Church of the Churchless

Brother of Jesus ossuary hoax

Poof! There goes one of the few pieces of evidence that Jesus actually existed, a two thousand year-old box inscribed with "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." A few days ago Israel indicted four antiquities collectors for forging artifacts, among them this ossuary that supposedly contained the bones of Jesus’ brother.

What intrigues me most about this story is what it says about Christianity. The discovery of this box a few years ago was big news. Not so much for its archaeological significance, as a “60 Minutes” piece about the ossuary that we saw recently said that these burial boxes are commonplace. Rows of them were shown stacked in some museum storage area.

Rather, interest in the “James, brother of Jesus” ossuary was extreme because it would have been the earliest evidence outside of the Bible of Jesus’ existence. Christianity is nothing without Jesus, so if the ossuary were real, this would have offered indirect proof of the reality of the religion whose core is Christ. But the inscription on the box wasn’t real. So Christianity remains resting on a shaky foundation of gospel accounts whose veracity never can be proven.

Is this any way to run a religion? The Western religions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism—are dependent on revelations. If people—Jesus, Muhammad, Moses—hadn’t revealed the nature of God to the faithful there wouldn’t be any substance to those faiths. So the historical existence of these founders is central to the theology of each religion. Imagine Christianity without Jesus, Islam without Muhammad, Judaism without Moses. Would you still have a vital religion?

On the other hand, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism are pleasingly complete without the presence of any particular human revelation. Though bearing the name of the Buddha, even Buddhism can stand comfortably on its own without leaning on the person once known as Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhists say, “If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him?” Can Christians say the same about Jesus?

A religion should be able to provide universal answers to universal questions. What is the nature of God or ultimate reality? How can this highest truth be known? What is the relation of human beings, us, to existence as a whole, the cosmos? If answers to such queries can only come through the unique experience of particular people, then they aren’t real answers.

Science is much wiser in this regard. Physicists don’t worship Einstein because he revealed the theory of relativity. The laws of nature are independent of anyone’s knowledge about them. If Einstein hadn’t discovered the relativistic nature of space and time, someone else would have.

Similarly, a true spiritual science doesn’t focus on the “professor” who teaches about divine truth. This prophet, master, guru, saint, guide—whatever you want to call him or her—is separate from the truth being taught. Reality exists whether or not someone is speaking or writing about it.

Christianity, if it is true, should be independent of Jesus Christ. That statement will sound strange to most Christians, which indicates how shaky is the foundation of Christianity. If the rock-bottom truth of the cosmos is considered to depend on whether a particular person really lived and died two thousand years ago, then we haven’t gotten down to the heart of reality.

Here’s an article from the New York Times about the hoax:

Ramana: Simplicity

Ockham’s razor is a rule in science and philosophy that the simplest explanation is the best. Extending this principle to religion and spirituality, Ramana, a twentieth-century Indian mystic, shines.

Only recently did I began reading Ramana seriously. I wish I had done so earlier. I’d always thought that the Vedanta teachings which form the core of Ramana’s message were intellectual and complex. They can be, if a complex intellectual tries to communicate Vedanta.

But when the teachings are described by Ramana in the lively question and answer format of “Talks with Ramana Maharshi,” the highest form of Vedanta is revealed as marvelously simple and practical. This is Advaita, literally “not two.”

What could be simpler than one?

Advaita finds unity at the core of the cosmos. So does science. Or, at least this is what science expects to find. The quest of physicists is for the theory of everything that is the root explanation of the universe, not for the theories of everything.

Ramana’s teachings thus have an appealing scientific flavor. This is in contrast to most other spiritual paths and every religion, which expect you to believe in things that defy rational explanation or direct experience. Why? Because any faith founded on dualism necessarily posits a gap between the believer and what is believed.

If I believe in God, there obviously are two entities involved here: “I” and “God.” Given this situation, confirming my belief gets complex. Somehow I have to narrow the divide between me and divinity so what now is just a subjective idea or emotion for me becomes an undeniable objective fact.

So spiritual systems generally proscribe dogmas and theologies that amount to marching orders. Do this, don’t do that; follow this course, not that one. If the believer follows directions and treads the spiritual path in the correct manner, then the promise is that he or she someday will arrive at God’s doorstep (taking “God” to mean ultimate reality, not necessarily a personal being).

The more steps you’re asked to take, the more potential missteps there are. This is why I’m much attracted to Ramana’s simplicity. He says that all of Vedanta can be summed up in two Biblical passages: “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14) and “Be still, and know that I am God!” (Psalms 46:10).

Eckhart: Detachment

Today the birth of God’s son is celebrated. Most people think this child of the Father is Jesus. Meister Eckhart, the medieval Catholic mystic theologian, suggests another possibility: it is each of us.

I find this idea much more palatable and convincing than the traditional notion that Jesus somehow was born miraculously by a virgin woman so that he could die for our sins. Eckhart considers that “virgin” really means “someone who is free of all alien images, as free in fact as that person was before he or she existed.”

