Church of the Churchless

Science-bashers, read this before you comment

Yeah, I admit it: I"ve been getting a bit testy lately, blog-wise. (Summer-wise, life is great, what with a new camera and scooter to play with in the Oregon sunshine.)

If you read through some of the exchanges between Phil and me on my "Who cares if God exists?" post, you'll find a touch (well, maybe a slam) of irritation in my comments on Phil's comments.

You see, what gripes my churchless non-soul as much as anything is when science-bashers resort to spurious, irrational, shape-shifting arguments that can briefly sound good on the surface, but quickly break apart into Huh? fragments of non-sensicality when tested for soundness.

If I sound like I'm being harsh on anti-science types, my comparative mildness will be revealed by taking a look at some posts on biologist PZ Myers' Pharyngula blog.

For example, yesterday Myers laid into religious crazies in "I may not be perfectly rational, but my magic invisible monkeys are!" Great take on the question of whether science should try to accommodate religion. (Short answer: no.)

And I liked his "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," which enumerates some of the offenses that get visitors to his blog banned from leaving comments. Here's three that, as a fellow blogger, I could relate to:

Concern trolling. A particularly annoying form of trolling in which someone falsely pretends to be offering advice to favor a position they do not endorse; a creationist who masquerades as someone concerned about the arguments for evolution as an excuse to make criticisms.

Godbotting. Making an argument based only on the premise that your holy book is sufficient authority; citing lots of bible verses as if they were persuasive.

Insipidity. A great crime. Being tedious, repetitive, and completely boring; putting the blogger to sleep by going on and on about the same thing all the time.

Anyway, back to Phil and what I find annoying about his anti-science arguments -- which aren't at all original, so that helps explain why they're so irritating (see "Insipidity" above).

Here's a partial list of science-bashing approaches that leave me with a bored can't you do better? yawn. I realize that it's too much to expect that religious types will stop using them if I point them out, but, hey, while miracles are impossible, hope still springs eternal.

(1) Science doesn't know everything about something, so you can't trust what science does know. Wow, what a load of garbage. For example, Phil correctly pointed out that in the current state of big bang theory, direct evidence for inflation (the cosmological, not economic, variety) is lacking.

OK, this doesn't mean that the big bang theory is wrong -- just that more needs to be learned about how our universe was formed. Actually, there is loads of evidence in support of the big bang theory, as this Wikipedia article points out. But science-bashers like to seize on what isn't known by science rather than what already has been discovered.

That's like saying you can't trust me when I say that 2 + 2 = 4, because I don't know differential calculus. A ridiculous argument, so please, Church of the Churchless commenters, don't waste my and your time by bringing it up again.

(2) Scientific theories keep changing, so this shows they aren't true. Another hugely weak argument. Science isn't religion, thank non-god! It is open to new facts, fresh explanations, expanded horizons of knowledge beyond what is already known.

By and large, scientists make progress by standing on the shoulders of their predecessors. Einstein's theory of relativity broke new ground, not replacing Newton's laws of motion but showing that in extreme circumstances those laws don't reflect reality. Likewise, the bare bones of Darwin's theory of evolution has been vastly fleshed out by subsequent research.

Full-blown revelations don't occur in science. Unchanging truth isn't discovered. Scientists are engaged in a never-ending quest for more truth, more understanding, more insights into the nature of the cosmos. This is a strength of science, not a weakness. Know-it-all's never do. They're only found in religion, not science.

(3) Science hasn't proven that X can't be true, so X must be true. Agggghhhhh! This B.S. drives me crazy! I keep demolishing this absurd argument in my brilliant responses when it pops up in a comment conversation, but I haven't been able to kill it. Sigh...like Sisyphus, I am doomed to keep rolling the rock of reason into the lap of religious believers, who persist in tossing it down the hill of reality again.

One more time: the scientific method, and everyday life, is based on positive -- not negative -- evidence. No one, except a crazy person, goes into the kitchen and thinks "I don't know that there aren't invisible elephants in the refrigerator; if I open the door they could run out and trample me."

Similarly, no one can prove that God doesn't exist, that a billion angels can't dance on the head of a pin, that the soul doesn't enjoy eternity in heaven if you believe in Jesus, and countless other could be fantasies. 

Phil likes to argue that science hasn't proven that consciousness isn't non-material, metaphysical. Yes, indeed. Science also hasn't proven that Phil hasn't been sent by the Devil to drive me crazy with his illogical arguments, or that he isn't an alien being studying how humans react to non-sensical reasoning.

Only positive evidence counts.

If you want me to believe that God exists, show me persuasive evidence. If you want me to believe that consciousness is separable from the physical brain, show me persuasive evidence. I'm not interested in could be's. Anything we imagine could be. I want reality, not imagination.

(4) Science can't explain the subjective side of life -- art, love, awareness, and all that -- so it knows nothing. No, science knows a lot. About the reality we share as humans. Not our subjective sense of knowing, because that is private.

I've read a great many science books. I've never come across any scientist who seriously argues that human consciousness isn't real. After all, every scientist occupies the same inner world of awareness as each of us does.

This is a bogus argument. Science-bashers like to put words into the mouths of scientists that I never hear them utter. Like, "Objective reality that can be measured, counted, and mathematically described is the only genuine form of truth."

Scientists understand the subjective side of life. They simply focus in their professional work  on the outer world which can be jointly experienced, not the inner realm of consciousness that is each human's private domain.

I have no access to your subjectivity, just as you have no access to mine. You might know astounding truths about the cosmos. But if you can't provide any evidence to me of that knowledge, I've got no reason to believe it.

(5) Science is unable to answer the Really Big Questions, like why there is something rather than nothing. Yeah, so what? Nobody else can answer them either. Religion, mysticism, philosophy -- they all are clueless about ultimate reality. So is science. We're all reading the same blank page in the Really Big Questions answer book.

Some questions are outside the sphere of science. In fact, most of those questions are outside the sphere of anybody. For example, how would it be possible to know why there is something rather than nothing? Or even if this is a valid question, since "why" presumes there could have been nothing instead of something (the universe).

Science-bashers, if you can't prove that someone else, like a religious figure, knows the answers to the Really Big Questions, save your blog commenting breath and don't bore me with complaints that scientists haven't figured out the nature of ultimate reality. 

Especially boring are arguments along the lines of, "Since an entity must always have existed  for there to be something now, this proves that God exists." No, it proves that something must always have existed (or at least it proves this within the sphere of human understanding).

It's more reasonable to suppose that this thing is the physical cosmos, rather than a metaphysical god or some other supernatural power. If something is assumed to be eternal, why not the material matter/energy that is known to exist now rather than some hypothetical unseen entity?

(6) Science is a belief system, just as religions are. False. The scientific method is a means of sorting out truth from falsehood so valid beliefs are left standing, while invalid beliefs are toppled.

It only accepts a few meta-beliefs, such as that external objective reality exists and generalizations can be made about it. Otherwise, science is belief-free.

I'll let this essay, "Science as a Belief System," make the point for me, since it's written by someone who knows a lot more about the philosophy of science than I do. Here's an excerpt:

I have demonstrated that a scientific belief system is differentiable from a religious one because it minimizes faith, has a greater explanatory power, and is open to belief revision. It seems strange to me that people are still attempting to unify science and religion.

These two types of belief systems are entirely incompatible. Someone holding both religious and scientific beliefs cannot be thinking scientifically, as it is inconsistent (However, someone thinking religiously may hold scientific beliefs without conflict).

