd (RFL).

The final report, filed before Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav, also named former CMD of Religare Enterprises Ltd (REL) Sunil Godhwani (58) as an accused.

In the charge sheet, filed by ED's Special Public Prosecutor Nitesh Rana, the probe agency has accused all three of money laundering, punishable under sections 3 and 4 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The court took cognisance of the charge sheet and issued production warrant against them for January 20. All the three accused are currently in judicial custody.

The ED also named RHC Holdings Pvt Ltd as an accused in its charge sheet.

It said the accused had acquired proceeds of crime to the tune of Rs 150 crore through Star Artworks Pvt Ltd, derived out of criminal activities and utilised the amount in repayment of its existing liability towards RFL by projecting it as untainted.

"Therefore, accused persons were involved in acquisition and utilization of proceeds of crime generated out of criminal activities and its projection as untainted property, thereby have committed the offence of money laundering as defined under sections of PMLA," said the charge sheet, filed through advocate A R Aditya.

The ED had alleged that both the brothers, along with others, transferred an amount of about Rs 1,000 crore to various persons from entities linked to the corporate loan book and finally, the money was siphoned off.

The EOW registered an FIR after it received a complaint from RFL's Manpreet Suri against Shivinder, Godhwani and others, alleging that loans were taken by them while managing the firm but the money was invested in other companies.

"They put RFL in a poor financial condition by disbursing loans to companies with no financial standing and controlled by them. The companies to which the loans were disbursed willfully defaulted in repayments and caused a loss to RFL to the tune of Rs 2,397 crore," the police had alleged.

RFL said in a press release that since the time the offence took place, the company has undergone a complete revamp of its Board of Directors.

"All efforts continue to be made to rebuild the business, mobilise fresh capital and correct the transgression and legacy issues of the past. The management and internal controls at the Group and all subsidiaries' level have also been revamped, bringing in much needed assurance to employees about a stable and action-oriented management," it said.

On being a Technicolor person in a black and white world

Recently someone sent me a message saying that it had been quite a while since I'd written about Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), the spiritual organization based in India that I was an active member of for 35 years.

This person wanted another RSSB post.

Well, though usually I write about what's on my mind (I have three blogs that represent different parts of my mind), and RSSB rarely makes an appearance in my psyche unless there's some news about the RSSB guru being reported in the Indian financial press, responsive blogger that I am, here's a RSSB-related post.

The theme -- Technicolor people in a black and white world -- popped into my head for a couple of reasons.

One is that when I've talked to journalists in India who want to learn about my history with RSSB and how I view the current guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon, I try to convey to them the "magical thinking" that permeates ardent RSSB devotees and their gatherings, especially when the guru is present. 

Here's how I tried to describe that feeling in a 2005 post, "Bursting belief bubbles."

I used to believe in belief. It felt good to believe that my religious beliefs were better than other peoples’. I recall standing in line at a movie theatre, feeling exactly like someone standing in line at a movie theatre, when I remembered to do my guru-given mantra.

Instantly I thought to myself, “I’m special. I’m unique. I’ve got a spiritual practice known to only a few.” I stood straighter. I looked at the spiritually impoverished human beings around me with proudly compassionate eyes. “Ah, I have something they don’t. How fortunate I am not to be them.”

Now I pray, “God, whatever or whoever the hell you are, burst my belief bubbles and lead me not into self-righteousness. Blessed be reality.”

My believing now is centered around the notion of pressure. This isn’t something I believe in as much as I feel. I no longer like the feeling of being inflated more highly than the surrounding world. It takes too much effort to keep my ego-pump running all of the time.

Once I read on the Internet how members of my spiritual group, Radha Soami Satsang Beas, considered themselves Technicolor people in a black and white world. That’s a telling and accurate image. It is true for virtually all types of religious people, though, not just a few.

That last line still rings true for me, but from my current perspective I'd enlarge it beyond religious people.

