Church of the Churchless

Get rid of the guilt, religious or otherwise

I usually don't see myself as a guilt-ridden person. However, yesterday I learned that old Catholic habits hang around in difficult-to-discern guises.

I've got a natural food store checkout clerk to thank for this valuable churchless insight.

This was my first visit carrying a Whole Foods reusable bag. My wife and I had picked several up during a trip to Portland earlier in the day (Salem doesn't have a Whole Foods Market -- or a Trader Joes, despite our fervent visualizations).

When I plunked my purchases down on the conveyor belt and started to unfold the Whole Foods bag, I found myself wanting to perform a verbal penance to atone for what felt like a LifeSource Natural Foods heresy.

"I feel sort of funny using this bag in your store, since it comes from a competitor," I told the woman behind the counter. "When we were at a Whole Foods in Portland today, I just noticed that the bag stood up better than the ones I'd been using."

She stopped ringing up my items. Looked at me. Said, "Were you Catholic?"

At first I ignored the question. I wanted to elaborate on my choice of reusable grocery bags. Then it dawned on me that the clerk had zeroed in on an interesting issue.

"Well, yes. For a while. A few years when I was a kid. I wasn't confirmed, though. Was baptized and went through first communion, but dropped out after that."

This led into a mini-discussion about guilt.

The clerk said that she had a guilt-filled background herself and was trying to break free of it. She told me that I was only the second customer she'd ever encountered who had felt the need to comment on why another store's bag was being used to carry out her store's purchases.

I left grateful that the woman had chosen, with her openness, to make what would have otherwise been an uneventful shopping trip into a learning experience.

She was right.

I do feel guilty about some things that should be absolutely, deliciously, passionately guilt-free. And it could well be that my youthful dive into the weird world of Catholicism, no matter how brief, imprinted me in unconscious ways.

For example, a first confession is a pretty impressive deal when you're eight or nine years old. The big church, the polished wood of the confession box, the hidden black-robed priest behind the screen, the questions that emanate from an unseen interrogator.

"Do you have any sins to confess?"
"No, not really" (I was so young, I didn't know how to sin)
"What about church? Have you been going to mass?"
"Not very often. Well, almost never.""
"All right. Say three Our Fathers and five Hail Mary's. And go to mass more often."

Didn't seem like a big deal at the time. I wonder, though, whether the notion of a Big Man Up There who judges our actions took more of a hold in my tender growing psyche than I've been aware of.

Driving home from the natural food store, I pondered the pros and cons of guilt. If I've hurt someone unnecessarily, seemingly it's good to feel bad about it. That way I'll be less likely to make the same mistake in the future, since feeling bad isn't pleasant.

But how often does this happen, compared to all the other pseudo-justifications for guilt?

A few hours previous I'd gone to a class where a few guys had practiced the more "martial" (and macho) side of Tai Chi, melding some of our previous hard-style training with this softer art.

We'd picked up bokkens, wooden training swords (remember them in "The Last Samurai"?). My classmate, Jeremy, and I hadn't played around with them for quite a while. Warren, our instructor, led us through some semi-forgotten exercises.

Whack!

After a quick spinning move it was audibly crystal clear that Jeremy -- a large strong guy -- had disabled his opponent. Or would have, if a person had been on the receiving end of the bokken's strike rather than a wooden piece of furniture in a corner.

I looked at Jeremy, wondering what he would do. I'm inclined to apologize in such circumstances.  Might have said to the dojo owner, "Man, I'm sorry. Hope I didn't break anything." 

Jeremy looked at his sword. Went over to the magazine rack, which looked to be undamaged. Inspected his bokken for nicks. "Look," he said, "I hit it with the right edge."

No guilt. No reason for it. Something had happened. No harm, no foul. No apology needed.

Yet for some reason I'd taken a single freaking Whole Foods bag into another natural food store and felt the need to acknowledge my sin. What gives?

Well, guilt. Which leads me to some conclusions.

Perfection isn't possible. Most of us are more willing to forgive the failings of other people than our own. This isn't humility; it is egotistical. And often it springs from a religious source. God is perfect; so should we be.

It's the "should" that causes so many guilt trips. Commandments, rules, moral standards -- they push people toward a never-ending pursuit of perfection. Catholic guilt isn't limited to a particular denomination, but pervades every form of religiosity, Western or Eastern.

Fuck it! is a fine philosophy. In a coffee house conversation, a friend reminded me recently of a pithy guide to guilt-free living: Fuck it. Most of what we agonize over does indeed deserve to be dumped in a psychological garbage can, wrapped in those two words.

You just said the wrong thing? Fuck it. Made a horrendous professional or personal decision? Fuck it. Become aware that you haven't made much progress toward maturity or wisdom after so many years on this planet? Fuck it.

Do it or don't do it; no other choices. Much guilt springs from a have it both ways attitude. We decide to do something, then feel bad about doing it. Well, like the saying goes, either shit or get off the pot. If I pay 99 cents for a Whole Foods bag, I should use it. Otherwise, why buy it?

And if I'm going to use it, then that's it. No in-between'ies allowed. There's a cardinal rule in ballroom dancing: the man leads decisively. Better to make a wrong step than no step at all. In dancing, like life, lack of action leads nowhere. Lead or follow; take charge or surrender.

Just do something! Then, something else (which might be the opposite of what you did before).

Guilt sucks up a lot of energy. Maybe there should have been an add-on "therapy" charge on my LifeSource receipt. I felt subtly different when I woke up this morning. Not hugely, but noticeably. Recognizing my guilt proneness more clearly seemed to have plugged up some sort of energy drain.

I got out of bed with a bit more spring in my step. I wasn't looking ahead as much, like I usually do, wondering if I'd be able to check off the "to-do's" in my mind that generally illusorily attempt to organize my day even before a first cup of coffee. Today, whatever happened seemed like it'd be fine.

Even if that meant finishing a blog post at 10:30 in the evening, generally way past my blogging bedtime. It's all good, to use an over-used cliche.

And when there's no guilt diluting the good...even better. Maybe you think this post is too long, that I blabbed on too much. Well...

Fuck it.

Yes to science and mysticism, no to religion

I've pondered the nature of reality for about five decades. Specifics aren't becoming much clearer, but I feel like I'm making progress on three basic questions and general answers.

(1) Is it possible to learn about the universe? Yes.
(2) Is it possible to learn about the ultimate origin of the universe? No.
(3) Is it possible to marvel at the mystery of the "Yes" and "No" above? Yes.

The two affirmations in 1 and 3 lead me to embrace science and mysticism. The negative in 2 causes me to reject religion.

Pretty damn simple.

This makes so much sense to me, it's difficult to understand why so many people get things completely backwards. They reject the knowable world that science honestly explores, while accepting the unknowable realm that religion falsely posits.

I suspect the reason relates to a fear of mystery.

Lovers of science have no problem saying, "I don't know." Ditto with mystics, who accept that the ultimate questions of existence have no answers.

Such as the biggest question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing?

Some argue that this question is meaningless; others say that it points to the ineffable nature of "God" (using that word in the only way it should be used -- as synonymous with "Mystery").

We can make progress toward understanding the what of our universe. What it and we are made of. What energizes it. What holds it together. What connections exist within it.