This conception points us toward a state of consciousness that everyone can achieve, not just Jesus. There are many problems with modern Christianity. One of the worst is its emphasis on stories of the past rather than transformations of the present.

As we note frequently here at the Church of the Churchless, most Christians feel that if they merely believe in the divinity of Christ, that’s enough: believe and you’re saved. The exact mechanism by which salvation takes place is a mystery. How could the death on a cross of someone over two thousand years ago alter the course of someone’s life (and afterlife) now? What connection is there between the soul of Jesus and the soul of you or me?

Eckhart asks “Where is he who is born King of the Jews?” He answers, “This birth takes place in the soul just as it takes place in eternity, no more and no less. For there is only one birth, and this takes place in the essence and ground of the soul.”

So the virgin birth of God’s son didn’t only happen to Mary in the manger. This is just a metaphor and not to be taken as a historical fact. A recent article in Newsweek, “The Birth of Jesus,” points out that the four gospels don’t tell a common story about Jesus’ birth. How could they? There is no real evidence that Jesus ever spoke of how and where he was born, and neither Mary nor Joseph is cited as a direct source. A court of law would say that the whole Christmas story is hearsay and not to be trusted.

A Christmas memory of my mother

My mother died in April, 1985. Around Christmas that year I shared some feelings about her with friends and family. I tucked that message away in a Bible that I had given her on her birthday shortly before she died. I’ve only looked at what I wrote a few times in the past twenty-odd years.

Something made me pull it out just now. The book I quote at the end is Sir Edwin Arnold’s translation of the “Bhagavad Gita,” a favorite of mine. And of hers. This is a Hindu holy book, but it conveys a universal Christmas message: the joy of eternal life. Here’s the 1985 Christmas memory of my mother, Carolyn Hines, that is still alive in 2004:

“She is not here, yet she is.
She has given us life, and memories, love and caring.
She taught us honesty, respect for knowledge, how to live simply.
Words cannot express how we feel about her.
The quiet warmness in our hearts speaks much better.

Christmas may be a little sadder without her.
But I wonder for whom I’m shedding tears—she or me?
Her life was full, not always happy, but lived well.
Mother was graced with friends, and family, and Bill
Who made her last years in Three Rivers as she wanted them.

Waking up to the sun coming over the high mountains.
Feeding the cat and Patch. Watching “Good Morning America.”
Playing golf and rooting for the Giants to win the pennant…year after year.
Arguing with Bill about politics, the weather, history, whatever—
And loving every minute of it.

We may not have chosen her life for ourselves.
But it was wonderful to see it fit her like an old pair of slippers.
Scuffed up, worn, out-of-style, and so very comfortable.
Mother was a searcher of truth and knowledge
Whose lack of interest in material things reflected her higher leanings.

I wish that she could have found more of what she was looking for.
However, these searches do not end—hers, and ours, continues.
Mother found great inspiration in a spiritual book I loaned her when Grandma died.
She underlined these passages and told me often how much they meant to her.

To me they are the real Christmas message.

Never the spirit was born; the spirit shall cease to be never;
Never was time it was not; End and Beginning are dreams!
Birthless and Deathless and changeless remaineth the spirit for ever;
Death hath not touched it at all, dead though the house of it seems!

Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away,
And taking new ones, sayeth, “These will I wear today!”
So putteth by the spirit lightly its garb of flesh,
And passeth to inherit a residence afresh.

How, if thou hearest that the man new-dead
Is, like the man new-born, still living man—
One same existent Spirit—wilt thou weep?

Happy Holidays and a Joyous New Year
Much love, Brian”

Reality is the best religion

Is religion isn’t real, what good is it? Not much. Admittedly, believing in something that isn’t real can make you feel better and offer consolation when life is tough. It is easier to accept a tragedy if this is taken to be “God’s will.” And instead of feeling powerless to change an unfortunate situation, many people embrace prayer as a way to call a higher power into action.

Similarly, children ask Santa Claus to bring them presents from the North Pole. They also put newly lost baby teeth under their pillows and expect that the Tooth Fairy will reward them. What difference is there between a childish belief in beings for whom there is no evidence of reality, and an adult belief in a God who can’t be proven to exist?

As we grow older, we should become wiser. The essence of wisdom is knowing the difference between reality and unreality. There’s nothing wrong with embracing fantasy—this is a creative wellspring for artists and writers—but let’s not call this wisdom. Socrates was fond of pointing out that a wise person knows when he doesn’t know something, while a fool is ignorantly confident of his false conceptions.

I recently watched a Bill Moyers interview of the renowned zoologist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins spoke eloquently about how the richness of reality is sufficient to keep us enthralled for the rest of our individual lifetimes, and likely for the lifetime of humanity as a whole. Science has learned much about reality, but with every step forward on the path of knowledge more mysteries come into view.