Sure, I still think religions encourage their followers to believe that they possess a certain vividness that those who belong to other religions lack. However, so do political parties, sports teams, colleges/universities, corporations, and so many other examples of how we humans collect ourselves into "tribes."

Religiosity really turns up distinctions, though, since true believers have so much at stake. Notably, life after death, heaven and hell, all that sort of stuff. 

I'd try to explain to the Indian journalists how devotees of the RSSB guru create an atmosphere of blind faith that makes it very difficult for ordinary reality to break through their thoroughly indoctrinated minds. I speak from experience, since I used to be one of those devotees.

Every little thing that happens in a gathering where the guru is present can take on an importance that seems ridiculous to those who don't share the RSSB belief system. OMG! The guru looked me in the eyes! OMG! Did you see how he smiled at that lady's question! Etc. Etc.

The thing is, though, that sort of We're so special mentality isn't founded in any sort of objective reality. My wife, who wasn't a RSSB initiate, attended a meeting in Palm Springs where she got to sit in a front row just a short distance from the guru. After the meeting was over, I asked her what she thought of Gurinder Singh Dhillon.

He just seemed like a regular person, she said. Which is true. For most people. But to those who are RSSB devotees, the guru is a hyper-Technicolor person in a black and white world. Otherwise, he's just an ordinary person, as I noted in "Did I see God in first class?"

I may have seen God in first class. The first class section of an Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco to Palm Springs, to be exact. Or, maybe I didn’t.

In the early ‘90s I was traveling from Portland to attend a “bhandara," or spiritual gathering, of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) devotees in Palm Springs. After changing planes in San Francisco I found myself in a right side aisle seat in the coach row directly behind first class, idly watching other passengers board.

A middle-aged Indian gentleman caught my eye. Bearded, he was wearing a white turban and blue jeans. His first class seat was across the aisle and one row up from mine. Before sitting down he glanced around the rear of the plane and our eyes briefly met. Then he took his seat and I returned to perusing a magazine. Nothing special seemed to have happened.

But it had, to quite a few other people sitting near me. For they were Bay Area RSSB members who also were heading to Palm Springs for the bhandara where the satguru (true guru) was to speak. And that Indian gentleman sitting a few feet away from me was the satguru—Master Gurinder Singh.

I began to hear whispers. “That’s him.” “The master is sitting in first class.” “I don’t believe it.” I hadn’t recognized Gurinder Singh, even though I’d seen him before at a bhandara in Vancouver, B.C. Fervent RSSB devotees consider the satguru to be God in human form, much as Jesus is regarded by devout Christians.

The difference being, Jesus is dead and Gurinder Singh was sitting alive and well in an Alaska Airlines first class seat. Imagine that a Christian gets on a plane and sees Jesus seated a few rows ahead of him and you’ll have a pretty good idea of the atmosphere on the flight to Palm Springs—among the RSSB disciples, at least.

I got mildly caught up in the excitement. However, even back then, when I was much more involved—psychologically and otherwise—with RSSB than I am now, I didn’t consider that seeing the satguru was a big deal. And until I made the connection between “Indian man wearing a turban” and “Master Gurinder Singh,” seeing him wasn’t even a small deal.

For I didn’t feel a hint of anything special until the disciples around me started up the “It’s him!” whispering campaign. Wouldn’t you think that if a person truly is God in human form, such would be obvious? Not just to those who already believe in the person’s divinity, but to everyone—believer and unbeliever alike. Jesus, of course, suffered the same lack of recognition. If his purported godliness had been transparently apparent, impossible to deny, by the time he died Jesus would have had a lot more than a handful of followers.

Psychedelic researchers speak of the importance of set and setting in determining the nature of a LSD (or similar drug) experience. “Set” includes the personality of the individual; “setting” includes cultural views about what is real. If someone with a devotional frame of mind joins a group like RSSB that affirms the divinity of a guru, then this person may very well see God sitting in first class. I, on the other hand, just saw an Indian man.