We are completely, utterly, marvelously, wondrously blocked from understanding the that of our universe. That it, or anything else in the cosmos, exists at all.

Consciousness can conceive or be aware of many things. But not of the primal that. Some words attempt to encompass it.

Being. Existence. God. Ultimate reality. Suchness. Brahman. Wu chi.

No word succeeds. No experience succeeds. Nothing succeeds in casting any light on the mystery of something.

This is where mysticism begins and ends: at the everpresent formless boundary between what can be known, and what can't.

If you take a step toward knowing, you're in the real world of science (and everyday life). If you imagine that you've understood what can't be known, you're in the fantasy realm of religion.

I fully accept that there is more to be understood about consciousness, mind, meditative states, subtle energies, and other subjects pursued by those with a spiritual bent.

However, none of this is genuine mysticism.

Mysticism is about mystery, plain and simple. Investigations into what can be known are science. This tells us more about what exists within reality, but nothing regarding the primal that of existence.

So it doesn't matter if someone has entered the seventh heaven (assuming there is such a thing) wearing an ethereal gown of cosmic light. Confronting the mystery of why this, or anything else, exists, they are bounced back onto the same level of existential ignorance we all are bound to.

Recognizing that God is mystery...wisdom.

Believing that God can be known...foolishness.

Luther Askeland put it this way in his "Ways in Mystery."

Life on the way of unknowing is not a steady progress or an ascent toward an attainable or even verbally specifiable goal. It is repetition, a continually beginning over; it is again and again to awaken as if for the first time to the subtle and infinite mystery that pervades each space, each moment I occupy.

Here, as before, we do not move "forward" toward answers and explanations. We don't "explain" the world's existence, or our own acts and lives, and then "move on." We don't seek answers to the questions of why the world exists or how action is possible.

Instead, we slowly begin to realize that our questions are not the first steps of a limited question and answer process; they are infinite koans which, sooner or later, bring verbal awareness to a halt, so that mystical awareness can burst out of all answers and all questions and dwell in the inconceivable.

Resting in the stillpoint of mystery

So many religious beliefs.
So many philosophical systems.
So many gurus with divergent truths.
So many notions of what life is all about.
So many guides pointing in different directions.

And so few people willing to say, "I don't know."

Ignorance isn't bliss. But neither is illusory knowledge.

I'm much attracted to those who have done their best to sort through the world's collection of answers to life's biggest questions and have the guts to say it like it is:

All come up short.

Virtually everyone ends up choosing sides in the massive Game of Meaning, where countless teams vie to collect the greatest number of people willing to pledge allegiance to a particular set of conceptions.

In his "Ways in Mystery," Luther Askeland clearly describes the confusing situation.

A single good book has an aura of plausibility. Does a collection of several thousand books arguing persuasively for several thousand competing and conflicting points of view have the same aura of plausibility?

Do we get a sense of reasonableness if we stand back and attempt to contemplate the totality of all the competing, conflicting mass of human self-knowledge which, not to speak of either past or future, is being offered today in biology, neurology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, economics, linguistics, literary criticism, theology, and philosophy?

This totality, in fact, is the antithesis of the plausible and rational. It cannot offer us a verbal, conceptual sense of who we are and what we are doing because it offers us hundreds of thousands of rival versions, only a few of which we can actually begin to digest.

This dizzying, seemingly limitless number of increasingly complex, increasingly variegated, mutually competing accounts of our human reality stands in a curiously inverse supporting relationship to the negative way, for it is a self-destructing positive way, one that has reached such a degree of bizarre fecundity and self-contradiction that it cancels itself out as a way for the intellect to discover and reveal who we are.

Ah, I can visualize true believers in a mystic path saying to themselves, "What's been said doesn't apply to me, because my way is beyond the intellect."

If asked for proof of this, they will point to books describing in copious verbiage their supposedly wordless way; to sayings of a spiritual leader who teaches that reality can't be spoken about; to guideposts -- commandments, practices, approaches -- demarcating a supposedly formless path.

Thus we see that no one ever leaves the jungle of competing concepts. They merely cling onto a particular vine for support, ignoring the fact that myriads of other people are equally attached to their own belief structures.

Askeland offers examples of the variety of ideas that we grab onto.

We are flesh; no, we are spirit. We should live for this world; we should live for the next. Let us do our duty; let us enjoy life as much as we can. You are responsible first of all to yourself, to your family, to your clan, to your community, to the nation; do not limit yourself and discriminate, but recognize that your real responsibility is to humanity as a whole, or perhaps to something still greater. Our condition is one of decline, of steady progress of awaiting or seeking to create some drastic change. There must be some purpose, but what purpose could there possibly be? It is imperative to at least try to do something; let us not do, but be. Somewhere, sometime things will be better for us. We are in a tragedy, a comedy. As things are now, so they will always be.

I don't think (nor does Askeland) that we can avoid being attracted to certain conceptions of what It Is All About.

However, wisdom seems to lie in recognizing the arbitrariness of our choices.

There's no universally compelling reason to choose Christianity over Buddhism, existentialism over empiricism, church-going over solitary meditation, or anything else over anything else.

Which, to my mind, indicates that nature -- reality minus human conception -- stands apart from all of the multitudinous ways humans try to make sense of mystery.

So if people are tired of wandering in the jungle of competing concepts, it's understandable why they would clutch onto this one or that one and say to themselves, "Now I've found a place to stand."

There's another option, though, the psychological equivalent of nature's Lagrangian point. This is a place in space where a small object remains in a fixed position relative to two larger gravitationally attractive objects (like the Sun and Earth).

Their gravitational fields balance out at the Lagrangian point, in the same fashion as competing philosophical/spiritual/religious conceptions cancel out to equal "who knows?"

It takes effort to break away from long-held dogmas, just as the power of a rocket is needed to lift a satellite out of the Earth's gravitational field.

But once we realize the relativity of all conceptions about the ultimate meaning of the cosmos, perhaps it is possible to settle into a peaceful Lagrangian state -- resting in the stillpoint of mystery.

God demands heresy. I obey, devoutly.

Fairly frequently I hear from true believers who ask me, in so many words, "Brian, how could you?" Almost always my reply is "There's no way I couldn't."

Meaning, my nearly lifelong search for the way things really are necessitates leaving aside the way things aren't.

The fancy philosophical term for this is Via Negativa, the negative way.

In negative theology, it is accepted that the Divine is ineffable, an abstract experience that can only be recognized—that is, human beings cannot describe the essence of God, and therefore all descriptions if attempted will be ultimately false and conceptualization should be avoided.

Religions love to blab on about how God, or ultimate reality, is this or that, and demands that we do such and such to show our devotion to him, her, or it.

Mystics, poets, lovers of mystery, and others who bow down before the altar of "Who knows?" reject the notion that the beating heart of the cosmos can be hooked up to a concept machine and have its nature explained.

Intuition, sometimes sparked by walks under a full moon, tells me that religious dogmas can't begin to encompass the wordless wonder of the universe.

Which, naturally, includes us.

There's no way I can describe who I am. Nor can you. So what monstrous act of egotism allows anyone to claim that he or she is able to talk about God?

Logic accords with my intuition.

Religions explain the cosmos as God's creation. OK, now we have to ask, "Who or what created God?" If the reply is "No one; God is eternal" (which is the only way to avoid a never-ending series of creation questions), then this answers nothing.