I love this quote from the physicist John Wheeler: “We live on an island of knowledge surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does our shore of ignorance.” Human ignorance is going to expand naturally as our ability to contact reality in more breadth and depth grows. When the first interstellar explorers begin to survey the 100 billion or more stars in the Milky Way galaxy, the truth that we know astoundingly little about even our own immediate environs in the universe will hit home.

It is crazy, then, that so many Americans choose to deny what is already known about reality. If someone starving were to throw away the few morsels of food in his possession because he believed that the mirage of a banquet could sustain him, we’d say “That guy is out of his mind.” So what should we say about the 55% of Americans who, according to a recent poll, believe that God created humans in our present form?

Obviously, they are out of their minds, at least in this regard. The scientific evidence for evolution is unquestionable. To call it a “theory” is the same as calling the law of gravity a theory. Significant details remain to be worked out in each case (for example, no one knows how to meld quantum theory and relativity theory when it comes to gravity), but there is no doubt that life has existed on Earth for some 4.5 billion years and that Homo sapiens is a twig on a marvelously branching evolutionary tree whose root is a common single-celled ancestor.

If people’s unfounded religious beliefs about creation stayed within their own deluded minds, that would be tolerable. It would be injurious to American society to have over half the population so misinformed about the nature of reality, but as long as this ignorance didn’t broadly spill over into our nation’s politics and culture, I’d say “everyone to his own opinions, even when they are ridiculous.”

But this same poll showed that Bush voters are much more gullible than Kerry voters. Only 47% of Kerry voters believe that God created humans in our present form, while 67% of Bush voters do. Similarly, 45% of Bush voters believe that creationism should be taught in schools instead of evolution, while only 24% of Kerry voters hold this extreme unscientific opinion.

This is scary. Two thirds of those who voted for Bush are woefully out of touch with some basic facts about reality. Many, if not most, of them also believe that the Earth is less than ten thousand years old, an error of a mere five billion years or so. Dawkins pointed out that a majority of Bush supporters also are convinced that evidence for weapons of mass destruction has been found in Iraq.

Not surprising. If you take your religion on faith, then you will find it easy to take your politics on faith also. This is the secret of Bush’s success: he has tapped into a goldmine of American fundamentalist credulity.

If Karl Rove prays at all, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he regularly gets on his knees and says, “Dear God, thank you for rendering inoperative the critical thinking of those who have blind faith in you. This is what got us over the top on November 2. It enables us to pursue policies that would be rejected as out of touch with reality if, god forbid, a majority of the American electorate cared about what is real.”

The more a religion is based on unreality, the more dangerous it is—both for its followers and the unbelievers who are affected by what the followers do in the name of their fantasy God. My own prayer is that more and more people will come to accept that any religion which requires a rejection of physical reality isn’t worth following. Spirituality has nothing to do with matter; it has everything to do with spirit. There is no reason why scientific knowledge about the material universe should conflict with any truly spiritual practice.

Being open to the possibility of knowing things unseen shouldn't blind us to the truth of what is right before our eyes.

On a lighter note, I keep having an image of a cool t-shirt that says, “Reality is my religion.” Maybe I should stop fantasizing about it and make it, well, a reality. But, being a born-again procrastinator, I’ll probably never get around to it. Any entrepreneur who wants to take my idea and run with it, feel free. I’d even buy your first t-shirt (size: XL) and proudly wear it to unchurch.

Vivekananda: Strength

In my “Five Books to Support the Churchless” post, I said I’d share what I like most about the teachings of Vivekananda, Ramana, Eckhart, Plotinus, and the anonymous author of “The Cloud of Unknowing.” Each points toward the same spiritual goal, unity with the ultimate reality of God. Yet I find that each emphasizes a different quality needed to become one with the One.

For Vivekananda the quality is strength. In his presentation of the ancient, yet still new, Vedanta philosophy he continually urges us to realize that there is nothing to fear. Only in duality can fear exist. I am only afraid of things that are not me, whether they be immaterial or physical. An attacker who tries to steal my wallet isn’t me. A cancer that upsets my body’s health isn’t me. An obsessive thought that won’t leave my mind isn’t me.

Or so I believe. Maybe, says Vivekananda, all these things really are me. For if the cosmos truly is one, not many, then there is no “other” to fear. This is the highest teaching of Vedanta, unqualified monism.

A dualistic religious perspective that sees God as separate both from nature and the human soul has to grapple with the problem of evil. “How,” Vivekananda asks, “is it possible that under the rule of a just and merciful God, the repository of an infinite number of good qualities, there can be so many evils in this word?”

The Hindus, he answers, never put the blame on God or on a separate Satan. Instead, they hold the eminently scientific view that effects spring from causes in a never-ending chain. Vivekananda says, “Therefore no other person is needed to shape the destiny of mankind but man himself….’We reap what we sow.’”

So here is one source of strength, the fact that each of us creates our own destiny. If we don’t like the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we can do something about it. Fresh causes will led to fresh effects. It isn’t necessary to passively wait for God to save us from our suffering, for our own actions have created both our joys and our despairs. What we have created, we can change.