Open Thread 28 (free speech for comments)

Here's a new Open Thread.

Remember, off-topic comments should go in an Open Thread.

This hasn't been happening recently, as some commenters have been using blog posts as a "chat room," basically, so from now on I'm going to vow to do better at not approving comments submitted on a regular blog post if the comment doesn't deal with the subject of the post. 

As noted before, it's good to have comments in a regular blog post related to its subject, and it's also good to have a place where almost anything goes in regard to sharing ideas, feelings, experiences, and such. That place is an Open Thread.

Leave a comment on this post about anything you want to talk about. Remember that I'm moderating comments, so it could take a while for your comment to be published. Almost every comment submitted to an Open Thread will be approved. Personal attacks on someone are an exception. Argue with ideas, not insults.

Though I haven't been doing too well on this, I'll try to remember to always have an Open Thread showing in the Recent Posts section in the right sidebar. If one isn't showing, I've added an Open Threads category in, naturally, the Categories section. You can always find an Open Thread that way.

So if you're a believer in some form of religion, mysticism, or spirituality, this is where you can put your "praise God," "praise Guru," or "praise _______" comments.

Psilocybin helps people die without fear or regret

I'm not a big fan of death.

Being alive strikes me as, well, a heck of a lot more appealing. More than infinitely so, in fact, since the difference between (1) being alive, and (2) dead and gone forever, is the same as the difference between something and nothing. 

How many zeros does it take to equal one? The answer is... not even an infinity, because no amount of nothing can equal even the smallest something.

But since death is inevitable, the next best thing is to not fear it. Or at least, not to fear it too much.

Which is why I've been enthralled by a 60 Minutes episode, Psilocybin Sessions: Psychedelics Could Help People with Addiction and Anxiety. Not just once, but twice, since it was repeated after its initial showing.

Click on that link and you can read a transcript of the episode. Here's some excerpts that include the part I found most interesting, since it dealt with a cancer patient's fear of dying.

For most of us, psychedelic drugs conjure up images of the 1960's. Hippies tripping out on LSD or magic mushrooms. But these powerful, mind-altering substances are now being studied seriously by scientists inside some of the country's foremost medical research centers. They're being used to treat depression, anxiety and addiction. 

The early results are impressive, as are the experiences of the studies' volunteers who go on a six-hour, sometimes terrifying, but often life-changing psychedelic journey deep into their own minds.

...We were told we couldn't record anyone participating in the study while they were on psilocybin because it might impact their experience, but we were shown how it begins – without the psilocybin. 

You lay on a couch, with a blindfold to shut out distractions and headphones playing a mix of choral and classical music – a psychedelic soundtrack with a trained guide, Mary Cosimano, watching over you.

Everything is done the same way it was for the LSD experiments scientists conducted in the 1950s and 60s. Some of the most dramatic results have been with terminal cancer patients struggling with anxiety and paralyzing depression. 

Kerry Pappas: I start seeing the colors and the geometric designs and it's like 'oh this is so cool, and how lovely' and, and then, boom. Visions began.

Kerry Pappas was diagnosed with stage III lung cancer in 2013. During her psilocybin session, she found herself trapped in a nightmare her mind created.

Kerry Pappas: An ancient, prehistoric, barren land. And there's these men with pickaxes, just slamming on the rocks. So… 

Anderson Cooper: And this felt absolutely real to you?

Kerry Pappas: Absolutely real. I was being shown the truth of reality. Life is meaningless, we have no purpose. And then I look and I'm still like a witness, a beautiful, shimmering, bright jewel. And then it was sound, and it was booming, booming, booming. Right here right now.

Anderson Cooper: That was being said?

Kerry Pappas: Yes. "You are alive. Right here right now,  because that's all you have." And that is my mantra to this day.