Why not simply say that no one created the cosmos, as it is eternal? Either way, one ends up with an insoluble mystery: that the world exists.

A sense of this mysterious "thatness" is, in my quasi-humble opinion, the most genuine Godly feeling it is possible to have (using "God" as synonymous with the Big Question Mark).

It took me quite a few years to come to this realization. Old habits die hard.

For a long time I enjoyed an illusory (in retrospect) belief that the holy books I read, and the holy person I revered, were able to describe the nature of what lies at the farthest reaches of reality.

I believed this, even though the teachings I followed spoke of the need to go beyond form so the formless could be embraced. So does Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and the mystical side of the monotheistic religions, including Christianity.

Thus my answer to those who question how I could become a heretic: an honest search for God demands heresy.

Luther Askeland says it well in his wonderful "Ways in Mystery" (one of my favorite books): 

We can define the negative way as a twofold process. First, the mystic tries to become consciously aware of the various ways in which the intellect presumes to approach God: all the statements, concepts, words, and images that may be thought to enable one to know something about God. We note the logic of this enterprise as well as the enormity of the task.

Let us also observe that the logic of the negative way inevitably leads the mystic toward a denial of the most fundamental teachings and concepts of the very tradition to which the mystic belongs. In fact, it is precisely these teachings and concepts that form the heart of the mystic's particular "misconception" of God: They are the subtlest and also the most deceptive layer of the blindfold.

For this reason, DIonysius and Eckhart single out the most orthodox conceptions of God -- God's existence, unity, wisdom, and goodness -- for the most explicit and vehement denial.

Become a heretic: a lover of God.

Windmill or an evil giant?

I love how a cartoon can point out the absurdity of religion so well.

"Spirituality" is a meaningless word

After trying to lead a spiritual life for most of my 60 years, I feel eminently qualified to make what may seem to be a radical suggestion: Let's do away with spirituality.

Not so much the actions people associate with being spiritual, but how the word is usually used -- and the divisiveness that comes with splitting reality into "spritual" and "material" spheres.

Actually, the problem with spirituality isn't that the word is meaningless. Rather, it has so many meanings, most of them aren't recognized by someone using the term in a particular sense.

Check them out.

"Spirit" and "soul" are closely connected. So are the ways these words are used. Listening to a talented jazz singer, a woman says "Wow, that was really soulful."

She doesn't mean immaterial or other-worldly. Just that the song touched her deeply, bringing out feelings not usually encountered in everyday life.

Similarly, I've come to feel that for me spirituality points toward the subtle, reflective, philosophical, mysterious, what's-it-all-about? side of life. It isn't opposed to the gross, unthinking, crude, obvious, it-is-what-it-is side -- just as heads isn't opposed to tails.

There's no such thing as a one-sided coin. Or a one-sided life.

First consider a topless pole dancer in a strip club. Now, a tutu clad ballet dancer in Swan Lake. Different words would be used to describe their performances and the feelings aroused in their audiences.

However, both dancers are doing their thing in the physical world. There's nothing metaphysical about either, though "spiritual" would be more likely to be used in one instance than the other (some guys would disagree, though).

Likewise, I've reached the point where it's tough for me to resonate with those who use "spirituality" as meaning a life disconnected from the physical.

I just don't get what they mean.

They talk about other-worldliness while they're in the world. They speak about existing without a body while being a body. They extol going beyond the brain and mind while using a brain and mind to do the extolling.

Maybe there's such a thing as spirit completely separate from matter.

But if so, there's no way for us material beings to know, because each of us connects with reality through a physical body and brain. As noted above, everyone who says "Our real self is spirit" does so speaking as a material entity.

My fondness for Taoism springs in large part from its non-dualistic understanding of spirituality. Here's how A Personal Tao looks upon "soul" and "spirit."

Soul is what we are. (click to enlarge)

Spirit is soul in motion. (click to enlarge)

So spirituality would be moving -- living, acting -- as what we are. A can't-miss proposition.

Tom Clark says it nicely in "The Case for Naturalistic Spirituality."

Because most folks are dualists, the idea of naturalistic spirituality still seems a contradiction in terms. Spirituality is generally thought to involve "higher planes," souls, spirits, and other supernatural phenomena. How can naturalists, including atheists, take spirituality seriously without violating a core tenet of their worldview, that no separate supernatural realm exists?

Clark is an admirer of Andre Comte-Sponville's "The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality," just as I am (see here and here).

When you subtract the supernatural from spirituality, you're left with something real -- though now there's little reason to use the word "spiritual."

The Monk and the Philosopher debate Buddhism

It's interesting how my attitude toward Buddhism has changed during the course of my descent (or ascent) into churchlessness. I used to find Buddhism wonderfully non-dogmatic. Now, I see it as permeated with an uncomfortable amount of religiosity.

A couple of fellow Tai Chi students recommended "The Monk and the Philosopher" to me. With the subtitle, a father and son discuss the meaning of life, how could I resist making a visit to Amazon?

Last month I wrote about how when the Monk (Matthieu Ricard) and his Philosopher father (Jean-Francois Revel) discuss karma, I disagreed with the Buddhist notion that Tibetans brought upon themselves the Chinese invasion of their country.

Having finished the book, I have more quibbles with the Monk's belief system. I agree with the Philosopher's conclusion:

What lessons have I drawn from these conversations with Matthieu? What has their result been for me? I have become more and more appreciative of Buddhism as a system of wisdom, and more and more skeptical about it as a system of metaphysics. ... To state it plainly, the theoretical background of Buddhist wisdom seems to me unproved and unprovable.

That's pretty much how I see it.

Buddhism's basic advice for us is pretty darn simple: lessen your desires; accept life as it is; embrace change; don't ruminate about what can't be thought.

As the Philosopher points out repeatedly, this wisdom isn't unique to Buddhism. The Greek Stoics, such as Marcus Aurelius, said almost exactly the same thing (see my Marcus posts here and here).

The Monk liked to argue that if following Buddhist precepts leads someone to serenity, this shows that Buddhism has a correct view of reality -- which includes quite a few metaphysical concepts such as karma, reincarnation, and such.

Surely the attainment of serenity is one of the experimental proofs of contemplative science, just as the falling of bodies is experimental proof of the law of gravity.

Well, there are serene people who don't do a lick of meditation, or accept any Buddhist beliefs. And there are devout Buddhists who haven't achieved peace of mind after years or decades of practice.

Many Christians feel great by believing in Jesus. If a certain psychological state is proof of a metaphysical position, then every religion is right and every religion is wrong.

Studies of identical twins find that genetics explains about half of the differences in happiness between individuals. Some people are born with more of a potential to be happy than others.

Meditation and other techniques that change mental patterns can affect someone's happiness, but there seems to be a limit to our changeability. I suspect that certain sorts of people are drawn to Buddhism (or some other faith) because it meshes with their view of life -- which is different from the faith changing that view.

Another quibble: I agreed with the Philosopher when he said...

But in Buddhism there's no transcendent God, so what is monastic life or retreat from the world, directed toward? In a word, since Buddhism isn't a religion, why does it look so much like one?

I didn't find the Monk's defense of Buddhist rituals very convincing.