But Vedanta goes farther than this dualistic idea that the entity known as “me” can cause effects in “not-me” that will then alter my condition (for example, if I am nice to people they will be nicer to me, thereby making me happier).

Vivekananda says, “The real Vedanta philosophy begins with those known as qualified non-dualists. They make the statement that the effect is never different from the cause; the effect is but the cause reproduced in another form. If the universe is the effect and God the cause, it must be God Himself; it cannot be anything but that.”

This means that the universe is the body of God, just as the flesh and bones writing or reading these words is the body of me or you. As the soul is considered to be immanent in the human body, so is God immanent in the body of the entire universe. Bodies come and go, whether they be individual forms or entire universes (the Big Bang may culminate in a Big Crunch), while souls and God remain unchanged forever.

So this qualified non-dualist philosophy encourages even greater strength in you and me. At heart we are not weak, isolated, limited beings who are born, live for a brief spell, and then die. We have the capacity to realize our oneness with the All—God. Vivekananda says, “There is not a particle, not an atom in the universe, where He is not. Again, souls are all limited; they are not omnipresent. When their powers become expanded and they become perfect, there is no more birth and death for them; they live with God for ever.”

Yet Vedanta urges that even this exalted conception of the soul be expanded. This is non-dualistic Vedanta or Advaita, “not two.” Namely, one. According to Vivekananda this is where human thought finds its highest expression. “It is too abstruse, too elevated,” he says, “to be the religion of the masses…It is difficult for even the most intelligent man or woman in any country to understand Advaita—we have made ourselves so weak; we have made ourselves so low.”

According to Advaita the truth is that there aren’t many souls in the universe. There is only a single soul: the Self. From one perspective this is God, Brahman. From another perspective it is an individual soul, Atman. Regardless, there is no difference between God and the soul, Brahman and Atman. All is One.

Vivekananda says, “The whole of this universe is one Unity, one Existence—physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually. We are looking upon this one Existence in different ways and creating all these images upon it.”

Who then should we worship? A God far off in the heavens? No. A savior sent by God to redeem us? No. A natural world separate from ourselves? No. A book, icon, holy relic, place of pilgrimage, or other sacred object? No. Advaita Vedanta teaches that the only entity worthy of our worship is wonderfully close at hand:

Our own Self.

I’ll let Vivekanada explain this bold assertion in his own words. As you read them, feel the strength within you. I love how he reminds us that we have been beaten down for so long by religions that weaken us, we have lost touch with the power of the soul that is our birthright. And also our deathright. That power can’t be taken away from us, even though most of us have voluntarily surrendered it.

Take it back. Become spiritually independent. Let the energy of the cosmos flow through you, for it is you.

[All of the excerpts in this post are from “The Atman,” a talk delivered by Vivekananda in Brooklyn, February 2, 1896]

Religion should unite, not divide

Laurel, my wife, was moved to write a meaningful short essay yesterday: “Religion Should Unite, Not Divide.” Like me, she’s been disturbed by all the fundamentalist-inspired divisiveness evident of late. Well, also evident of early, for as long as there has been religion, there has been religious intolerance and inhumanity.

We both believe that the only way to be spiritual is to be non-religious. Religion is mostly about belief; spirituality is mostly about experience. A disturbingly large percentage of purportedly religious people don’t practice what they preach. They claim to aspire to unconditional love, then vote to discriminate against homosexuals. They claim to renounce unjustified killing, then proudly support the slaughter of innocent people in Iraq.

Laurel says in her piece that if the unity of God truly is the goal to which religious believers aspire, then churches and other places of worship should be an earthly reflection of this oneness: “If this were the role of religion, the only valid religious teachings would be those which teach love, acceptance, and unity with all people.”

Well said. As much as I like the meetings of the spiritual group I attend most Sunday mornings, I cringe inwardly every time I hear a speaker say, “We are so fortunate to be among the chosen few who have been blessed to return to God.” Laurel, entirely appropriately, frequently teases me about this divisive attitude.

Putting on her best Saturday Night Live “Church Lady” voice, she will say to me: “You’re saved, but Satan has doomed me to hell!” “Yes, you’re right,” I’ll reply with tongue firmly in my cheek, “But I’ll try to put in a good word for you when I see God.”

We joke about how almost every religious or spiritual group, including Radha Soami Satsang Beas (Science of the Soul), which I’ve been a longtime member of, considers that its followers, and they alone, are the “chosen people.” If you add up all the supposedly chosen people in the world—Christians, Jews, Muslims, and members of other exclusive sects—the unchosen such as Laurel are in the minority. (I recently wrote about this “all believers are above average” strangeness in “You’re religious, but are you right?”

Here is Laurel’s essay, which she has submitted to our local Salem Monthly alternative publication. As she says at the end of the piece, we’re thinking about forming a Church of the Churchless group here in Salem which would meet in physical reality instead of the blogosphere. If you’re interested in being part of such a group, send us an email.