Kerry Pappas

Later in the segment, Michael Pollan, who took psilocybin in the course of writing his book, How to Change Your Mind, described why he thinks psilocybin has such a potent power to alter someone's perspective on reality. Then Pappas talks some more about how psilocybin has eliminated her fear of dying.

Michael Pollan: It seemed so implausible to me that a single experience caused by a molecule, right, ingested in your body could transform your outlook on something as profound as death. That's-- that's kind of amazing. 

...Michael Pollan: There is a reason [that love is on a Hallmark card]. And one of the things psychedelics do is they peel away all those essentially protective levels of irony and, and cynicism that we, that we acquire as we get older and you're back to those kind of "Oh, my God. I forgot all about love." (Laugh)

Pollan said he also experienced what the researchers describe as ego loss, or identity loss - the quieting of the constant voice we all have in our heads. 

Michael Pollan: I did have this experience of seeing my ego-- burst into-- a little cloud of Post-It notes. I know it sounds crazy.

Anderson Cooper: And what are you are without an ego?

Michael Pollan: You're, uh… (Laugh) You had to be there.

Researchers believe that sensation of identity loss occurs because psilocybin quiets these two areas of the brain that normally communicate with each other. They're part of a region called the default mode network and it's especially active when we're thinking about ourselves and our lives.

Michael Pollan: And it's where you connect what happens in your life to the story of who you are. 

Anderson Cooper: We all develop a story over time about what our past was like and who we are.  

Michael Pollan: Right. Yeah, what kind of person we are. How we react. And the fact is that interesting things happen when the self goes quiet in the brain, including this rewiring that happens.

...Michael Pollan: Maybe the ego is one character among many in your mind. And you don't necessarily have to listen to that voice that's chattering at you and criticizing you and telling you what to do. And that's very freeing.

It was certainly freeing for Kerry Pappas. Though her cancer has now spread to her brain, her crippling anxiety about death is gone.

Kerry Pappas: Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I feel like death doesn't frighten me. Living doesn't frighten me. I don't frighten me. This frightens me.

Anderson Cooper: This interview frightens you, but death doesn't?

Kerry Pappas: No.

It turns out most of the 51 cancer patients in the Johns Hopkins study experienced "significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety" after trying psilocybin. Two-thirds of them rated their psilocybin sessions as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives. For some, it was on par with the birth of their children.  

Kerry Pappas: To this day, it evolves in me.

Anderson Cooper: It's still alive in you--

Kerry Pappas: It's still absolutely alive in me.

Anderson Cooper: Does it make you happier?

Kerry Pappas: Yeah. And-- and I don't necessarily use the word happy. 

Kerry Pappas: Comfortable. Like, comfortable. I mean, I've suffered from anxiety my whole life. I'm comfortable. That, to me, okay. I can die. I'm comfortable. (LAUGH) I mean, it's huge. It's huge.

Sounds good to me. No, more than good. Great!

Which is why I'm hoping that the Oregon Psilocybin Society is successful in gathering enough signatures to put an initiative on the November 2020 ballot that would legalize the use of psilocybin in my state. And then, that voters approve the measure.

Measure 34 will legalize access to “psilocybin services” – also known as psilocybin assisted therapy – statewide.  Psilocybin, currently a Schedule 1 drug, would be administered in licensed therapeutic environments, supervised by trained facilitators. Rooted in research, the service model involves a sequence of sessions, including preparation, psilocybin administration, and integration afterwards. Each client will be screened for contraindications prior to scheduling a psilocybin session. Clients would not need a mental health diagnosis to qualify.

Why science can be trusted

I'm an admirer of science.

My mother played a big part in fostering this when, in my childhood years, she bought me science kits, chemistry sets, and the like. I fondly remember cramming a card table into my bedroom closet, putting a light bulb over the clothing rod, and happily conducting experiments in my very own "laboratory."