Despite all the measures science takes to seek the truth and explain the universe, it is still easy to [be] skeptical of its claims. However, it is far easier to be skeptical of religious claims. Since no better alternative belief systems exist for explaining the universe, the choice between those we have is easy.

Faith -- the embrace of mystery

"Faith." We use this word so often. Yet most of us haven't given much thought to what it means.

I enjoyed browsing through a bunch of definitions of faith submitted by commenters to a New York Times online piece.

This is the first submission.

The suspension of reason and rationality for a dream.

This is the second submission.

Faith is knowing something should be true, being certain it is, and having no insight into one’s collisions with reality.

Reality is wrong. Other people are wrong. Why can’t they see what I see? It’s all about failures to re-interpret one’s original misinterpretation of experience. Faith is blind,
and that’s a problem.

Faith is not calm, it is heated, sure of itself, and prone to be unrealistic.

And this is the third, which led me to a short essay (and recording) that stimulated me to title this post the way I did.

There’s never been a better analysis of Faith than the following: http://thisibelieve.org/essay/21932/

Dude is a Franciscan who acknowledged that faith is not knowing what you can’t know… and being okay with it. Perhaps the opposite of so many that we consider to be Faithful today.

Seriously, please give it a listen.

I did. Along with a simultaneous read. And liked what the Catholic priest had to say. Nicely churchless, though coming from a churched guy.

Here's Richard Rohr's concluding words:

People who have really met the Holy are always humble. It’s the people who don’t know who usually pretend that they do. People who’ve had any genuine spiritual experience always know they don’t know.

They are utterly humbled before mystery. They are in awe before the abyss of it all, in wonder at eternity and depth, and a Love, which is incomprehensible to the mind. It is a litmus test for authentic God experience, and is — quite sadly — absent from much of our religious conversation today.

My belief and comfort is in the depths of Mystery, which should be the very task of religion.

Who cares if God exists?

Over on my "Nature is real, religion is illusion" post, today Phil asked a good question in a comment:

Ending on a question note, would anyone on this blog significantly change the way they lived their lives, if it became proven, without shadow of doubt, that God existed? (or for that matter, proven without shadow of doubt that a God of any form did NOT exist?)

I've been pondering along some similar lines recently, so was primed to offer up some answers. But first, the question needs quite a bit of work -- as others already have noted in their own comment responses.

"God" is a meaningless word without a lot of elaboration.

To Spinoza, nature is God. To Plotinus, oneness is God. To Christians, God is a person (or people). To Hindus, God is universal consciousness (maybe...it's tough to pin down Hinduism).

So any proof that God existed would need to be highly specific if it was going to change the way I live my life.

I'd want to know such things as whether God was formless or had a form, whether God was conscious of us humans or unaware of our existence, whether God had any power to affect the universe or left everything alone, whether God has any relationship with us after we die or if death is the end of our existence -- to name but a few "what is God like?" queries.

Once I knew these things, I'd be able to decide whether God should have any effect on how I live.

This is an important point: it's up to us what meaning, if any, God would have (assuming we've gotten the persuasive proof of God's existence that Phil spoke about).

After all, there are plenty of important things that exist right here on Earth that don't have any impact on the meaning I ascribe to my life. Or at least, very little impact.

For example, I'm aware that Mt. Everest exists. But I have zero interest in climbing it. I know that Paris is a city in France. But I don't really care if I ever visit it. Other people, though, are deeply interested in climbing Mt. Everest and/or visiting Paris.

Meaning doesn't reside in an object or person, but in our reaction to, or relationship with, that entity.

Thus depending on what sort of God divinity turned out to be, I might be attracted, repelled, or indifferent to him/her/it. He/she/it might make a big difference in how I live my life, a small difference, or no difference at all.

Since I have more than a minor interest in what, if anything, will happen to me after I die (nothing being the most likely answer, since that is what I'll likely be myself), if I knew that God would reward or punish me in an afterlife based on what I did in this life, for sure I could be persuaded to act in different ways depending on what was in it for me.

Ideally, of course, I'd get proof that God just adores people who are devoted to inquiring into the nature of existence via a churchless blog, and will reward them (namely, ME) with hot sex, pleasurable drugs, fawning acolytes, an endless supply of high tech gadgets, and flawless health/good looks.

Getting all that after death would be cool. Getting it now also, even better (God, are you listening?).

However, the chances are slim that anyone, including me, ever will have proof (1) that God exists, or (2) what God is like or might want of us. Thus Phil's question isn't one that needs to be taken very seriously.

Regarding the second part of his query, what difference would it make if we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God did not exist, I have even more trouble coming to grips with this possibility.

Because it doesn't seem to be possible.

As I'm fond of saying, and am about to say again, there's no way to prove that something doesn't exist. (Including, of course, irrefutable proof that what I just said is correct). It could always show up unexpectedly, appear out of the blue, manifest in a surprising fashion.

So I have zero expectation of getting proof of God's non-existence. And next-to-zero expectation of getting proof of God's existence.

All told, then, God has extremely little potential effect on my life.

Which is as it should be. Because my meaning comes from me, not God, just as your meaning comes from you.

Faith-healing parents let child die: religion is guilty

Here's a passionate answer to those who ask, "What's wrong with letting religious people believe anything they want?"

Because innocent children die! Religion is dangerous! It makes people act like idiots!

Case closed. Religion is guilty.

But there still will be a trial here in Oregon, where prosecutors have charged Carl and Raylene Worthington with manslaughter and criminal mistreatment in the death of their 15-month old daughter, Ava.

I hope they punish these horrible parents as harshly as the law allows. Which is more than six years in prison. Not enough, but hopefully that will discourage other religious fundamentalists from forcing innocent children to suffer and die in the name of a non-existent God.

A story in yesterday's Oregonian asks the right questions.

The Worthington trial will touch on some profound questions. When does a child's welfare outweigh religious freedom? When does the state's responsibility to safeguard children trump parental rights? Perhaps the most haunting question is this: What kind of parent stands by while a child writhes in pain or suffers a lingering death?

The answers seem obvious in cases where a child is in danger of dying or is suffering a serious illness:

A child's welfare always outweighs religious freedom. The state's responsibility to safeguard children always trumps parental rights. Anyone who stands by and lets his or her child suffer is a lousy parent who doesn't deserve any sympathy.

If it weren't for religion, this would be a clear case of criminal child neglect. But American society has a disturbing habit of excusing actions that would be inexcusable in they weren't committed in the name of God.

Who, of course, is nowhere to be seen. Only holy books and holy people are. These claim to speak in God's name, and true believers, unbelievably, believe in them.

So much, they are willing to let their child die because of a few words written a few thousand years ago by someone who, almost certainly, made them up on his or her own with utterly zero divine inspiration.

The Worthington case has opened a window on the Followers of Christ church.

The Followers never grant media interviews, but church President Fred Smith briefly discussed the church's approach to healing the sick in a recent court hearing. "We believe in Jesus Christ ... and he tells you to anoint them with oil and pray for them. So that's what we believe in."

The church's reliance on spiritual healing over medical treatment stems from a passage in the Book of James: "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

Jesus Fucking Christ! I was so goddamn happy to be an unbeliever in the crappy cruel God of the Bible when I read those words in the newspaper story.

And here's the thing: it isn't just the religion of Christianity that is ultimately responsible for Ava's death. It is each and every person -- which included me for many years -- who shrugs their shoulders and says, "What's the harm in believing unbelievable stuff?"