Such customs are useful outer supports allowing believers to communicate with an inner truth. I know from experience that when ordinary Tibetans offer thousands of butter lamps (the equivalent of candles) they're well aware that the light they're offering symbolizes wisdom dispelling darkness.

The prayer they'd be making as they offered lamps would go something like, "May the light of wisdom arise in myself and in all living beings, both in this life and in lives to come." Even very simple people are aware of the symbolism. The same goes when they're reciting mantras.

Not likely. The Monk ignores the great popularity of Pure Land Buddhism, which is religious through and through.

Like every faith, if you peel off the dogmatic, fundamentalist, religious aspects of Buddhism, from my churchless perspective you're left with something much more appealing.

The question is: isn't that "something" simply everyday life, lived honestly?

The universe is unity

Look around. Outside of yourself. Inside of yourself. Do you find any sharp divisions between utterly distinct aspects of reality?

I can confidently predict, "No, you don't." (If I'm wrong, enlighten me.) There's a reason the word universe starts with "uni." It's a whole.

Most religions, maybe all, are founded on a duality of some sort.

Heaven and earth. Soul and body. Spirit and matter. God and creation. Salvation and sin. Liberation and karma. Truth and maya.

Yet these supposedly separate spheres of existence aren't evident.

They're concepts, belief structures that have to be taken on faith. So religious believers necessarily defend these notions without recourse to everyday experience, whether personal or scientific.

Where is the person with a soul but no body? Where is a God absent any creation? Where is a heaven detached from any earthly connection? Where is a pure Platonic truth unsoiled by material existence?

Nowhere. Yet true believers act as if the universe where we live out our entire lives is a cosmic afterthought, or a deception, or a pale image of some more radiant realm.

I don't get it.

Yes, I had strong dualistic leanings myself for a while, but I tempered them with an appreciation of the unified reality that science has found to exist -- and which non-dualistic philosophical teachings such as Buddhism and Taoism also posit.

It amazes me when fundamentalists are so adamant that what is scientifically known about our universe is worthless, mistaken, false, dangerous to one's spiritual health.

Even if one assumes for the sake of argument that God created the universe, wouldn't it be more likely that creation reflects divinity rather than being utterly opposed to God's nature?

This is the attitude of many religious scientists with a non-fundamentalist bent. They consider that understanding the nature of the universe provides a peek into the nature of God, because reality isn't divided into separate and distinct realms of existence.

Somewhat similarly, but in a fashion I much prefer, Taoists say that whatever is happening at this very moment, here and now -- that's the working of Tao, the Way. Look for it outside of everyday experience and you'll miss it.

Evolution is a prime example of how fundamentalist religion rejects knowledge of this world because it supposedly conflicts with what a holy book or person says about the next world.

Yet here we are...here. Not there. Why elevate a concept of an alternative reality above the actual experience of this reality?

I was encouraged to learn about the Clergy Letter Project. 

For too long, the misperception that science and religion are inevitably in conflict has created unnecessary division and confusion, especially concerning the teaching of evolution. I wanted to let the public know that numerous clergy from most denominations have tremendous respect for evolutionary theory and have embraced it as a core component of human knowledge, fully harmonious with religious faith.

Amen. The Clergy Letter Project has a long list of science-friendly sermons. I looked at one from Eugene, Oregon and found a lot to like. Such as these images.

 

Right on.

Embrace evolution. Because it's real.

I'm a day late on celebrating Darwin's 200th birthday with a blog post. But yesterday I listened to disbelievers in the theory of evolution hold forth on the radio, so I was thinking of you, Charles.

What Darwin did, brilliantly, is point us in a vitally important direction: reality. That's what science does so well, and religion so poorly.

Now, I realize that "reality" is a dirty word to many people, not all of whom are fundamentalists, because it sounds so elitist, unspiritual, objectifying, divisive.

One guy I heard on a talk show claimed that he wasn't religious; he just wanted students to be exposed to different beliefs in science class, so they would realize that some people believe in this and some believe in that.

At first I thought he was joking, because this notion is so nonsensical.

Are there no facts, no shared sense of objective reality? What allows the guy to talk over the airwaves, using words that all English-speakers can understand? Isn't this reality, rather than belief?

Is everything to be questioned in some sort of post-modern circus? "In this ring, believers in a flat-earth dance with believers in a spherical planet. Over here, believers in alchemy perform with believers in chemistry."

I doubt anyone, even the most fervent true believer, is asking for the elevation of all beliefs to an equal footing. Only certain facts are to be questioned -- those which threaten a particularly precious belief system.

Almost always, a religious one.

It's strange, really, how supposedly godly people are so frightened of mankind being dethroned from a privileged position in the universe. Aren't they supposed to be more humble and egoless than the rest of us heathens?

Susan Jacoby wrote a interesting piece, "Darwin the Disturber." What he disturbed is a fantasy that humans are special creatures uniquely favored by God, occupying a position in the cosmos outside the realm of nature. She said:

I do not understand why it seems so important to theologians (and some sociologists) to find an explanation for human behavior that extends beyond the purely naturalistic. If the genetic research now being conducted in laboratories around the world tells us anything, it is that the interaction of genes is far more complicated than scientists imagined even a decade ago.

Worrying about whether we ought to "play God" is somewhat premature, given that the more we learn about the human brain, the more we learn about how much more there is to learn. But if, as I believe, everything about human beings that we call "spiritual"--our ability to love, to create art, to imagine our own deaths--is inescapably housed within our material corpus, why is that so disturbing?

It has been almost a year since I watched the person I loved most in the world move inexorably toward death, his great mind shutting down as a result of the inevitable, degenerative, entirely physical process of Alzheimer's Disease. Now he lives only in the memories of those who loved him--and our memories are as dependent on the physical health of our bodies as his were on his body.

It does not enhance human dignity one bit to find a "spiritual" explanation for our higher mental functioning; nor does it decrease human dignity to look upon our highest achievements as part of nature, inexorably tied to the body that is ours for a finite period. This finiteness renders life more, not less, meaningful: we are enjoined to use the brains within our bodies to leave as much as possible to those who will inhabit the material world after us. Darwin faced reality, and that is why he was a human as well as a scientific giant.

Thanks to Pharyngula, I came across a one-minute condensation of 4.5 billion years of life on Earth.

Guess what? Humans are a barely noticeable insignificant blip at the very end. That's real. And it doesn't bother me at all.

Because I no longer consider that a single specimen of Homo sapiens, me, is significant in the cosmic scheme of things either. 

That's Darwin's gift to us all: a humble sense of where we stand in the vast expanse of the still-mostly-mysterious universe.

Back to old comment system

Blog visitors, me included, were encountering too many problems with the TypePad Connect commenting feature, so I've gone back to the old system. It looks like comments made during the past week have been preserved. I've copied them in case any are missing.

Hanging out with a guru leads to disillusion

Most disciples of a guru believe that if they could have more intimate face-time with him, their faith would be strengthened. Plus, their spiritual progress would soar.

But belief isn't reality.

Here's the story of Phil, a Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) initiate who got to hang out with Gurinder Singh, current RSSB guru, when Phil lived in the Caribbean.

Phil said it'd be fine to share his thoughts via a blog post. I've mildly edited a couple of his email messages, fixing some typos and adding a few explanations in bracketed italics.

It's interesting reading, providing a rare behind-the-scenes perspective on time spent with a guru who is considered by the faithful to be GIHF, God in Human Form.