What’s in a name?

Jesus. Buddha. Mohammed. Moses. Sankara. It’s interesting that each of these great sages of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism is known by one name. Ditto with God, Allah, Brahman. In spirituality, simple names seem to go with profound people and ultimate concepts.

This came to mind after I got an email message from a Indian man in England with whom I had previously corresponded. He apparently had read my “God’s here, but I’ve got to go” post where I reminisced about having to pee really bad while sitting in the midst of tens of thousand of devotees attending a guru’s discourse.

Given the spiritual stature of this guru, I compared this dilemma to a Christian hearing Jesus preach after a Second Coming. What is the etiquette of getting up to go to the bathroom when you’re in the presence of a purported god-man?

The message, though, raised another point of etiquette. I had referred several times to the guru as Charan Singh. My correspondent asked that I add “Master” or “Maharaj” before the proper name, as he said “In Indian terms it seems too rude to address the great personality by name.”

I understood this concern. Indians exhibit a wonderful courtesy and respect toward spiritual leaders. And usually toward everybody, in fact. I admire what can only be called this “old world” decorum, which I’ve always assumed stems both from thousands of years of acquaintance with great religious/mystical personages, and the more recent influence of British good-manners.

My first impulse was to revise the posting to say “Master Charan Singh.” But then I thought more deeply about what’s in a name. It happens that today, December 12, is the guru’s birthday. If he were present in my living room at this moment, and we were intimate friends, what would I say in the song: “Happy birthday, dear ______, happy birthday to you”?

Personal names do matter. They aren’t reality, but they reflect how we relate to reality. I call my wife “Laurel,” not “Mrs. Hines.” In an intimate relationship, intimate names are used. And what is more intimate than one’s connection with the ultimate reality often called “God,” or with spiritual teachers who point the way to the highest truth?

So I’ve gone back to the posting in question and made sure that every reference to the guru says simply “Charan Singh.” To my mind this isn’t disrespectful; it is what this great mystic would have wanted. The most spiritual people are the most humble people. They don’t want to be elevated about the rest of us, though we often make the mistake of doing just that.

Charan Singh once was asked, “Master, what is the proper way to pronounce ‘Maharaj Ji’? And what is the proper salutation in corresponding with you?” He replied: “I do not believe in any ritual, any salutation or any formality. You can write to me any way you like and greet me in whatever way it suits you. These words do not make any difference.”

I’m becoming increasingly convinced that the essence of spirituality is figuring out what makes a difference and what doesn’t. Words don’t have anything to do with the person I really am. Give me any name and I am still who I am, no more and no less. Same with Charan Singh or anyone else, all the way up to “God.”

George Bush is George Bush. Adding “President” in front of his name doesn’t alter who he is or what political position he holds. We understand this when it comes to worldly people, but I’ve found that religious believers are touchier when it comes to titles. I used to be this way myself—feeling that I was being disrespectful if I didn’t add some highfalutin title to a spiritual teacher’s name.

In Indian philosophy you sometimes see references such as “Param Sant Sat Guru Hazur Maharaj [name] Ji.” This can be roughly translated as “highest saint and true kingly guru [name].” Well, if such is true then [name] seemingly should suffice to describe the person. A simple mention of “Einstein” is enough to bring up many positive adjectives in most people’s minds: brilliant, scientist, ground-breaking, Nobel prize winner, and so on.

Impressive titles are, not surprisingly, generally used by people who want to impress. Sometimes this is the titled person himself or herself. Sometimes it is others who are associated with him or her. Just as there can be a certain reflected glory in working for the First Vice-President for the Northwest Region of Consolidated Industries, so can a similar warm glow arise by feeling that you are a follower of Greatly Exalted Spiritual Leader so-and-so.

Still, there’s nothing wrong with using titles less egotistically as a show of respect. But there’s nothing right about this either. Notwithstanding my habitual verbosity, I’m convinced that words have nothing to do with real reality. In spirituality, every name obscures the nameless that is higher than names and forms. So it makes sense to keep names as simple as possible.

Happy birthday, dear Charan.

Five books to support the churchless

Come December all kinds of “Best Whatever” lists pop up. Best Movies, Best Albums, Best TV Shows, and many more. Maybe that’s why I feel the spirit to list my favorite five books to support the churchless, those who are spiritual but don’t belong to an organized religion that has its own pre-selected holy writings.

These are books that I read and then re-read. These are books that I could read a thousand times and still feel like I am reading them for the first time. Why? Because I’ll never plumb the depths of their mystical-spiritual messages.

Or perhaps I should say, “message.” For even though I have two books about Christian spirituality, two books about Indian (Vedanta/Advaita) spirituality, and one book about Greek (Neo-Platonic) spirituality, the essential message of each is surprisingly similar: Truth is within, not without. To know the One that many call “God,” make your consciousness single and simple. The spiritual being you want to become, you already are.