Here's the harm.

Ava Worthington died surrounded by loved ones who believed their prayers would heal the young child.

As the 15-month-old girl struggled to breathe, church members anointed her with oil and pleaded with God to provide a cure. But Ava died March 2, 2008, of bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection. Antibiotics could have saved her life, the state medical examiner's office said.

Do you believe in prayer? Do you believe in God?

If so, you helped create the cultural foundation that supported Ava's death. Her parents simply had more blind faith than you do. They actually acted full-out in accord with weird dogma, while you probably believe nowhere near so wholeheartedly.

Regardless, unquestioning blind belief is dangerous. That's why I'm so proud to be a questioner now. Whenever I challenge an unfounded religious tenet for which there is no evidence, I feel like I'm helping to protect children like Ava.

And so many others who suffer from religion. Religions keep people ignorant, prejudiced, delusional, uncaring, and egotistical -- to name but a few deleterious effects.

The worst thing is, once you're caught in the claws of religious dogma, you don't know it. You think you've burst free of a secular straitjacket, while actually you're tightly bound to an illusion that is obvious to the churchless, but invisible to your fundamentalist addled mind.

"Part of what makes these cases so tragic is that the parents are doing what they think is best for their children," Peters said. "There is no criminal intent."

No, just criminal idiocy that's caused by religion.

Tai Chi vs. Shabd Yoga -- I name a winner

I love questions. Especially those I can answer. Here's one that Todd Chambers asked me a few days ago via a comment on a post about giving up Buddhism and Zen.

So Brian, on the subject of Tai Chi, I wanted to ask you if you could say which practice has seemed more rewarding for you: Shabda Yoga or Tai Chi? Or do you have a preference?

Interesting question.

I diligently practiced the Radha Soami Satsang Beas version of Surat Shabd Yoga (a.k.a. Sant Mat) for over thirty years, including a whole lot of daily meditation. And for about five years I've been studying Tai Chi fairly intensely, usually attending classes for five hours a week and doing the forms on my own at other times.

Now, comparing Tai Chi and Shabd Yoga might seem like an "apples and oranges" sort of thing, because they are so different.

But Todd asked which has been more rewarding for me, which doesn't require a point by point comparison. Plus, most people would say they are both "spiritual practices" -- though I really don't understand what spiritual means and wish we could do away with the notion of spirituality.

I've gained a lot from both Tai Chi and Shabd Yoga. However, here's why I consider Tai Chi and Taoism (Tai Chi is an expression of Taoism) to be much better suited for me now.

I love the naturalness of Tai Chi.

There is nothing, or at least very little, forced about it. You don't try to be anything other than what you are, doing what you can do. Performing a form (a set of movements) is called "playing."

My instructor, Warren, likes to tell a story about a bunch of senior (meaning, old) Chinese Tai Chi adepts who got together and said, "Let's each play a form." They did. And every playing looked way different from the others.

Each practitioner had his own style, his own way of melding Tai Chi with himself -- his personality, energy, physical body, attitude, and such. When they all had shown their stuff, laughter erupted with hearty expressions of "Everyone looked so good."

And so different.

In Shabd Yoga, or Sant Mat, the goal is sameness. Every disciple of a Shabd Yoga guru tries to emulate the master, aiming to merge his or her self with the oft-heard "will of the Satguru." The result is a straining to act just right. Shabd Yoga disciples are perpetually worried about doing something wrong.

In Radha Soami Satsang Beas this could be eating a speck of meat, sipping some wine, consuming pastries with egg in them, having sex outside of marriage, or not meditating for several hours a day.

In Tai Chi and Taoism, the variety I've been exposed to, there are no rigid rules. Laughter and a smile is the response to a seeming stumble, whether of the physical or psychological variety. I like that. It feels so right to not worry about being wrong.

We are human beings living in the physical world. That's where Tai Chi and Taoism start. And, in a sense, end.

Meaning, there isn't the other-worldly emphasis that dominates Shabd Yoga and Sant Mat -- which are aimed at releasing the soul from the confines of mind and body. In Tai Chi mind and body smoothly combine in flowing movement, as well as stillness.

The frequently-stated Tai Chi goal is to listen.

To yourself. To an opponent. To the cosmos. You aren't trying to dominate, control, force, overturn, fix. You listen, and from the listening comes appropriate action.

Which will be different for every time, for every person, for every situation. My instructor is fond of relating how a Tai Chi master was asked what the application, or martial purpose, was for a particular Tai Chi movement.

The master laughed and said, "Who can say? Whatever is happening determines what needs to be done." In other words, if you are attacked or find yourself in a confrontation, there are no rules except listen and respond appropriately.

This makes Tai Chi and Taoism wonderfully flexible and non-dogmatic.

So I've found that by no longer trying to be spiritual, I'm closer to being whatever the hell that word means, or doesn't mean.

Example: when I practiced Shabd Yoga/Sant Mat, I worked hard at being humble. Every serious disciple I know did also. If someone thanked you for your volunteer work, you were expected to say something like, "Oh, it is all the grace of the guru. I'm nothing, just a tool in His hands."

Then you'd feel ever so special for being so marvelously humble. After a while (several decades, because I can be a slow learner), it dawned on me that feeling special isn't an especially laudatory quality.

It certainly was at odds with the egolessness that Shabd Yoga held up as the goal of spiritual practice.

I came to realize that the Sant Mat dogma of initiates being especially chosen by God and the Guru to return to "heaven" (Sach Khand), while other poor souls (like my wife) were doomed to endless reincarnations on this crappy physical Earth, wasn't helping me on the humility or ego-loss front.

Now, I love not feeling special. I'm just a run of the mill Tai Chi student, and run of the mill human being, who is doing his best to live life halfway wisely, responsibly, and enjoyably.

I no longer feel that I'm part of a chosen group who are privy to knowing, or on their way to knowing, secrets of the cosmos that are hidden from others by a divine design. I used to talk a lot about being one with my fellow human beings and the universe at large.

Now, I don't talk much about that stuff. But I feel the oneness much more than in my Shabd Yoga days, because I've stopped setting myself apart as a member of a special group.

Hope this answers your question, Todd. Halfway, at least. That's good enough for me these days.

(Here's ten reasons for guys to like Tai Chi, using "guys" in the inclusive modern sense.)

Nature is real, religion is illusion

Here's one big change that churchlessness has produced in me: I no longer believe that this world -- where all of us are living now -- somehow is less real than an unseen theoretical heaven or higher realm of the cosmos.

In fact, it's hard for me to accept that I ever believed this, because it doesn't make any sense.

What would make someone turn away from what is right in front of them and try to embrace something imaginary that has no demonstrable evidence of its existence? Short answer: religion.

Or, some sort of mental illness.

In either case, the nature-denier lacks the capacity to say "Yes!" to what is genuinely present in the world, preferring for one reason or another to view the here-and-now as illusion, maya, devil's trickery, samsara, or whatever other word captures their feeling of "This isn't real."

Today I came across a piece that makes this point nicely, "Giving credit where credit is due."

It talks about how strange it is that religious types aren't able to see the marvelousness of nature, which is not only all around them, but is them, while claiming to know all about a distant God who is only an abstract concept.

To see nature do it, and then say "nature can’t do it—it must be a god," is interesting to say the least. I’ve never seen a god, let alone seen a god do anything amazing (or anything mundane for that matter). So, how could it possibly be easier for me to identify a god as the cause of what I observe that nature does, than to identify nature as the cause of what I observe nature does? How did “god” come into this equation? At what point do we employ a touch of god to get the grafting to work or to breed the new spaniel? Which step was “add a bit of god” in that?