Our home also featured a subscription to Scientific American, which I still get, along with the British science magazine, New Scientist. I rarely read religious or spiritual books anymore, because I'd rather learn about reality instead of myths.

But until I finished reading Naomi Oreskes book, Why Trust Science?, I hadn't given much thought to why science has been so effective in learning truths about the world.

Often on this blog I've extolled the virtues of the scientific method. However, early on in her book, Oreskes -- who is a professor of the history of science at Harvard University -- dispelled this as a reason for why science works so well. She writes:

There is no identifiable (singular) scientific method. And if there is no singular scientific method, then there is no way to insist on ex ante [before the event] trust by virtue of its use.

OK. I'll agree with a Harvard historian of science on this point, since obviously she knows much more about the scientific method, or lack thereof, than I do. 

By the way, some Googling of my own blogs revealed that in 2012 I'd written about Oreskes' previous book, Merchants of Doubt, which is about how mercenary scientists aided tobacco and chemical companies in hiding the scientific truth about the products they were peddling, something that is happening now with the fossil fuel industry's attempts to make global warming denialism look reasonable.

So if the scientific method isn't why we should trust science, what is?

This quotation from Why Trust Science? provides an overview of Oreskes' argument. Which basically is that, as the book jacket says, "the trustworthiness of scientific claims derives from the social process by which they are rigorously vetted."

My arguments require a few caveats. Most important is that there is no guarantee that the ideal of objectivity through diversity and critical interrogation will always be achieved, and therefore no guarantee that scientists are correct in any given case.

The argument is rather that, given the existence of these procedures and assuming they are followed, there is a mechanism by which errors, biases, and incompleteness can be identified and corrected. In a sense, the argument is probabilistic: that if scientists follow these practices and procedures, they increase the odds that their science does not go awry.

Moreover, outsiders may judge scientific claims in part by considering how diverse and open to critique the community involved is. If there is evidence that a community is not open, or is dominated by a small clique or even a few aggressive individuals -- or if we have evidence (and not just allegations) that some voices are being suppressed -- this may be grounds for warranted skepticism.

Oreskes gives examples of where science seemingly has gone wrong. However, it turns out that these examples of bad science actually prove her thesis, because in each case there wasn't a genuine consensus among a scientific community -- just a small number of scientists who loudly claimed that something was true which later turned out to be false.

For example, in 1873 Edward H. Clarke, an American physician, argued against the higher education of women because it would cause their ovaries and uteri to shrink, thereby adversely affecting their fertility. Female physicians argued against this at the time, but since most doctors back then were male, Clarke's ideas were given more credence that they deserved.

Thus Oreskes persuasively argues that diversity in a scientific community is important if scientific findings are to be given a rigorous examination that will make them more likely to be defensible.

Our personal experiences -- of wealth or poverty, privilege or disadvantage, maleness or femaleness, heteronormativity or queerness, disability or able-bodiedness -- cannot but influence our perspectives on and interpretations of the world. Therefore, ceteris paribus [all other things being equal], a more diverse group will bring to bear more perspectives on an issue than a less diverse one.

...Put another way: objectivity is likely to be maximized when there are recognized and robust avenues for criticism, such as peer review, when the community is open, non-defensive, and responsive to criticism, and when the community is sufficiently diverse that a broad range of views can be developed, heard, and appropriately considered.

...The key point here is that often "assumptions are not perceived as such." They are so embedded as to go unrecognized as assumptions, and this is most likely to occur in homogeneous communities.

Of course, religious communities rarely exhibit any of the qualities that make science so successful. 

By nature, they are closed, not open. They resist criticism, viewing faith as superior to reasoned argument. They are defensive when their belief system is challenged. And religions are notably reluctant to change their views. 

On the other hand, says Oreskes:

When we observe scientists, we find that they have developed a variety of practices for vetting knowledge -- for identifying problems in their theories and experiments and attempting to correct them.