You can either download the PDF file, or click on the continuation to this post.
Download Phil message 2

Comment on comments

Some blog visitors haven't been able to view recent comments. I've let TypePad support know about the problem. Hopefully it will be temporary.

The new commenting feature, TypePad Connect, is in "beta" mode, so it isn't glitch free. This blog, like others that have adopted it, are helping to make TypePad Connect better by pointing out problems.

On this front, I've turned off the photo/image that can appear with a comment. I don't like how the space for a comment is reduced by the width of the photo/image.

Brain hard-wires a belief in God

Most religious believers consider that they're on the road to transcending the crudity and illusion of material reality.

So, churchless skeptic that I am, it was hugely enjoyable to read in the latest issue of New Scientist about increasing evidence that the brain creates God.

More accurately, a belief in God.

An alternative being put forward by Atran and others is that religion emerges as a natural by-product of the way the human mind works.

That's not to say that the human brain has a "god module" in the same way that it has a language module that evolved specifically for acquiring language. Rather, some of the unique cognitive capacities that have made us so successful as a species also work together to create a tendency for supernatural thinking. "There's now a lot of evidence that some of the foundations for our religious beliefs are hard-wired," says Bloom.

Much of that evidence comes from experiments carried out on children, who are seen as revealing a "default state" of the mind that persists, albeit in modified form, into adulthood. "Children the world over have a strong natural receptivity to believing in gods because of the way their minds work, and this early developing receptivity continues to anchor our intuitive thinking throughout life," says anthropologist Justin Barrett of the University of Oxford.

Interesting. Makes sense. Explains why religiosity is so widespread, and atheism/agnosticism so rare.

It's easy to follow the God road, because the human brain has built-in sign posts that point in that direction: "Believe in the supernatural!" Recognizing those predilections is difficult, since they're so much a part of us.

A mind-body distinction seems to be at the root of religion's ever-spreading belief tree.

For example, each of us -- me included, for sure -- has a feeling that there's a difference between (1) the "me" who looks out through the eyes and is aware of what is perceived, versus (2) the physical mechanisms of vision and cognition.

Thus even though we might be materialists intellectually, we're dualists experientially.

Bloom says the two systems are autonomous, leaving us with two viewpoints on the world: one that deals with minds, and one that handles physical aspects of the world. He calls this innate assumption that mind and matter are distinct "common-sense dualism". The body is for physical processes, like eating and moving, while the mind carries our consciousness in a separate - and separable - package. "We very naturally accept you can leave your body in a dream, or in astral projection or some sort of magic," Bloom says. "These are universal views."

The big question is: are they correct views? Since there is no, or very little, scientific evidence of mind-body dualism, our innate belief that there is leads to a mistaken proliferation of disembodied entities.

In olden days (and even today in some cultures) people saw natural phenomena as being animated by unseen forces. Lightning came from an angry god. Wind was the whispering of spirits.

Now, a unitary God has mostly replaced the heavenly pantheon. Monotheistic religions -- Christianity, Judaism, Islam -- hold sway over most of the world's population. Yet divinity is still viewed as being separate and distinct from physicality.

As are we supposedly, being images of God. Most people believe they have (or are) a soul. It's hard to imagine that death is the end of our existence, since our wispy consciousness feels so different from our substantial body.

Based on these and other experiments, Bering considers a belief in some form of life apart from that experienced in the body to be the default setting of the human brain. Education and experience teach us to override it, but it never truly leaves us, he says. From there it is only a short step to conceptualising spirits, dead ancestors and, of course, gods, says Pascal Boyer, a psychologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Boyer points out that people expect their gods' minds to work very much like human minds, suggesting they spring from the same brain system that enables us to think about absent or non-existent people.

Now, many argue that we have a sense of mind-body dualism because this is how things really are. Similarly, religious believers say that a conception of life after death seems true to us because it is.

Indeed, the New Scientist article notes that "whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it."

Yes, but the fact that young children are predisposed to believe in disembodied entities strongly implies that religion sprouts from infantile seeds, not an adult understanding of reality.

These cognitive biases are so strong, says Petrovich, that children tend to spontaneously invent the concept of god without adult intervention: "They rely on their everyday experience of the physical world and construct the concept of god on the basis of this experience." Because of this, when children hear the claims of religion they seem to make perfect sense.

Hmmm... a Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 13 comes to mind.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.

Such as, the Bible. And God.

Open thread (free speech!)

Since one of my favorite godless blogs is trying out this "open thread" thing, I figured it was time for me to take the plunge.

It's just an opportunity to say whatever you want via a comment. Or comment on a comment. And so on.

Basically an open thread is putting up a soapbox on a blog, so people can talk about any subject that comes to mind. (P.Z. Myers has his untouchable subjects; I don't ... so far.)

The universe is constant change

How to deal with change? As David vanWyngaarden says below, this is a big philosophical and existential question. Heck, maybe the only question.

Because if change didn't exist, neither would life. So we wouldn't be around to wonder about life. Or change.

David emailed his thoughts to me and said it'd be fine to share them if I wanted. Which, I do.

When I read David's mention of "flow" in competitive karate, I wrote back and told him that I'd had similar intuitions during my nine years of Shotokan training -- which continued with my migration to mixed style martial arts, and now, Tai Chi.

Interestingly, David told me that Shotokan also was his style, but currently his focus is on Tai Chi's Yang long form of 108 movements, which I also practice.

So we've got quite a bit in common, including a view that moving with change (in contrast to trying to stop it) is the way to go in life -- as if we had any choice.

I don't think we do, except, as David notes, conceptually. This is one area where I do disagree some with him, since he says that religions urge us to accept change and live within it.

Yes, that's true, insofar as we're told to accept God's (or karma's) will. But virtually every religion, and maybe I should have left out "virtually," posits an unchanging realm that awaits us at the end of the Change Road if we do the right religious things.

Salvation. Eternal life. Enlightenment. Nirvana.

These steady-states are contrasted with the ebb and flow of earthly existence, which is considered to be less desirable than a changeless something-or-other.

Well, if change is life, and life is change, perhaps there's no escaping changing. Except by death, and we're not there yet.

Here's David's essay:
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The Universe is constant change. Life = Change.
by David vanWyngaarden

Nothing original here. But this observation is the deepest we've been able to go, philosophically. There's no logic beyond this point.

We don't know why it changes, just that it does. Constantly.  Speculation for the reason for the change is God, and then religion. We've seen how far this can go.

Two paths from here:
1. Stop the change.
2. Accept the change and live within it.

1. Stop the change.

Knowing. Language is the process of taking a snapshot of reality and labeling it. Form a mental concept, affix a word to it. The more you know, the more unchanging mind concepts you have. The more you've stopped change.

But you can't stop the universe from changing. So you're just creating a comforting and minimally effective illusion that you have. The universe goes on changing. And now you've separated yourself from it. Or so you think...

Aristotle hit the same wall and said to know something in a world of constant change is to answer four questions about it. Answering these four questions has become the basis for our civilization, our science, our technology, medicine, law, everything.

Holy cow!

2. Accept the change and live within it.

All spiritual practices and religions seem to have this at the core.

A 'master' says surrender to the change, surrender to God, accept suffering; the result is salvation, enlightenment, awakening. A better way to live.  We have to take the word of those who have gone before.