...If I have never seen a god and don’t know what a god is or how it functions and operates and what actual impact it has on anything—how do I employ it and use it to produce explanatory function for anything in nature? How is what cannot be observed, examined or understood, useful or helpful in understanding anything? If I don’t understand natural process Y, and I say it’s the result of undefined function X—what have I learned? What have I explained or added to our knowledge? How does that help at all? And why would I put such a baseless thing forward as useful or real?

Nicely said.

And highly germane to a book that briefly attracted my attention at a bookstore recently, "Fingerprints of God: The Search for the Science of Spirituality." The title was intriguing, but it didn't take much thumbing through it to realize that the author was imagining the fingerprints.

Not surprisingly, this also was the conclusion of science blogger PZ Myers, who wrote about the book here. After I read the review of "Fingerprints of God" he mentions, I was thankful that I didn't waste my money on buying the book.

Hagerty concludes by erring on the side of amorphous belief, concluding that "the language of our genes, the chemistry of our bodies, and the wiring of our brains - these are the handiwork of One who longs to be known."

I liked one of the comments on the review.

Thank you so much for including this quote. What a breakthrough! Why it's almost as if I should establish a lonely hearts club for "the One." Either that or not buy the book, and therefore save a tree for "the One".

Rules of the non-duality club

I think this guy has nailed non-duality, in a Fight Club sense. Sure seems like he's been following the non-dual comment conversations on this blog. See if you agree.

No psychic abilities found in Twitter study

Darn, I was hoping that my occasional Twittering had some cosmic significance.

But an article in New Scientist, "First Twitter experiment probes belief in the paranormal," describes a study that showed a lack of metaphysical ability among 7000 people who signed up for a scientific use of Twitter.

The formal part of the study, which took place over four days, tested both whether the group as a whole was psychic and whether believers outperformed disbelievers. On each day I travelled to a randomly selected location and asked everyone to send tweets describing their thoughts and impressions about the location.

In the judging phase, participants were presented with five photographs, one showing the location and four decoys, and asked to select the target. The photograph that received the most votes was taken as the group's decision. If the group were psychic, the majority would vote for the correct target.

They didn't. Which doesn't mean that no one in the group had a remote viewing ability, though I am deeply skeptical that such exists.

An interesting finding was that in a first trial, study participants who were believers in the paranormal claimed a high level of correspondence between their thoughts of a location before it was revealed to them, and a subsequently-seen photograph of the location.

Yet when this "correspondence" was put to a scientific test, there was no difference in remote viewing ability between believers and skeptics. The study leader, Richard Wiseman, says:

So what did we learn? Well, the study didn't support the existence of remote viewing and suggests that those who believe in the paranormal are simply good at finding illusory correspondences between their thoughts and a target – which is, maybe, why they believe in the first place.

This fits with something I read in Owen Flanagan's book "The Really Hard Problem" this morning. Intuitions are fine. But they aren't always true. So it's important to cast a critical eye on our own insights, whether they be about morality or anything else.

If nature has gifted us with a moral system that operates mostly intuitively and if intuitions are not always reliable, then we are positioned to propose another meta-norm that instructs us to check and double-check intuitions and gut reactions: Pay close attention to your intuitive moral responses and to the confidence you experience about the validity of your norms and values. Consider alternatives.

Punjab "deras" point to continuing caste tensions

A friend, Randy, sent me a link to an article about "Deras, Caste Conflicts and Recent Violence in Punjab." It's interesting.

Twice I've visited Dera Baba Jaimal Singh in the Punjab area of India. It's the headquarters of Radha Soami Satsang Beas, an organization that practices a form of neo-Sikhism.

Meaning, a living guru is worshipped, not the Adi Granth Sahib, a book (which traditional Sikhs revere in somewhat the same sense as Christians look upon the Bible, as God's word).

I wasn't aware how many "deras" there are in the Punjab. The article says:

In Punjab, the number of Deras are not in hundreds but in thousands. A study conducted by the Desh Sewak, a Punjabi newspaper published from Chandigarh, gives figures that there are more than 9000 Sikh as well as non-Sikh Deras in the 12,000 villages of Punjab.

Being an American, I don't understand how the caste system can still be such a powerful influence in 21st century India. But the Deras, which are described as sects "headed by self-styled godmen," have sprung up largely in response to caste inequalites.

Much of the following that the sects are attracting is because people from lower casts and lower stratas of Punjab society are trying to seek a distinct identity for themselves.

Dalits are the low-ranking ethnic group that is getting shafted by caste prejudices. By contrast, the first article says that the Jatt Sikhs are on the high end of the Punjab totem pole.

Recently riots broke out in the Punjab after a leader of one of the sects, Dera Sach Khand, was killed in Vienna. If it weren't for religion -- the weird aspects of Hinduism and Sikhism -- likely none of this would be happening.

Where Buddhism & science coincide -- and divide

As noted before, I used to be a lot more attracted to Buddhism than I am now.

My churchless scientific leanings cause me to shy away from faith-based religiosity, and I've learned that while Buddhism talks a pretty good "spiritual science" game, the actual playing is lacking.

Owen Flanagan, a philosopher, explains why in his "The Really Hard Problem," a book I'm enjoying.

The really hard problem is how meaning is possible in the material world. To me it's obvious how this is done: each of us makes our own meaning, right here and right now. No metaphysics required.

However, religions want us to believe that the meaning of life is something to be discovered, not made. And that it exists in some unseen divine realm, not the physical universe.

Science relies on evidence, not faith.

Since there is no demonstrable evidence of a metaphysical reality, science doesn't accept that such exists. In like fashion, it doesn't make sense to found one's meaning of life on a non-existent base, which is what religion offers.

Now, Buddhism appeals to many who shun traditional religions because there's no belief in God or an eternal unchangeable soul. By and large, Buddhism is naturalistic.

This allows Flanagan, who has participated in efforts of the Dalai Lama to meld science and Buddhism, to say that Buddhist teachings about karma mostly are entirely in line with the theory of evolution.

What I have been calling the tame interpretation of karmic causation involves the conjunction of three uncontroversial ideas: (i) that sentient beings exist; (ii) that these beings engage in mentally initiated purposeful action, and (iii) that all the actions of sentient beings (intentional and unintentional) have abundant effects.

Absolutely.

As a sentient being I think, "Today I'll write another blog post about Flanagan's book." Then, I do it. And when other people read what I wrote, they will have mental reactions that cause them to engage in actions of their own, such as posting a comment, or flying off to another part of cyberspace with the thought, "Jeez, I can't believe how boring that was."

So far, so good on the Buddhism is compatible with science front. However, what Flanagan calls the "untame" Buddhist interpretation of karma divides them.

Because this wilder side of Buddhist philosophy posits that consciousness is non-material and survives the death of the physical body. So Flanagan says that a karmic reward and punishment system "juices" the psyches of future beings prior to their reincarnation.

What is meant by the idea of "the law of karma, by which an intentional act will reap certain fruits" is this: my consciousness does not die when my body does, it goes on and reaps in the next and possibly many (many) future lives what it sows in each antecedent life.

This, one might say, is simply what all eschatologies say in one form or another. So in order to make clear what makes karmic causation ^untamed especially distinctive, one might add: immaterial properties of sentient beings produce causal effects in the natural world, upstream, down the road, in the future.