Here are my choices for Best Books to Support the Churchless:

Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings
Return to the One: Plotinus’s Guide to God-Realization
Talks With Ramana Maharshi: On Realizing Abiding Truth and Happiness
The Cloud of Unknowing: And Other Works
Vivekananda: The Yogas and Other Works

I must point out that “Return to the One” was written by me, which arguably should have disqualified it from consideration if this list is to have a glimmer of objective credibility. However, I have some reasonable reasons for including it.

Plotinus is a great philosopher and mystic, but not a clear writer, by and large. So few people can read his writings (the “Enneads”) directly and make much sense of them. And there are very few other popular books about Plotinus’s teachings. In fact, that’s why I felt impelled to write “Return to the One.” Nobody else had written the sort of book about Plotinus that I wanted to read.

Plus, I believe that one of the books a churchless person relies upon to keep his or her faithless faith on track should be the person's own book. Now, this doesn’t mean a published book or even a carefully written unpublished book. It could be a journal, a collection of scribbled notes, a diary, a weblog, even a single post-it note. What matters is that the “book” reflect what the person really believes about spirituality, not what someone else has told him or her to believe.

Here’s a nice quote from Vivekananda along these lines:

“Do something. Think some thought; it doesn’t matter if you are right or wrong. But think something. Because my forefathers did not think this way, shall I sit down quietly and gradually lose my sense of feeling and my own thinking faculty? I may as well be dead. And what is life worth if we have no living ideas, no convictions of our own, about religion? There is some hope for the atheists, because though they differ from others, they think for themselves.

The people who never think anything for themselves are not yet born into the world of religion; they have a mere jelly-fish existence. They will not think; they do not care for religion. But the disbeliever, the atheist, cares and he is struggling. So think something. Struggle Godwards. Never mind if you fail, never mind if you get hold of a queer theory. If you are afraid to be called queer, keep it in your own mind; you need not go out and preach it to others.

But do something. Struggle Godwards. Light must come. If a man feeds me every day of my life, in the long run I will lose the use of my hands. Spiritual death is the result of following others as in a flock of sheep.”

This sentiment is just one reason I love to read Vivekananda. There are many other reasons, some of which I’ll share in another posting. In fact, before the month is out I’ll share what I like most about each of my five Best Spiritual Book choices.

If you have some favorite books of your own that you think belong on the Church of the Churchless recommended reading list, please share them.

O Miracles, where art thou?

For many people this time of year is a time to celebrate miracles. For Christians, Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection. For Jews, a one day supply of temple lamp oil that burns for eight days. Christians seem to have the edge in the miracle department—birth and death being more dramatic than a burning lamp—but I never fail to wonder, “Where have all the miracles gone?”

Never, ever, not even once, has there been a thoroughly documented miracle worthy of a National Academy of Sciences stamp of approval. Most miracles worthy of their name are reputed to have occurred hundreds of years ago, conveniently before the age of modern science and the methods that now could assess the miraculousness of an event that seems to defy the known laws of nature.

The James Randi Educational Foundation has a long-standing offer of a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. No one, the foundation web site says, has ever passed the preliminary tests for this prize.

Now, it can be argued that only God performs miracles, not humans. So this explains why no man or woman has ever been able to demonstrate a divine power. But many religions and spiritual paths do indeed claim that saints, gurus, mystics, yogis, and the like have the ability to perform miracles. The big question is: Why is there no evidence of this?

The simplest explanation for why documented miracles are non-existent is that they don’t exist. And this includes miracles of yore as well as miracles of today. Which, of course, pretty much demolishes the foundations of Christianity and Judaism. Islam too, for that matter, since Muhammad is held to have miraculously received the message of the Koran directly from God in a trance state.

Myself, I hold to the view that the greatest miracle is that there aren’t any miracles. The cosmos is wonderfully guided by the intelligence of universal laws that are so seamless, there is no capacity for untoward events to happen. This, at least, is a perspective that fits both with the findings of modern science and the teachings of the most enlightened mystic philosophers such as Plotinus.

In my book about Plotinus I say: Isn’t it interesting that miracles are, by nature, so rare and miraculous? Well-documented miracles are few and far between (skeptics would say non-existent). Even purported miracles are so much an exception to the general run of worldly predictability that they receive widespread and avid attention in both holy books and impious tabloids.

If great souls have lived on Earth, and I believe they have, then why hasn’t a miracle been performed that is so grand, so out-of-the-ordinary, so impossible to disregard, that believers and unbelievers alike are left awestruck at this display of other-worldly power?

For example, adding another full-sized moon to the night sky would be the sort of thing that would grab everyone’s attention. Emblazoning a message on the newly-created celestial body—“Believe!”—would be a nice additional touch.

Recently I got an email from my wife’s sister, Dee Pagac, who shares my skepticism about miracles. I liked what she said and will share it below. Yes, unlikely events like the one she describes do happen. But if a “miracle” is a one in a million event, and there are almost three hundred million people in the United States, each of whom experiences many events each day, then daily chance alone guarantees that there will be hundreds of seeming miracles in this country.