While these practices are fallible, we have substantial empirical evidence that they do detect error and insufficiency. They stimulate scientists to reconsider their views and, as warranted by evidence, to change them. This is what constitutes progress in science.

Ugh. Brady Breeze says fumble recovery in Rose Bowl was "gift from God."

Well, obviously my 2004 request to God for no more sky-pointing in televised sports events was met with deaf divine ears, probably because God doesn't exist, so has no ears (nor anything else, of course.)

Because here's Brady Breeze, safety for the Oregon Ducks football team (number 25), lifting his eyes skyward, along with his right hand, following his recovery of a fumble by the Wisconsin punter which he ran in for a touchdown.

Being a big Oregon fan, living as I do in Salem, about 60 miles north of Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon, naturally I was thrilled by Breeze's touchdown. And with the nail-biting 28-27 win that Oregon came away with, even though it seemed that Wisconsin outplayed Oregon for most of the game.

But when it came time for Breeze to make some remarks after he was named defensive player of the game, I wish he had kept his questionable theologizing to himself.

Breeze said on ESPN that the fumble recovery was a "gift from God." He then went on to use the word "blessings" several times in the rest of his remarks.

Hmmmmm.

I deeply doubt that Wisconsin players, and their fans, consider that Breeze scooping up the ball for a touchdown was a divine dispensation from God.

Assuming that God exists, for the sake of argument, it seems extremely unlikely that God would look down from heaven and decide that Oregon needed a break at that point of the game, so God made the Wisconsin punter drop the football so Breeze could recover it.

Of course, religious believers typically don't engage in this sort of reasonable logic. They just like to thank God for good things that happen to them, choosing to ignore the fact that often one person's good fortune is another person's bad fortune. 

For example, a believer might say "thank you, God" when a car pulls out of a parking space at just the right time for them to pull into it. Meanwhile, a person in a car behind them is disappointed that they have to keep on looking for a parking space. And both people could be devout Christians.

Here's an idea: religious believers should stop talking about what God does or doesn't do for them, since they have no idea whether (1) God even exists, and (2) what God is up to assuming God's existence. 

Will they act in accord with that good idea? Of course not. But that won't stop me from continuing to criticize sky-pointing and thanking God for fumble recoveries.

Best wishes for an ordinary New Year

Here's my New Year's wish for visitors to this Church of the Churchless blog, myself, and indeed, everybody.

Be ordinary. Do ordinary things. Feel happy in your ordinariness.

I say this because now that I've reached the wise old age of 71, I've realized that overlooking the ordinary that's right at hand for some supposedly extraordinary thing that's around a corner has some serious drawbacks.

One reason is what I talked about in a post last month, Why you should be happy today, right now, no matter what.

Be happy today, right now, at this very moment and every following moment.
Why? Because our future contains only three possibilities. 

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be better than right now.
So be happy! Life will look even brighter soon.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be worse than right now.
So be happy! Enjoy life in this more pleasant present.

Tomorrow, or the next moment, could be the same as right now.
So be happy! Life has brought you some stability. 

I'd like to die with a smile on my face. Problem is, I don't know when I'm going to die. Few people do, aside from those condemned to death, those who commit suicide, and a few other types of predictable deaths. 

Since my life, as is true of almost all other lives also, mostly involves experiencing ordinary things with my ordinary self, it figures that being happy with ordinariness offers the best chance of dying with a smile on my face.

Or at least, with an effort to smile. And if even that isn't possible, with neither a smile nor a frown, but an expression of acceptance.

Another reason is that ordinary things bring considerable pleasure when they are enjoyed for what they are, rather than feeling that we're missing out by not pursuing something extraordinary. 

Here's an excerpt from a 2018 post, "Happiness lies in ordinary things." This is a quote from a TIME magazine essay by Meg Wolitzer in a special issue about the science of emotions. 

At this point, being happy is about having the space to appreciate the ordinary things that do in fact make me "happy," though at first glance they might not be seen that way. 