Obviously it's unclear how this happens.

How does something immaterial affect materiality? For karma to make a difference in the physical world, seemingly DNA has to be modified, brain patterns affected, behaviors controlled.

Yet neuroscientists operate under the assumption that there is a neural correlate for every mental state, or subjective experience. This entirely reasonable perspective, given the evidence for it, is known as NCC -- neural correlates of consciousness.

Flanagan says that throughout a recent book by the Dalai Lama, the Buddhist leader "seems content with the idea that there are neural correlates for every mental state." However, this contentment isn't complete, as evidenced by this quote from the Dalai Lama:

Now I'd like to say more about the fundamental nature of the mind. There is no reason to believe that the innate mind, the very essential luminous nature of awareness, has neural correlates, because it is not physical, not contingent upon the brain. So while I agree with neuroscience that gross mental events correlate with brain activity, I also feel that on a more subtle level of consciousness, brain and mind are two separate entities.

Well, there's nothing wrong with having feelings.

But demonstrable evidence of the "luminous nature of awareness" doesn't exist. In fact, there is no way such proof could exist. So when Buddhist dogma separates brain and mind, a separation also occurs between Buddhism and science.

Here's the reason, as laid out by Flanagan. If essential consciousness has no physical effects, this makes it an epiphenomenon.

Meaning, it is meaningless to us, since consciousness is just there -- a fundamental property of reality like time or space that doesn't ever make any difference to anything, since it isn't a thing that can affect other things.

Flanagan writes:

According to the laws of physics (e.g., conservation laws), consciousness, if it is immaterial, can have no effects. None. If a Buddhist insists on operating with the assumption that the mind is immaterial and causally efficacious, his position is scientifically and philosophically unstable.

The neurophysicalist will claim that the thesis that mind is not embodied undermines the very idea that "mind-training," conceived non-naturalistically, could yield any of the promised changes in the life of an embodied Earthly being.

...The view that immaterial stuff or properties can cause anything to happen is an idea, which despite numerous noble efforts no one one has ever been able to make sense of. The idea that it is possible is inconsistent with all known scientific law.

Yes, indeed. Such wisdom reminds me of me (not surprisingly, given my non-realization of egoless Buddha nature).

I said that God is good for nothing. Consciousness also, it seems. God and/or essential immaterial consciousness may exist, but there is no evidence that either makes any difference in the physical world.

Great news for my Wu Project. If nothing is real, it really is nothing.

Subjectivity is the experience of objectivity

Wow, this post title runs the risk of winning a blogosphere Yawn! award. But hang in there, reader -- this subject of subjectivity and objectivity actually is darn interesting.

And as intimate to you and me as what we're doing at this very moment.

Which, in my case, includes sipping coffee from a yellow cup and watching the letters I type on my laptop's keyboard appear on the screen. I'm experiencing those things, along with much more -- such as hearing my wife open a desk drawer and shuffle through some papers.

Now, there seems to be a big difference between (1) the objective state of affairs in my house, and (2) my experience of that state.

This often is called the "hard problem" of consciousness, explaining that difference.

How does my physical brain generate a sense of subjective Brian? Neurosurgeons who opened up my cranium would just observe a mass of fleshy matter. But somehow my brain cells enable me to experience the world from the inside out, as it were.

As a... words are so hard to come by ... world that lives inside me, not a world that exists separate from my consciousness of it.

Yet, it does.

My wife sees the same coffee cup, the same laptop, and everything else in our house (she, on the other hand, would be justified in saying that I don't see many things she does, such as socks and t-shirts scattered on top of my dresser, and unwiped water drops on the stainless steel kitchen sink after I've made coffee).

So what's going on?

Are mystics justified in claiming that subjectivity is the only reality, that consciousness is the essence of the cosmos and not materiality? Or does science have the inside track on truth, with its emphasis on describing entities that can be studied objectively?

Let's dump the "or" in the paragraph above. That's an insight I've gotten from Owen Flanagan's book, "The Really Hard Problem: Meaning in a Material World."

It's an excellent read, though if you're thinking of buying it keep in mind that I'm a glutton for philosophical punishment (Flanagan is a philosophy and neurobiology professor at Duke University). Your reading results may vary.

I like how Flanagan zeros in on some basic notions of subjectivity and objectivity that respect the reality of both our inner subjective experiences and the outer objective world. I'll let him speak for himself, since any attempt on my part to summarize his arguments likely would screw up his philosophical position.

No one, dualist, naturalist, or pan-psychic, has yet explained consciousness... What we can say for certain now is that a naturalist picture fits much better with the rest of science than any known dualist or immaterialist view. Of course, the naturalist must accept the burden of showing how, using only natural resources, he proposes to explain phenomenal consciousness. Here is how.

Token neurophysicalism is the view that each and every mental event, each and every experience, is some physical event or other -- presumably some central-nervous-system event. Type neurophysicalism is the view that each kind or type of experience, e.g. "seeing a red cube" or "believing that [snow is white]," each kind or type of event -- be it perceptual, emotional, or a belief -- is realized in "pretty much the same way" by each member of the species that has the relevant experience.

...What matters is that each and every experience supervenes in some strong sense on a brain state. We can accept the truth of token neurophysicalism, and thus reject all immaterialist views that deny it, while resisting the conclusion that the essence of a mental event is revealed completely or captured completely by a description of its neural level realizer.

The reason is as follows, and it applies uniquely to conscious mental events: Conscious mental events are essentially Janus-faced and uniquely so. They have first-person subjective feel and are realized in objective states of affairs. As John Dewey said, "given that consciousness exists at all, there is no mystery in its being connected with what it is connected with."

Speaking counterfactually, water would be H2O and gold would be the substance with atomic number 79 even if there were no subjects of experience, no sentient beings, in the world. Objective realism is true of water and of gold.

But even if a conscious-mental-state token (say, your experience here and now of seeing these words on this page) is realized, and realized necessarily, in some complex neural process n in you, it is not the case, speaking counterfactually, that n could occur in a world without subjects.

Specifically, n could not and would not occur in a world in which you were not reading these words.

...The asymmetry between water and gold, on the one side, and conscious mental events, on the other, can be said to come to this: the nature of water and gold is essentially objective -- it is completely objective, ergo objective realism. The nature of conscious mental events is such that despite being perfectly natural, objective states of affairs, they have as part of their essential nature the subjective feel they have.

Call the basic idea subjective realism. Subjective realism says that the relevant objective state of affairs in a sentient creature properly hooked up to itself produces certain subjective feels in, for, and to that creature. The subjective feel is produced and realized in an organism in virtue of the relevant objective state of affairs' obtaining in that organism.

The subjective feel is, as it were, no more than the relevant objective state of affairs obtaining in a creature that feels things.

...For many it produces a mental cramp to think the thought that mental events are neural events but that their essence cannot be captured completely in neural terms. Such is the power of objective realism, a doctrine that is true for most of the things and types of things in the universe but that is not true for experiences.

The cramping can be eased, I propose, by accepting that the subjective realist is claiming nothing mysterious. It is simply a unique but nonmysterious fact about conscious mental states that they essentially possess a phenomenal side.

Well, I don't know if you find this as brilliantly convincing as I do. How would I? You are you and I am me.

Yet as Flanagan says, this doesn't mean that we each inhabit our own utterly subjective world of personal experience.

Our experiencing is an objective state of affairs, along with coffee cups and laptops. Experience simply is a feeling state, according to Flanagan, which makes a lot of sense to me.