Faith.

After 5+ years of competitive karate, I found myself getting 'in the zone' a few times. This was such a transcendent state that I ended up concluding that it's the same state as the Buddhist concept of Awakening. Satori.

It never lasted long, but, hey, I'm convinced, it IS a much better way to live. It IS real.
But why?

If the universe is constant change, or to use another slightly different phrase, constant manifestation, then the aforementioned separation results from your trying to stop the change.

Aligning simply requires surrendering and accepting what is. Then you're no longer separate from it. The universe can manifest through you instead of you trying to drive the change yourself.

That's what the universe does, it manifests. Constantly. One of its manifestations is YOU!  Why not let it continue manifesting, THROUGH YOU? Transcendence!  Lol.

Unfortunately, we have to give up the idea of controlling our own fate, which may be why it's so difficult. Everything, every mental concept, every logical proof, every cherished belief must be surrendered in favour of what IS.

Yikes!

But regardless, there's no logic beyond the basic observation of the 'problem of change.' It all comes down to this: do you want to try to stop the change or live in the change?

If the decision is to live in the change, the task then becomes undoing the massive accumulation of mental concepts.  Unlearning something every day.

The easier(?) approach is to change what you identify with. Instead of the usual identification with your mind-concepts, it is apparently possible to identify as nothing more than consciousness, awareness.

Simple Being.

I could give details, but Eckhart Tolle has already done it extraordinarily well, without religious baggage.  If you haven't read his books, I'd highly recommend them. They're not the 'pop' spirituality I thought they'd be. Completely authentic; extraordinarily deep, and very readable.

Another good one is William Samuel. Less known, but equally sensible and deep.

Well, there it is. A brief history of the world. With homework. Took me 40 years to research and a week to write.

Could use another re-write, but I'm sure you get the point.

David

End of spiritual questions is the final answer

Having finished U.G. Krishnamurit's "Mind is a Myth," I haven't changed my initial impression of this anti-guru. As I said in my first post about U.G., he's intriguing, irritating, and inspirational.

U.G. urges people to make up their own minds. He sees humanity as being bound by conditioning and an excessive preoccupation with thoughts. We trust what others have said in the past even if it conflicts with our own immediate knowing.

I like his emphasis on uniqueness.

I submit that nature is attempting to create a unique individual every time something is created. ... By using the model of Jesus, Buddha, or Krishna we have destroyed the possibility of nature throwing up unique individuals. Those who recommend that you forget you[r] own natural uniqueness and be like someone else, no matter how saintly that other person may be, is putting you on the wrong track. It is like the blind leading the blind.

Naturally there's a place for teachers, experts, guides. But something real has to exist that we can be taught about or guided toward.

U.G. sees ideals -- God, spirit, enlightenment, salvation, ultimate truth, the Good, limitless love -- as being fabrications of human thought. At an early age they're presented to us by our culture as things to be striven for.

And usually we keep on trying to attain our ideal until the day we die. This applies even if we're trying to become free of goals, like a diligent Buddhist who sets out to alter his consciousness so he always lives in the mindful present moment.

U.G. says in response to a questioner:

People are looking for enlightenment. You say you are not, but it is the same. Whether you want a new car or simple peace of mind, it is still a painful search. The secular leaders tell you one way, the holy men another way.

It makes no difference, as long as you're searching for peace of mind you will have a tormented mind. If you try not to search, or if you continue to search, you will remain the same.

You have to stop. You don't stop searching because such an act would be the end of you.

You are lost in a jungle, and you have no way of finding your way out. Night is fast approaching, the wild animals are there, including the cobras, and still you are lost. What do you do in such a situation? You just stop. You don't move...

In the early 1990s I had an Apple computer on which I played a pinball game, Loony Labyrinth. I played it a lot. I was addicted to it.

My wife was almost driven crazy by the Loony Labyrinth theme music, especially after I became proficient at making my way through the levels of the game. I could easily play a single game for half an hour.

Eventually I became disturbed by how much time Loony Labyrinth was taking out of my day. I tried to stop playing. But I couldn't. I'd manage a day or two of going pinball cold turkey, but soon I'd be feeding my addiction again.

Until...

I entered the Loony Labyrinth sweet spot, the zone, pinball nirvana. The game began normally. Then I reached levels of Loony Labyrinth'ness never attained before. I couldn't make a mistake. Extra balls and higher levels kept popping up without end.

I think I reached a billion points before the last ball was lost and ecstatic congratulations appeared on my computer monitor. Along with "Play again?"

No thank you. I had zero interest in Loony Labyrinth. My addiction to the game had instantly dropped away without any effort on my part. I never played it again.

Reading U.G.'s "Mind is a Myth" reminded me of how I bounced back and forth between desiring to play Loony Labyrinth, and desiring not to play Loony Labyrinth, until that spontaneous unforced moment came when I simply wasn't interested in Loony Labyrinth.

You must find your basic question. My basic question was: "Is there anything behind the abstractions the holy men are throwing at me? Is there really anything like enlightenment or self-realization?" I didn't want it. I just had this question.

So naturally I had to experiment. I tried so many things, this, that and the other. For a while. Then you find out one day that there is nothing to find out at all! You reject them completely and totally. This rejection is not a movement of thought at all, not a superficial denial. It is not done to attain or achieve something.

I've experienced that sort of who cares? clarity now and then. Sometimes life seems so simple, so fine just the way it is, yet also so mysterious, so impossible to comprehend. I grok that there's no answer to life's biggest spiritual, religious, and philosophical questions -- because there's no way to form a cogent query.

And a little while later I order another spiritual, religious, or philosophical book from Amazon -- because searching for answers to unanswerable questions is just so darn much fun.

I can relate to U.G. Krishnamurti. But I'm not him. Like U.G. says, each of us is unique. We have to find our own way, or non-way, by ourselves.

Still, my Loony Labyrinth experience causes me to feel that I understand, in some small sense, what U.G. is getting at.

What seems to have happened to me is not that my hunger has been satisfied, either with breadcrumbs or the whole loaf of bread, but that the hunger found no satisfactory answer and burned itself out.

All these thirst-quenchers haven't helped to quench my thirst. But somehow in my case the thirst burnt itself out.

...After that there were no more questions. The thirst burnt itself out without ever satisfying itself. Not the answers, but the ending of questions, is the important thing.

Blog has new commenting feature

Ooh, change! Sort of scary. Especially when I just made the change to this here Church of the Churchless blog.

Even though it isn't holy (except to me), any fiddling around with blog features, particuarly beta ones still in testing, is a bit anxiety-producing.

So far, the new commenting feature seems to be working fine. That's based on one comment I just left to the previous Krishnamurti post.

Let me know, via the email link to the left, if you encounter problems. I'm as new to this as you are, just about, but will do my best to answer questions.

For the moment I haven't activated the "show photo" option for people with a profile. I'm not sure if I want to see a photo of myself next to every comment I post, unless I upload a more youthful image.

[Update: changed my mind...it's activated. Decided that I'd enjoy seeing photos of commenters. Or whatever other image they wanted to associate with their persona.]

I don't believe you have to sign up for a profile in order to leave a comment. There are advantages to having a profile, though, as described in this FAQ, and itemized in the image above that I grabbed from the profile sign-up page (click to enlarge).