Anatole France said, “Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign.” Well, you could also say, “God is perhaps the pseudonym of chance when believers want to forge a miracle.”

Here are Dee’s thoughts on the subject:

“The thing I think is goofy is the belief that there is a god that we can pray to and he can make differences down here on earth. That ‘God’ gets all the credit for the good stuff and none of the blame for the bad stuff.

There was just a front page story last week in the Indianapolis News about a woman who while driving on a main street, felt compelled to turn her car into a trailer court and park behind a white van that turned out to be the one that had killed her son. Her 26 year old son had been killed in a hit and run while bike riding, I think a couple weeks before this.

People had reported seeing a white van or SUV. She said she just felt compelled to drive there and once there called her sister and told her about being there and not knowing why. Her sister came and they looked at the van and saw front damage, called police and it turned out to be the vehicle. The story ended with her saying this was proof there was a god cause it had to be god who led her there. Nice story.

What it made me wonder about, though, was why, if god could make her turn the wheel all the way on to another road and stop in a certain place just so she could get justice for her son, why couldn't he have made the killer turn the wheel just a little to miss the son on the bike or make the son turn the bike just a little to be missed by the van? That sure would have been a lot nicer of him.

If he has the power to save and cure people how does he decide when to do it? If he can talk to televangelists why doesn't he talk to atheists like me who need convincing or even regular religious people who are not becoming millionaires bilking old ladies like the televangelists.

If I were a queen and told people I had control over the life and death of my subjects and I was going to let some die by violent means - would my subjects still like me just because I said I would let them know who did the killing? If I could cure sick or injured people but only would if enough of the others prayed to me a lot - would they love me for that?

Anyway, that is my main question, why do people believe in a ‘God’ like that. To me it just doesn't make any sense.”

To me neither, Dee. Thanks for sharing your ideas.

Religious values have no place in politics

“I won’t curse in your church if you won’t pray in the polling place.” This saying, freshly coined by yours truly, never will be as well-known as a similarly phrased pithy epigram. But I wish it would. For the problem of people peeing in pools pales in comparison to the problem of religious believers polluting politics by voting on the basis of faith-based values.

U.S. News & World Report conservative columnist John Leo argues just the opposite in his November 29 piece, “Don’t discount moral views.” Per usual, much of his column makes little sense. But the last part of his final paragraph is the most nonsensical:

As [UCLA law] Professor Volokh argues, “All of our opinions are ultimately based on unproven and unprovable moral premises.” No arguments are privileged because they come from secular people, and none are somehow out of bounds because they come from people of faith. Religious arguments have no special authority in the public arena, but the attempt to label those arguments as illegitimate because of their origin is simply a fashionable form of prejudice. Dropping the “don’t impose” [your values] argument would be a step toward improving the political climate.

No, Mr. Leo, the best way to improve our nation’s political climate is to eliminate religious values in political discourse. Politics deals with observable physical reality where people bodily live, breathe, and die. Religion deals with an unobservable immaterial realm where, maybe, the souls of people go after they die. It is inexcusable, immoral, and unacceptable to make political decisions on the basis on unsupportable guesses about God.

Prof. Volokh obviously is wrong when he says that “All of our opinions are based on unproven and unprovable moral premises.” I believe that gravity exists, the earth orbits the sun, and water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. These opinions, better termed “facts,” aren’t based on moral premises.

Of course, Volokh might be speaking of other sorts of non-scientific opinions. But I can’t think of any examples of opinions about political issues that are incapable of being founded on either proven or provable factual premises. Consider abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage—three issues that are commonly considered to comprise the core of “values-based” voting in the last election.

Opinions about each of these issues can, and should, be founded on objective facts derived from social science and medical science research. There are costs and benefits to various individuals and society as a whole from the presence or absence of abortion, stem-cell research, and gay marriage. These costs and benefits can be determined. They can be communicated. They can be discussed. They can be the basis for informed political decisions.

But you can’t determine, communicate, discuss, or decide anything on a religious or what-God-wants basis. The moral tenets of every religion are unproven and unprovable, using Volokh’s words. However, the moral tenets that flow out of political decisions founded on accurate real-world information can be proven, because the real world is provable.

For example, fetuses either feel pain or they don’t. If they do, then it should be possible to determine how much pain is experienced during an abortion. People could use this information to help decide when an abortion is justified and when it isn’t. Intelligent debates about the pros and cons of abortion could replace the frenzied moralistic “I’m right and you’re wrong!” screeching that now passes for political discourse in this country.

You can’t debate with someone who doesn’t have a defensible reason for why they believe what they do. You can’t debate with someone who responds to a reasoned argument with “Because the Bible says so” or “Jesus condemns sinners.”

Fantasy is a dangerous foundation for making societal decisions. A nation that forsakes reality isn’t going to prosper, because actions in the real world have real consequences. Blind faith is fine so long as it remains safely sequestered in a person’s psyche. But when it replaces the light of reason and science as a societal guide, there are going to be a lot of missteps, and even some falling over cliffs.