There aren't two worlds, one subjective and one objective. Our experiencing is part of the objective world, albeit a unique part -- one which does not exist apart from the experiencer.

(I'm both thrilled and terrified that what I just wrote makes sense to me. "Thrilled," because Flanagan's perspective clears up a lot of philosophical confusion for me. "Terrified," because it's always possible that the confusion is more real than the clarity. Whatever...)

On giving up Buddhism and Zen

My churchlessness must be heading into even deeper irreligious territory, because lately I've been enjoying criticisms of some minimally churchy spiritual systems -- such as Buddhism -- that I used to identify with.

The problem I'm having with Buddhism is that it really doesn't deliver on the promise I often have heard from Buddhists: "You don't need to believe anything; just study your own mind and observe what is experienced in meditation."

Well, that sounds good. But actually there's a pretty extensive list of preconceptions in this supposedly conceptionless faith.

Reincarnation or rebirth. Karma. Non-existence of the self. The four noble truths (including "life is suffering").

Buddhists aren't genuinely open-minded about what they'll find when they look within their minds. Expectations about what will be learned through meditation are quite narrowly bounded, not expansive.

For example, it's unlikely that one's satori will be recognized as valid if the big realization is:

"I discovered that the more I think about the past and future, rather than being in the present, the more content I am. So now I just let my thoughts roam wherever they want to. To hell with this be here now crap. There-and-then is the place to be."

Today I came across a piece by John Horgan about why he gave up Buddhism. I could resonate with much of what Horgan said. Such as...

But what troubles me most about Buddhism is its implication that detachment from ordinary life is the surest route to salvation. Buddha's first step toward enlightenment was his abandonment of his wife and child, and Buddhism (like Catholicism) still exalts male monasticism as the epitome of spirituality. It seems legitimate to ask whether a path that turns away from aspects of life as essential as sexuality and parenthood is truly spiritual. From this perspective, the very concept of enlightenment begins to look anti-spiritual: It suggests that life is a problem that can be solved, a cul-de-sac that can be, and should be, escaped.

Horgan has written widely about mysticism and religion from a properly skeptical scientific perspective. Check out his web site. There are links to some interesting articles on the right side.

One is "Why I Gave Up Zen." It describes how he became disillusioned with Buddhism in a different fashion from his other essay. I could identify with this bit of rebellion against self-discipline:

Then I rebelled against this drill sergeant in my head. This exercise in self-discipline is absurd. Every time I order myself to be here now I’m not being here now. I’m thinking about being here now. It’s self-defeating from the start, like trying to remember to forget. In heeding the command, I violate it.

More and more, it seems to me that no organized spiritual practice is going to lead anywhere other than where we already want to go.

Meaning, we search out a religion, meditation approach, mystical system, or metaphysical philosophy that matches up with what we believe to be true. So long as our beliefs remain in sync with the teachings we've embraced, all is well and good.

But when our experience doesn't dovetail with dogma, we refashion the teachings to relieve the discrepancy. If the gap gets too large, then we say "Adios" to the organization and seek a faith that does a better job of validating us.

But why join a group in the first place, if all we're looking for is validation of what we already believe?

Horgan discusses this nicely in "Keeping the Faith in My Doubt." He ends with:

Instead of banding together, maybe we unbelievers should set an example by going in the opposite direction. We should renounce all isms that claim to speak for our most profound personal beliefs. Or rather, since we seem to be headed in this direction anyway, each unbeliever could create his or her personal ism with its own name. Since Universism is taken, I’ll call mine “Horganism.” You can revile it, admire it, or ignore it, but you can’t join it.

Searching for the reality in nonduality

I've been enjoying a comment conversation that's been happening on my "Mind in the Balance" post. The basic theme is whether nondualism is just another belief system, like any other philosophy or religion, or a genuinely unique direct realization of reality.

Might as well throw some of my own ideas into the discussion stew.

First off, though, I've got to admit that while I understand the notion of "dualism" pretty well, "nondualism" has never lodged in a comprehension niche within my mind.

Of course, nondualists like Ramana and Nisargadatta -- whose teachings I'm familiar with via a number of books I've read -- would say something like, "Of course you can't understand nonduality. There's nothing separate from you to understand. You are it!"

OK.

In a sense I can sort of understand, oops, I should say be, that. Since reality always is experienced subjectively, through the lens of consciousness, it isn't possible to know what the cosmos is like objectively, from the outside as it were.

We can't get outside of reality, or existence. The whole of existence thus reasonably seems to be viewed as one great big bunch of something, which could be called nonduality.

Shifting gears, so to speak...

I spent eight hours today finishing up a three-day Team Oregon motorcycle safety class. Most of the time I was sitting on a 200 cc bike, getting a refresher course in turning, stopping, swerving, and other motorcycling basics.

Now, what's the point in all this? Of all the things I could do in the limited time I have here on Earth, where does zooming around on a motorcycle fit in the Great Cosmic Scheme of Things?

A nondualist, seemingly, would answer, "Nowhere. And everywhere. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. A motorcycle is reality. Also, it isn't."

Zen, which strikes me as basically nondualist, finds chopping wood and carrying water to be eminently respectable activities. Along with any other sort of activity someone might decide to pursue, including motorcycling.

It's all in how you do it, whatever "it" may be. Or more accurately, how the "you" is that is doing it.

And here's where I start to wonder about whether nonduality really can be said to be more real than any other way of looking at the world. I mean, maybe it is. Yet maybe it isn't. Who can tell?

Let's say there was a recognized nondualist among the ten Team Oregon students in the motorcycling class I just completed. Ramana himself, for the sake of argument.

How could we tell the difference between someone who supposedly has realized the truth of nonduality, from someone who hasn't? Would they operate a motorcycle differently? Would they communicate differently? Would they be distinguishable in any way?

I suspect not.

Zen is fond of saying that there's nothing special in that way. And I'm not aware of any evidence that, aside from the nondual'ish words uttered by sages such as Ramana, a neutral observer could tell the difference between someone "realized" and someone who isn't.

Isn't this the same problem we face in sorting out truth claims of various religions? Each says, "Ultimate reality is like this."

But when asked to supply some demonstrable evidence of this, we're asked to take the claim on faith -- perhaps with an assurance that after death all will be revealed, or that the truth of this only can be experienced, not demonstrated.

So I can understand why skeptics look upon nondualism as one more philosophical system that makes interesting statements about what really real reality is like, yet isn't able to answer those who respond with: show me.

Again, I realize that in nondualism there is no "me" to be shown anything.

And this might well be the case. I don't know. It just seems to me that might well be isn't enough to justify giving the nod to nondualism over dualism, if someone is looking for the philosophy that best reflects reality.

I could be off base here. Or not even in the ballpark.

However, here's how I see the nondual situation: blindly. I've read, and re-read, the words of nondual sages. I don't grasp what it is like to experience nonduality. I don't see how it is any different from what I'm experiencing now.

In fact, those sages often say, This is It! You've got It! There's nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to become.

Great.

I can embrace the lazy man's way to enlightenment. Doing nothing sounds fine to me. Or rather, doing nothing special, since I'm looking forward to doing a lot with my soon-to-be delivered Suzuki Burgman scooter.

Why, though, does nondualism seem to be so dualistic? This is what keeps nagging at me. If it takes a lot of "spiritual" practice to realize the truth of nondualism, doesn't this divide reality into those who see the cosmos for what it is, and those who don't?