So I encourage you to sign up for one (if I decide to turn on the photo feature, you'll be all set to see yourself next to every comment you write).

I've deactivated the requirement to enter those anti-spam "CAPCHA" letters/numbers, so leaving a comment should be easier now.

A primary reason why I wanted to move to this new commenting feature is that threaded comments are possible with it. Meaning, you can leave a comment under another comment, which makes it easier to follow a conversation on a topic.

Since comment conversations sometimes take unpredictable and curious turns, far away from the original content of the post, this is a good thing.

U.G. Krishnamurti -- intriguing, irritating, inspirational

I don't know what to make of U.G. Krishnamurti. That would have pleased him, I'm sure. (He died in 2007.)

U.G. liked to say, "I have no teaching...I have no claims." Yet he was one of those un-teachers who somehow managed to do a lot of what sure looked like spiritual guiding.

Personally, I find such behavior exasperating.

I want to scream, "Dude, if you've got nothing to say, if you don't want to be looked upon as a guru, don't talk to people, don't let them make recordings and videos of you, don't allow books to be made out of your conversations!"

So I found a lot to agree with in David Quinn's critique of U.G. Krishnamurti. Such as:

Accordingly, I find UG's attempts to repel people very insincere. The fact that he is frequently abusive, often rudely telling people to go away, is held up as a kind of proof that he is somehow different to the other gurus, that he really doesn't sell himself in order to be popular. But it doesn't wash with me. Look deeply into the man and you will see all the con tricks of a typical salesman.

UG doesn't really want to repel people. He only wants to be seen to be doing so. This is his image, his trademark style. It is the covert means by which he can attract a following. I mean, if he truly wanted to repel people, he could do so very easily.

On the plus side, I've been enjoying "Mind is a Myth," which mostly consists of transcribed conversations people had with U.G. (It's available for free online, in accord with U.G.'s marvelous copyright notice, which I like a lot.)

This morning I read the Not-Knowing is Your Natural State chapter.

Though U.G. claims that his teaching (oops, non-teaching) isn't related to anything that has come before, it sounds very similar to Zen, Advaita, Dzogchen, Taoism, and other messages that basically say "what you're looking for is what you are."

You have no recourse but to use thought to get what you want in this world. But when you seek to get what does not exist -- God, bliss, love, etc. -- through thought, you only succeed in pitting one thought against another, creating misery for yourself and the world.

...If there is anything that can happen, it must happen now. Since you don't want anything to happen now, you push it away into something you have named "the future."

...Instead of being what you are -- unkind -- you pursue the fictitious opposite put before you -- kindness. To emphasize what we should be, only causes strain, giving momentum to what we already in fact are.

In nature we find the animals at one time violent and brutal, at others kind and generous. For them there is no contradiction. But man is told he must be always good, kind, loving, never greedy or violent. We emphasize only one side of reality, thus distorting the whole picture.

...You have to be saved from the very idea that you have to be saved. You must be saved from the saviours, redeemed from the redeemers. If it is to happen, it must happen now.

There's quite a bit that I find questionable in the U.G. unteachings. However, I resonate with the core of his non-message.

U.G. usually is quite abrupt, even insulting, to his questioners. But here's a Q & A where the lucky person making the query got a pat on the back, apparently because he perceived the essence of what U.G. is about.

Q: So it is the fantasizing about a non-existent ideal person, society, or state that dooms and fixes me where I am. My belief in what I am does not determine what I in fact am. Is that it?

U.G.: That's it. And the greatest ideal, the most imposing, perfect and powerful is, of course, God. It is an invention of frightened minds. The history of human thinking has produced saints, teachers, gurus, and bhagvans. Man has already messed up his life, and religion has made it worse.

Does the universe have a purpose?

Here's a thoughtful, well-written essay that was emailed to me recently by W. Kelly Lundrigan. I'm pleased to post it, as I like Kelly's style.

That said, I can't resist adding my own comments (in blue italics). I found myself agreeing with Kelly up to a point, then, not so much. Add your own ideas to our bloggish conversation if you like.
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The wonderful thing about life to me, at this point when we know so much, is that we actually still know so little.  We are still, essentially, living a mystery.  At least as to the big questions such as "where do we come from?" and "where do we go?"  We don't, even after all we have accomplished, know the answers to these ultimate questions. 

Agreed. But let's keep in mind what you said, Kelly -- we are living a mystery -- when we get into your further conclusions.

Maybe we are not supposed to know while we are here. Its funny, where you can't know with a scientific certainty, it has to come down to what you can believe in the end.  Even for those of us who love the scientific method and would prefer to spurn a lack of rational, logical chain of deduction, we feel the need to decide what we believe in this regard, because it determines how we live the remainder of the "life" we have in this sphere of existence.

Well, why not simply accept one's not-knowing, rather than feel the need to believe in something that's unprovable? You seem to assume that belief concerning the ultimate nature of the cosmos is an irresistible urge. I doubt that it is.

I am as fact-based, rational and irreverent toward religion as they come.  But I can't conclude, even based on what we DO know, that this "void" of utter nothingness exists, of which we are terrified by our attempt to even comprehend and wrap our minds around.  There is no void guys.  Stop worrying.  We never lose or destroy matter or energy; it just goes somewhere else in a different form.

I'm not sure what you mean by a void of utter nothingness. When I speak about nothingness, I'm usually referring to it in a personal sense -- the nothing that each of us will not experience (because nothingness obviously can't be experienced), yet what we will become in a sense, after we die. Assuming that death is the end of an individual's consciousness.

Yes, matter or energy isn't destroyed; it just changes form. But if our consciousness is dependent on being in a human form, then the dissolution that occurs at death certainly is a cause for worry. If I'm worried about not existing as a conscious being, that is.

You fear the loss of consciousness which you equate to "being."  I have come to deal with that feeling of fear by thinking of it this way.  At worst, all that is left of me are the ripple effects which are created by what I do while I am here.  In that sense, you survive your bodily death by everything you do while you are alive, no matter how small (good or bad). 

Your children will remember your love and what you taught them, whether it be a love of the outdoors they pass on to their children, your wonderful recipe for spaghetti sauce that your descendants are still enjoying lifetimes after you are gone, how to ski, to respect others and their right to exist and be happy, what it means to be just and fair, family traditions, and so on. 

Every kind act you demonstrate toward another person will change, in some small or large way, that person's outlook and the way they treat others, and so on.  Every principled stand you take to do what is right, no matter how painful and hard, will inspire and give courage to others to do the same.

Nice ideas, which are indeed comforting up to a point. But your "at worst" really equates to "no life after death." That's pretty bad to many/most people (including me). That said, I do enjoy the thought that what I've done here on earth will have the ripple effects you spoke about, leading to a sort of impersonal immortality -- though the ripples will fade into near-nothingness quite quickly.

I could go on and on, because the point is, (I'm sure you have got it by now), your life has an infinitely expanding ripple of effects on other lives into the future.  Thus, we never cease to exist.  After being granted the ultimate gift of existence from whatever "entity" governs "existence" (and I do believe there is one, as I explain below), your impacts upon this sphere of existence are infinite.  And, therefore, permanent. 

As above, not really permanent. Or infinite. Theoretically perhaps, but in a practical sense we've already lost track of how, say, a Neanderthal has affected present day humanity. A million or a billion years from now, what impact will each of us have on the cosmos?