An absence of chaos; an absence of phone calls with disturbing news; an absence of business emails that up-end your day and demand attention right then and there; no acutely ill parents; no fragile children calling shakily from college.

Being able to sit down with a glass of wine and some really good, tiny little olives with your husband; having a nice meal with your kids that's not rushed or fraught.

These seem like small things, perhaps pedestrian things, but I protect them fiercely, knowing that on the other side of an imaginary wall waits the possibility that all of them will soon be gone and that something terrible will replace them.

But I no longer quake in fear.

I used to think that happiness was something a person was so lucky to find that, like Lord Voldemort (a.k.a. He Who Must Not Be Named), it should never actually be mentioned. Now, with happiness taking on a new, modest cast, the fear of losing it is smaller too.

You might think: Good god, woman! This isn't happiness. Happiness has wild colors and flavors; it involves bodies draped across a bed, or things that come in gift wrap. Or even, once in a while, Carvel. Don't you want any of that?

Of course I do.

But being allowed to enjoy some of the more modest pieces of my life happens right now to be my own personal Carvel; my own dachshund, gift-wrapped present, snow day and secret lover. Perhaps for most of us -- or anyway, for me -- happiness has gotten smaller over time, becoming endlessly and exquisitely refined, though somehow never diminished.

Lastly, I'm continually impressed by the marvelous grace and courage of ordinary people. There's no need to look for heroes anywhere else but next door. I'll offer up two examples from my ordinary life.

Here's a Facebook post from a woman I've known here in Salem, Oregon for many years. She's one of the sweetest, gentlest people I've ever come across. When she was diagnosed with lung cancer, even though she'd never smoked, this was a big shock to me and her many other friends.

Yet yesterday she wrote:

What a year! 13 months ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. I haven’t written about it because I know that many deal with worse, and the world is beset with larger problems than what I face.

But, at the end of 2019 I’d like to share what these harrowing months have taught me.

Despite pain and fear, illness and uncertainty, 6 hospital trips, harsh chemotherapy, infections, being too sick to work - or sometimes even to eat - I have learned gratitude for each and every day. Maybe this is surprising, maybe it isn’t.

I have been amazed at how many have been generous to me, and how many have been kind to me. How many have donated time, resources, advice and food. THANK YOU, thank you!

Also - I can’t remember ever enjoying each day more, or feeling more gratitude for the multitude of sights and sounds, large and small, that make up my life. I can’t remember ever appreciating more the wonders that each day brings.

Scans show the cancer is growing, but I mostly feel pretty good these days, and keep hope alive. While my prognosis is not what I want, I understand that ultimately we all have the same prognosis.

I celebrate knowing you! I wish you a happy and meaningful 2020!

Those words are more inspiring to me than anything I've read in a religious book, or heard from a religious person. They're the words of an ordinary person dealing with their troubles in an amazingly courageous way.

Then, my wife came home a little while ago from her New Year's Eve stint as a volunteer dog walker at our local Humane Society. She told me about a man on her shift who "walks" dogs even though he is in a wheelchair.

This can be difficult for him even on nice days, since some dogs are strong pullers on their leash, so can take him for an unwanted ride before he can get them under control. Today it rained heavily for much of the dog-walking shift. 

He didn't have a jacket with him, so even though my wife helped him find a jacket he could borrow, it wasn't waterproof. And his knees got soaked anyway from sitting in his wheelchair while walking dogs in the rain. Yet this man is one of the more dedicated dog walkers.

An ordinary man. Doing an ordinary thing. Yet in such an admirable way. 

I aspire to being as good a person as the woman with stage 4 cancer, or the man who walks dogs with a wheelchair. I have no interest in emulating saints, gurus, holy men/women, or any other religious personage.

I just want to learn from ordinary people who are able to live their lives with love, peace, acceptance, and courage.