I’m a vegetarian. Yet I have no desire to pass laws forbidding meat-eating, notwithstanding my tongue in cheek Oregonian opinion piece of a few years back, “Vegetarians, honk your horns!” My point then, as now, is that someone’s religious beliefs have no place in determining how people other than that person live their lives.

Amen to that.

You’re religious, but are you right?

Most religious believers live in their own version of Lake Woebegone. In Garrison Keillor’s mythical locale all the children are above average. Similarly, in these believers’ mental habitation everyone is right about God. This is truly strange. And what is even stranger is that so few people stop to consider its strangeness.

Religious Tolerance.org cites a survey of churches and religions that finds 19 major world religions subdivided into 270 large religious groups and many smaller ones. The four largest religions are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. The fundamental beliefs of each one are incompatible with the other three.

Even within the 34,000 separate groups within Christianity there are marked theological differences between denominations. In some doctrinal areas Catholics and Southern Baptists will find as little to agree on as would a Wiccan and a Jew. So why doesn’t this astounding diversity of metaphysical opinion among Earth’s people cause believers to think, “Hmmm. What are the chances that I’m right about God, when so many others hold contrary beliefs?”

My best guess is this: while most people accept that their chances of winning a lottery jackpot are extremely low, given how many others have bought tickets, very few people are comfortable with the idea that they aren’t going to win the Afterlife Jackpot—even though here too the competition is such that many believers are going to enter, but few (if any) will be chosen to get the Big Prize.

Even worse, the religious contest of “Who will be right in the end?” isn’t just between believers who have different conceptions of God. If this were the case, you could choose one of those 19 major world religions at random and face fairly decent odds of having an enjoyable afterlife: about 5%. But there are two other significant alternatives in the mix: (1) Something else entirely, and (2) None of the above.

By “something else entirely,” I mean that God—using this term in the most inclusive and open-ended fashion—does exist, but is utterly unlike any conception found within the teachings of any religion or spiritual practice. By “none of the above,” I mean that the cosmos contains no God—again, extending this term to encompass any possible form of spiritual reality—so there is nothing more to life and existence than what materialists claim: matter/energy and impersonal laws of nature.

My own leanings are decidedly in the “something else entirely” direction, but I readily admit that this has much to do with my fear of bodily death and hope for a continued non-bodily life. I do also have some good non-Freudian reasons for tilting in the direction of what I like to call my non-religion of Skeptical Belief: skeptical that any religion knows the truth about ultimate reality, while willing to entertain the belief that it is possible to realize this truth through non-religious means.

In "The X-Files" terms, my faith is that the truth is out there, somewhere, not that any particular organized religion or spiritual path holds the key to the door of Mystery. For there is no objective evidence that, during the ten thousand years of so of recorded human history, any person has come closer to knowing the truth about God than any other person. God is still a mystery, so the best statement concerning whatever reality exists beyond the physical is “I don’t know.”

My attitude is at odds with Pascal, who came up with what has come to be known as “Pascal’s Wager.” There are four possible outcomes to the wager: (1) You believe in God and God exists, (2) You believe in God and God doesn’t exist, (3) You don’t believe in God and God exists, (4) You don’t believe in God and God doesn’t exist. Pascal held that the best and worst outcomes are (1) and (3) in which God exists. Then, a belief in God leads to eternal salvation, while disbelief leads to eternal damnation.

Even if God doesn’t exist, Pascal argued that you should believe in God because this offers consolation and peace of mind while you’re living—though no benefit after death. All in all, then, the benefits of believing seem to markedly exceed the benefits of not believing.

However, Clifford Pickover (among many) points out some of the flaws in Pascal’s argument in his fascinating book, “The Paradox of God and the Science of Omniscience.” The main problem with Pascal’s wager is that it presupposes that God is a being who rewards blind faith and punishes open-minded skepticism. The reality, says Pickover, could be exactly the opposite:

I think it’s even possible that God could be unhappy with those who are not rational, who believe in all sorts of things without being logical about it…I even think that such a God might punish believers for their credulity and reward clear thinkers that don’t succumb to peer pressure and so forth. Of all the creatures on Earth, humans are the only ones that God gave the most intelligence, so obviously God wants us to use our intellect and to be freethinkers. So when we die, God will reward freethinkers. He won’t be happy with people who tossed their reason away in favor of ignorance.

There are, of course, many other possibilities if God does indeed exist. The point is that we don’t know what they are, because we don’t know the nature of God. So it is crazy to place your faith-bet on a single religious possibility when there is no solid reason to expect that your choice will pay off. The smart thing to do is keep an open mind, research this question of God in as scientific a manner as possible, and be prepared for unexpected opportunities.

In one of his books Huston Smith says that he spoke with a Zen practitioner who told him that she had a new koan: “I could be wrong.”

Now, that sounds right to me.