Even though your consciousness may, at some point, become lost, or at least unable to communicate with those who remain in this sphere of existence.  If that is all we get, is that really so bad?  Think about it, just as a “worst case” type of scenario, while I explain why I don’t think that’s all we get.

Again, dying and never existing again...that's a scary proposition for many people. I'm not speaking of becoming lost or unable to communicate. We're talking of utter non-existence, forever and ever. The only worser case might be suffering horribly for eternity.

While I can understand why the sudden “blinking out” of your consciousness scares you, (it is certainly a scary thought because Descartes was as right as we can get with what we know: thinking really does equate to being for us), there is no reason to conclude our consciousness ceases to exist.  (This is the part where you have to decide what you believe, cause I can’t get you to here with science). 

Hmmmm. That leaves blind faith, or unfounded belief. I'll turn your statement around: there is no reason to conclude our consciousness continues to exist. Isn't that a much more likely eventuality, given the lack of evidence that there's life after death?

Let’s try to use what we do know to make some deductions using logic, which never fails us, at least as far as it can go.  Let us use Descartes' reasoning as a starting point.  He used one simple, unassailable fact that he could prove was real, at least to himself:  he was thinking.  He had thoughts. 

What did that mean, to have “thoughts”?  And what did it mean to be able to question in your thoughts whether “you” actually exist and can be questioning your ability to be having “thoughts” while you are thinking?  To Descartes, it meant he must actually “exist” as something; as some conscious entity.  That, ultimately led Descartes to believe he had proven the existence of “God” as he understood God to exist.

Most philosophers consider that Descartes seriously botched his proof of God argument. I agree. It's very flimsy reasoning, founded as it is on...reasoning. See, for example, this critique. Excerpt: "His attempt, therefore, to vindicate the validity of human knowledge failed essentially, because, by rejecting the reliability of his own powers to discover and know truth, he made it impossible for himself to extricate himself from the net of his own universal doubt."

It leads me to something similar, which is that the fact of existence, and “creation,” of “being,” gives rise to at least an inference, if not a deduction, that it occurred as an act of “will” and a plan of “design” rather than as a random occurrence.

There's no evidence of this. Inferences and deductions are creations of human thought. I find it difficult to believe that the cosmos operates by the rules of how people think.

I understand there are really no random occurrences and that probability theory would account for the creation of our universe and the earth and the incredible coincidence of it being perfectly suited for human beings who have conscious thought because under probability theory even the most unlikely outcomes happen in the stretch of infinite time. 

What I don’t understand, or accept, is that the forces that shaped our universe just happened. Everything else being equal, nothingness is just as likely as somethingness.  In fact, the reason we need the “void” theory is that we need the existence of the void to give meaning, relationally, to the opposite, which is “existing.”  

Again, I don't see where this notion of nothingness comes from. Where is the "void" in reality? Isn't it just a human concept? Why can't the cosmos simply be, always existent? Yes, people need opposites to make sense of anything. But what is the opposite of the cosmos as a whole? Why posit an opposite to everything? Wouldn't that also be part of everything, leaving no opposite?

So why do we have an expanding universe, with matter, etc..instead of there being “nothing?”  What set it off?  No one knows, of course, even quantum physicists who are much brighter than me and who have thought about it much longer.  They explain it by theorizing about a “singularity” where time, space, and essentially everything about our dimension as we know it, ceases to “be” as we know it.  But they don’t know what it would become instead at that point.

We understand our somethingness.  It is all around us.  We study it constantly, it really is all we have, all we know.  We don’t understand nothingness.  In fact, we can’t even prove nothingness exists. We have never seen it. We just presume it does because, to put it simply, where we don’t understand things, we tend to fear and to believe the worst. 

To repeat, I'm not aware of any scientist or philosopher who argues for a nothingness that exists in any objective sense. That would be absurd...an existent nothing. Rather, individual entities (like you and me) can essentially become nothing -- when the something that we are dissolves into formless matter/energy.

But why did our “somethingness” ever come about?  What does it mean that we have, as humans, the most powerful motivating force ever in our essence, that of love?  (I know, we have hate too).  But here is the point.  Why does any of it exist?  Just by chance?  How can chance even apply in nothingness?  If there is nothing, what “chance” or probability is there of something coming out of nothing? 

None, at least that I can see.  Zero probability.  If there are no atoms, quarks, antimatter, electrons, or whatever particles (I can’t keep track of them all anymore) spinning around somewhere as gases bumping into one another, there is zero chance of something being created.  Ever.

You're assuming that there was a creation. That once there was nothing, and then there was something. As I said before, this doesn't make sense, and you agree. However, it is entirely possible that the universe bounces in and out of existence, being a "bubble" tossed out the "sea" of a much larger unseen cosmos -- which has always existed. So, no need for a creator. The cosmos simply is.

The fact of our existence is all we have to go on.  We know we exist.  That fact gives rise to the conclusion, perhaps not deductively, but through inference that it is more likely than not that our existence is intentional and an act of will and design by some entity or process that we simply do not, and perhaps never will, understand. 

If we can't understand it, why say stuff about it? I don't see how you derive a conclusion of intentionality and design from an unknown entity or process that we don't understand.

Like I said, maybe we are not supposed to.  Isn’t it enough that we have been given the wonderful, extraordinary and exquisite gift of life and existence?  Like I said, it boils down to what you ultimately believe, which comes from your gut, your intuition, your logic, and the feelings and experiences (love) you have stored inside of you from the course of your life. 

That's fine. But personal belief is different from universal reality. People can believe what they want in their gut, while the universe follows the principle of "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

But, it simply makes no logical sense to believe there is a “void” of nothingness that will ultimately and finally prevail despite all the “somethingness” we see around us.  Our existence, and experience, and progress as humans, has some meaning that cannot, intrinsically, be denied.  We exist for some purpose.  And that purpose defeats death, my friends, whatever “death” really is.  Just wait and see.

What else can we do? To repeat: nothingness may prevail against our personal somethingness, while the universe goes on merrily existing. I don't see the undeniable meaning and purpose that you do, which seems to derive from your faith in things unseen and unknowable.

But be comforted while you are waiting by the fact that whatever entity or force turned “nothingness” into “somethingness” for us thought enough about us to give us an existence that holds some of the most blissful things imaginable.  It would not make sense that it has no plans for us beyond the physical existence we have now.  I realize it gave us some of the hardest things imaginable to deal with too. 

But, the cost that goes along with being a conscious, sentient being which is aware of its own existence is….that you are aware of your own existence.  And thus, what it would mean to “not” exist.  We are, in that sense, effectively “gods” ourselves.  Capable of creation and destruction, with conscious decisions to pursue either course. 

Or at least we are images of what “god” must be, and what we are a part of.  But, for me, the fact of existence and creation of all that is around us, persuasively negates the probability of us disappearing into nothing.  We are here, and conscious of being here, for a reason.

I hope you're right. However, there's no evidence for this hypothesis. Every world religion (except Buddhism, which isn't really a religion) posits a reason for human existence. So it seems to me that while you say you're non-religious, your belief system is a form of personal religiosity.

That's fine. But the conclusions you've come to don't seem to follow logically or reasonably from your premises. You've got a big leap of faith going on.