And if that's true (as seems to be the case; otherwise why are there nondual sages?), then how can we tell the difference between the Realized and the Deluded? 

If it's only a matter of words, a claim by some of "I know," this seems to be the same sort of take-it-on-faith that religions ask of us.

But as I so often say, I could be wrong. The conversation continues...

Letting go completely of religion...tough to do

When I showed my wife, Laurel, what book I'd bought at the wonderful Paulina Springs Book Company in Sisters, Oregon, she said, "Gosh, you've become as enthusiastic a believer in atheism as you were a believer in what you believed before."

Well, that's a lot of "beliefs" in one sentence. And I have to disagree with one of them, because I don't consider that I believe in atheism.

Rather, to me atheism is the default position that everyone should accept, absent demonstrable evidence for theism. It is the absence of a belief in God, just as aunicornism is what we could term the lack of belief in unicorns.

If I ever have a good reason to believe in some divinity, believe me, I'll start believing. But until that day comes, which I suspect it never will, I prefer to live my life authentically, not falsely.

It's difficult, though, to give up all vestiges of unfounded believing. Here's an example.

I'm getting a Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter. Laurel isn't wild about this, as she thinks (correctly) that motorcycles and scooters are dangerous. Yet it's also correct that motorcycling is as dangerous as you make it.

To my mind, it's a matter of meaning, or values. I value scootering. Laurel doesn't. Vive le difference.

But recently we had breakfast with some neighbors, and they were as down on my scooter purchase as Laurel is. Later she said, "See, the universe is sending you a message!"

Hmmmm. I didn't receive the message from the universe that she got.

Plus, I don't believe that the universe, or any other cosmic entity, sends people messages. I used to, though, so I can understand why this notion appeals to those who find an uncaring cosmos disconcerting.

My experience is that churchlessness isn't accomplished in one fell swoop. It's natural to cling to vestiges of religiosity, letting go of the most obvious dogmas while continuing to embrace subtler forms of unfounded metaphysics.

In the book I mentioned above,"The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods," Eric Maisel mentions some of these seemingly non-religious belief systems.

Following is a lengthy excerpt from the "If you currently believe" section.

I'm sharing it because I think Maisel makes some excellent points. Often a person's religiosity just changes form rather than fading away. Realizing this helps us answer the question, "Am I truly living the churchless life that I aspire to?"

Maisel issues an invitation to live the atheist's way, then says:

It is truer to reality and it frees you up enormously. In one fell swoop you could leave a lot of humbug behind you.

I offer you this same invitation if you participate in one of the "river" religions. Some religions, such as Buddhism and Taoism, do not posit the existence of gods. I am calling these disparate religions river religions to distinguish them from god-based religions and to catch something of their flavor.

The river religions tend to posit an indivisible reality flowing eternally. At first glance this view of life does not seem too incompatible with the atheist's way. The river religions can be very attractive to people who do not believe in bearded gods dictating to humankind.

But they are no less false than the god-based religions, because ultimately they are dogmatic and create an unnecessary wall between a person and reality.

And what about an enthusiasm for Wicca, paganism, past lives, psychic powers, remote viewing, spoon bending, astrology, Tarot, the I Ching, palm reading, haunted houses, sacred sites, vampires, seances, and a thousand other variations of new age, paranormal, and supernatural belief?

These too interfere with your ability to assess well, to choose well, and to live well, and therefore they ought to be discarded. Like the god religions and the river religions, our supernatural enthusiasms have their undeniable seductive side, their psychological pull, and their blandishments.

But they don't serve you any better than god-talk or river-talk. Believing in them, investing time and energy in them, and imbibing in their metaphoric power diminish you. The more you consult your chart, the more personal power you relinquish; the more you identify a site as "sacred," the less real you make your life.

The god religions, the river religions, and the world of supernatural enthusiasms do not serve you. They force you to rein in your intelligence, they make claims that you do not honestly believe, they smell of illegitimate shortcut, and they hurt your chances of taking a fearless inventory of your beliefs and charting a course that will make you proud.

Later in the book, Maisel speaks of how the word "spiritual" frequently is misused. Someone watches a beautiful sunset from an ocean beach and says later, "It was a marvelous spiritual experience."

No, it was a natural experience that made the person feel a certain way.

Making it into something other-worldly -- a message in a bottle sent from the distant realm of Spirit -- separates us from the occasion's immediate reality.

Sunset. Ocean. Feeling. Where's the need to put a label of spiritual on this? Why not simply describe what the experience meant to you? Directly. Honestly. Personally.

A person who devotes her life to helping orphans is not a spiritual person; she is an ordinary person who has decided to make meaning in an ordinary way that happens to be a way that we value.

We might want to applaud her efforts, give her an award, and thank her in any heartfelt way that we like -- without adding supernatural language to our thanks.

...Your cousin says, "I had a spiritual experience"; you reply, "Oh, you had a meaningful experience. How nice for you."

Your co-worker says, "I've never had a more spiritual time than when I visited the formal gardens of England!" You reply, "Really? What was meaningful about that experience?" In this way you keep yourself supernatural-free and help others move in the direction of rationality.

Meaning of life is made, not discovered

I love books that lead me to look upon something familiar in a fresh way. Like, life's meaning. I've spent a lot of time pondering the meaning of life. And, searching for it.

Now that I've read about half of Eric Maisel's "The Atheist's Way" (highly recommended), I realize that my pondering is on the right track. The searching, not so much.

In fact, Maisel has done a good job of convincing me that viewing the meaning of one's life as something to be discovered leads nowhere. Unless you want to adopt someone else's values, rather than your own.

Before you can make meaning, an odd kind of election process must occur. You must nominate yourself as the meaning-maker in your life and as the hero of your own story. Then you must consciously elect yourself to that position.

You must decide to put yourself before everything and everyone else, not in a grandiose, egotistical, or narcissistic way but in a way that reflects the idea that you alone decide what meaning you intend to make.

...Few people actually nominate themselves in this way. Most defer to the meaning-making apparatus of their culture, taking comfort in the fact that others have built a meaning nest for them.

This built-in cover allows them to avoid taking responsibility and at the same time causes them to grow grandiose, narcissistic, and egotistical. As soon as you put on the robes of your culture and add gravity to your mere humanness by wearing the badge of your profession, your club, your gang, or your clan, you participate in life more selfishly.

...To nominate yourself as the hero of your own story is to step outside society, not with the intention of turning your back on it but with the intention of not allowing it to dictate to you.

...When I nominate myself and begin to make my meaning, I can't then quote Scripture, the law, an opinion poll, expert evidence, tradition, or anything else as the reason for my life decisions. What I must say is, "I've thought it over and decided."

Facts are discovered. Objective reality is discovered. Meaning is made. Subjective reality is made.

But many people -- and I've been guilty of this to some extent -- have it backwards. They believe that scientific truth, objective reality, can be manufactured so it accords with some religious or metaphysical dogma.

They also consider that the meaning of life has been set forth by a god, guru, prophet, or other form of divinity. So we need to find out what that meaning is, not make it ourselves.

Maisel's approach is much more in attune with what we know about reality.

There is no sign of God, or gods. There is no reason to believe that the cosmos cares about us, is aware of us, communicates with us, or has a plan for us. So the meaning of our life has to be created by us.

Maisel writes:

When our younger daughter came home from college one year she presented me with a coffee mug. The mug had a motto: "Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself."

This is a tremendously liberating and energizing realization.