I agree with Alan Watts. Except when I don't.

Below is a quotation from Alan Watts that someone emailed to me, asking what I thought of it. I've shared my response after the quotation, but I want to add on a few additional thoughts that came to mind after re-reading what Watts said.

I completely agree with Watts that there's a time and place for fully immersing ourselves in the lush sensuality of the world without putting on unnecessary coverings of thoughts, concepts, abstract ideas, and such.

Likewise, a warm bath or hot sauna feels best when completely naked.

But note my use of the word "unnecessary." Sometimes it makes sense to think while we're engaged in sensing the world. And sometimes it doesn't. Also, there are gradations of thinking, from mild to intense.

So it depends. There's no way to specify what "it" and "depends" refer to, because people are different; situations are different; so many other things can be different. 

In the first paragraph, Watts speaks of "giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system."

YES! On this I heartily agree with Alan Watts.

Which means that what Watts says below can't be taken in any fixed way, nor can what I say in this blog post, nor can anyone else's ideas about anything. All we can do is do our best in any given situation. 

As one of my elementary school teachers, Eleanor Marshall, liked to say: Do your best. Angels can do no better.

Here's the quote from Watts:

Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system.

It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it. This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes, in the same way that one can listen to music without asking what it says or means.

This is actually a turn-on, a state of consciousness in which the past and future vanish (because they cannot be heard) and in which there is no audible difference between yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other, or, as in breathing, between what you do and what happens to you.

Without losing command of civilized behavior, you have temporarily "regressed" to what Freud called the oceanic feeling of the baby, the feeling that we all lost in learning to make distinctions, but that we should have retained as their necessary background, just as there must be empty white paper under this print if you are to read it.

When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation, a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas.

If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real. ~Alan Watts

And here's what I said in my email reply.

I sort of understand what Watts is saying here, but it doesn’t make much sense to me. 

We adults are not babies. We can’t regress ourselves back into a baby-like state where we lack words, concepts, and such. I can’t look at my coffee mug without thinking, “I just drank coffee out of it.” Viewing it simply as a blueish object with a semi-circular thingie on one side seems exceedingly backward and counter-productive.

It’s a coffee mug with a handle.

Sure, I enjoy going on dog walks and doing Tai Chi with minimal thinking. But minimal doesn’t mean non-existent. In the back of my mind there’s an awareness of where I am and what I’m doing that involves words and concepts. I see no problem with this.

I read a lot of books about neuroscience. There’s no such thing as “pure awareness.” The brain is actively engaged in making sense of the senses, so to speak. Our past experiences with something inform how we view that something now. This isn’t a problem. It’s a feature of how the human brain makes sense of reality.

In my view, we shouldn’t be trying to regress ourselves into an infantile state. Instead, we should use our current adult consciousness as a springboard to become wiser, more compassionate, kinder, more caring.

That said, I should have noted in my response that Watts spoke of listening to our verbal inner dialogue "as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic."

This is close to my understanding of what mindfulness practices teach, though Watts is more extreme in his disavowal of concepts and thoughts. There's nothing wrong with thoughts. There's nothing wrong with concepts. There's nothing wrong with the words we speak inside our head. 

(Most people do this. However, I've read that some people lack inner speech, substituting images, intuitions, and such for words spoken to ourself.)

My problem with what Watts said in the quotation above is that while he claims that his goal is to be "open to reality as it is actually and directly felt," seemingly he wants to ignore the reality of thoughts, concepts, and abstract ideas when they are directly felt within one's brain. 

Mindfulness means being open to everything we experience. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Thoughts and thoughtlessness. Emotions. Sensory impressions. And so much more. Our goal is to be as non-judgmentally aware as possible of what is within and without us.

This leads to living life more vividly. It doesn't mean that we welcome everything that happens, or give up our hopes for our life to change in certain ways. It simply means that, as Watts correctly said, we open ourself to reality as it is.