As soon as I began to read "The Atheist's Way" I realized how much I'd bought into the notion that the meaning of life was sitting somewhere out there waiting to be discovered. I no longer believed that God or a guru was the source of that meaning.

But I still held a largely unconscious assumption that if the rock bottom truth of the universe could be discovered (which includes the possibility that it is bottomless), meaning would come along with it.

Now I see that objective reality is one thing, and the meaning I attribute to it and my life is another thing. Nobody else can create that meaning for me.

You and you alone are the sole arbiter of the meaning in your life. The second you turn to someone and say, "What does life mean?" or "What should my life mean?" you have slipped into a mind-set that courts inauthenticity and depression.

The second you agree with someone simply because of her position or reputation, whether that someone is a guru, author, cleric, parent, politician, general, or elder, you fall from the path of personal meaning-maker.

You and you alone get to decide. That is the awesome proposition facing every modern person. The revolutionary idea that I'm proposing is that, as limited as we are in a biological and psychological sense, we are exactly that free in an existential sense.

If we do not live that way, honoring that existential freedom, we get sad and depressed. If we do not live that way, we find ourselves wishing that we had opted for authenticity and had decided to matter.

There is, of course, a web site for "The Atheist's Way." The first chapter of Maisel's book can be read there.

Have a look. Then decide for yourself what it means to you.

"Mind in the Balance" unfairly slams science

Bummer. I thought I was going to enjoy B. Alan Wallace's "Mind in the Balance," since the subtitle points to an intriguing subject: Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity.

But the book turned out to be a disappointment, largely because Wallace is disturbingly anti-science and pro-religion, which shows that Buddhists can believe with blind faith in weird stuff just as other religious fundamentalists do.

Right away I saw inklings of this. A sentence on page 1 had me nodding agreeably with Wallace:

What's been hidden is meditation's role as a precision tool for exploring consciousness and the universe scientifically -- that is, using empirical methods similar to those intrinsic to the scientific method.

But on page 2, the author starts to show his religious spots.

We generally think of religion as simply an attitude based on faith in authority ("Jesus or Mohammed or Moses said 'X,' so I believe 'X.'"), and carelessly lump together those who believe without question the revelations of religious authorities and "religious groups" that question and explore in hopes of confirming and directly experiencing religious phenomena. There is a huge difference between the two.

Well, theoretically perhaps.

But in practice, I've found that groups claiming to practice an experimental "spiritual science" or "science of the soul" don't really follow the scientific method.

Meaning, the questioning and exploring referred to in the quote above never results in any disconfirming of a cherished belief, or a marked change in a group's teachings, whereas science is continually revising and refining theories based on experimental evidence.

Buddhists often talk a good game -- I like how the Dalai Lama says that if science disproved some tenet of Buddhism, it would have to be given up -- but "Mind in the Balance" presents Buddhism as a faith-based religion, which turned me off.

Example: I can sort of understand what "brightly shining mind" might be like (this supposedly is primordial consciousness, the mind of the Buddha). Maybe it is possible to experience this through the Buddhist meditation practices described in the book.

But many Buddhists also believe in a bodily transformation that is a whole lot less believable.

The culmination of the path of the Great Perfection is the realization of the "rainbow body," in which one's body allegedly dissolves into shimmering, multicolored light at death. If the theory of reincarnation stretches the scientific imagination, the Buddhist assertion of the rainbow body transcends all bounds of credulity for many people in the modern world.

That's for sure. Count me as one of those whose credulity has been stretched to the breaking point.

Given Wallace's assertion that Buddhism is a religion committed to confirming religious phenomena, I figured that he'd offer up some evidence of "one's body vanishes at death like a rainbow disappearing into the sky" and "the material body of the contemplative decreases in size until it finally vanishes without leaving any trace of the body or mind behind."

Nope.

All he does is repeat claims that this has been seen by Tibetan Buddhists, and says that Jesus' resurrection could be an instance of a physical body turning into a rainbow body.

Then Wallace says:

We may never know whether the Christian resurrection can be understood in Buddhist terms, but it is possible to put the Buddhist assertion regarding the rainbow body to the test of experience.

Great. Let's put video cameras and neutral scientific observers next to the death beds of advanced Buddhist practitioners and document what happens. Does the physical body disappear?

But this isn't the sort of test Wallace is talking about. It's pretty clear that by experience he means something else -- seemingly a subjective personal "step-by-step path of purification."

So there is no evidence confirming a Buddhist dogma, the dissolving of the physical body at death into a "rainbow body," that could easily be tested by scientific methods. Yet Wallace speaks of this being "an extraordinary challenge to many religious and scientific assumptions that limit the human imagination today."

Wrong.

Obviously the human imagination is alive and kicking in religious minds, which account for the vast majority of human minds on Earth. True believers such as Wallace accept all kinds of strange ideas, such as the rainbow body and Jesus' resurrection, without demonstrable evidence.

All science does is put imaginings to reasonable tests, if they are held out as reflecting objective reality rather than a subjective thought, emotion, or perception.

Wallace's version of Buddhism is annoyingly unscientific. He uncritically accepts religious beliefs, such as the rainbow body and reincarnation, on faith, and also makes unfounded claims that Buddhism knows more about physical reality than science does.

For example:

Thus at conception there is a confluence of the genetic information received by way of the egg and sperm of one's parents and the past-life information received by way of the life force. The interface between the two represents the interface between the scientific theory of evolution and the Buddhist theory of karma.

Well, that's interesting.

Wallace is on his way to a Nobel prize if he could back up that assertion. But of course, he can't. Wallace merely presents a Buddhist dogma as if it was fact, going on to talk about how karma supposedly manifests in the lives of humans and animals. 

Here's another faith-based assertion:

So, from a contemplative perspective, this extraordinary claim about the physical nature of consciousness appears to be utterly unsupported by all the scientific and personal evidence available.

Again, absolutely wrong. I have no idea what the guy is talking about.

Hasn't Wallace heard about anesthesia, persistent vegetative states, neurological injuries, MRI scanners, and other evidence that the physical brain and consciousness are exceedingly intimately connected? If not identical.

Sure, subjective states can't be measured objectively. That's obvious, both philosophically and scientifically. That's a far cry, though, from asserting that Buddhists know human consciousness survives bodily death.

And they have discovered that ordinary states of consciousness actually emerge not from the brain but from such subtle, nonphysical continuua of consciousness that do not cease at death.

No, they haven't.

Every Buddhist contemplative who supposedly has made this discovery has been alive at the time. How the heck can someone know that his or her consciousness doesn't cease at death when they're not dead?

I found a little to like in "Mind in the Balance," but not much.

The meditation exercises were familiar to me. I kept penning question marks with my highlighter in the margins, because Wallace so often made dogmatic religious statements without a shred of evidence to back them up.

The main thing I learned from this book is that Buddhism really is a religion. I've tried to view it as a philosophy based on direct experience of one's own mind/consciousness, not on theological precepts accepted on faith.

But it's clear that Wallace, who is a long-time Buddhist monk ordained by the Dalai Lama, sees meditation merely as a means of confirming the teachings of Buddhism. If a meditator doesn't experience what Wallace believes is true, he or she is doing something wrong.

This isn't spiritual science. It is dogmatic religion disguised with a flimsy covering of a pseudo-scientific method.

If you're interested in non-religious Buddhism, there are plenty of alternatives to "Mind in the Balance." A couple of my favorites are "Buddhism Without Beliefs" and "Ending the Pursuit of Happiness."