Church of the Churchless

Halloween churchless cheers and jeers

Well, I've got to start off my Halloween cheering with a big shout-out to the Oregon Ducks football team, who crushed fifth-ranked USC tonight in Eugene -- an hour's drive away from Church of the Churchless headquarters here in south Salem.

Next, praise for Halloween itself, a nice mostly-pagan/secular holiday, albeit with some mildly Christian overtones, which are barely recognizable beneath all those sexy costumes.

It's interesting, but not all that surprising, that so many adults (and children also) choose to express their darker, sensuous, slutty, or sinister side on Halloween.

You don't see many Compassionate Buddhist Monk or Charitable Giving Tree costumes. When given an opportunity to let their inner whatever out, wild and crazy is more likely to make an appearance than tame and sensible.

My wife and I rarely dress up on Halloween. Mostly because we usually don't venture out on this day. With my two year old granddaughter living way down in southern California, and us not being party animals, there isn't much reason to costume up.

Yesterday, though, we decided to go to a Halloween dance at the RJ Dance Studio. Costumes, the notice said, were optional. My wife said, "let's do it." She likes to shop, so it was a pleasant and rather easy task for her to put together a cool blue outfit.

The feather boa was a nice touch, something Laurel had hanging around the house for an occasion like this.

After parking downtown we had to walk a few blocks to the dance studio. As we passed a hipster hangout, I couldn't help thinking that a lot of young people wouldn't look upon Laurel's get-up as a costume at all, but as normal attire.

Ditto for my considerably less creative outfit. I started with a black mullet wig that I got at WalMart for $8. Sadly, it isn't much in evidence in this photo.

I then accessorized with the very t-shirt that I'd been wearing normally all day, my dearly beloved Harley-Davidson "there are no rules" shirt. I capped it off with a Sportsman's Outfitter hunting cap and some blue shades to match Laurel.

Pondering what I'd say if someone asked me what I was, "Mill City meth lab operator" came to mind. (Mill City is a small nearby  town; Oregon meth labs have been relocating to rural areas, but in fairness to my state's reputation, we've pioneered in reducing the available supply of meth ingredients.)

It was fun to become someone else for an evening. A guy I know quite well came to the dance and didn't recognize me. Just as with Laurel's costume, of course, mine looked a lot like how many people dress all the time.

Laurel and I danced better than usual. We felt more relaxed, having cast off our usual dressing conventions in the whatever Halloween spirit. 

For two hours blue hair and mullet hair danced away, until our 60-something legs and feet got tired. We got some good tips from a more accomplished dancer on timing, rhythm, and moving to the music.

Someone left a comment on this blog today that talked about the joy of letting go in the presence in a guru. I responded that there are many ways of letting go of our usual overly self-conscious selves, dancing certainly being among them.

Putting on a Halloween costume also. Which is an outward act that reflects an inward transformation always available to us: choosing to be someone different from who we've always been.

Halloween is a reminder that we can be whoever we want, religious dogma and convention be damned. If we can do this one day of the year, why not every day? 

That's the positive side of this holiday. On the negative side, seeing all the witches around recently made me recall an email I got a while back from Alex, a Unitarian in Hong Kong.

He told me about children being murdered in Nigeria because they'd been branded as witches and blamed for various catastrophes.

Who is mostly responsible? Christian pastors, not surprisingly. Another example of how horribly fundamentalists can behave in the name of their imaginary God.

Don't worry about yourself. You don't have one (a self).

Ah, I love instant enlightenment.

OK -- not exactly instant, because I had to watch 54 minutes of a You Tube video before I got to Thomas Metzinger's philosophical "money shot" right at the end.

But I had enjoyed Metzinger's book, "The Ego Tunnel," which I blogged about here, here, and here.

So when I saw a mention of the video on my Twitter feed, I figured that it would be worth watching. I'm a sucker for a Zen-titled talk, "Being No One," from someone who specializes in scientific perspectives on the philosophy of mind.

Most of Metzinger's presentation is pretty darn boring. I listened to it more than I watched it, dividing my attention between his ideas and browsing my habitual morning web sites.

One of his basic notions is that our self-model, our sense of "me," is a simulation. I don't claim to completely understand Metzinger's explanation of how this comes about, which is rather complicated.

However, I could grasp his point that evolution, via natural selection, favored humans who could simply recognize the presence of a wolf -- no need to also know how the brain processes sensory and cognitive data behind the scenes of conscious awareness.

So we have a naive realism. Metzinger said, "We didn't need to distance ourselves from ourselves." And...

We are systems, which are not able to recognize their own sub-symbolic self-model as a model. Therefore we operate under the condition of a naive-realistic self-misunderstanding.

We necessarily experience ourselves as being in direct and immediate epistemic contact with ourselves.

Metaphorically speaking, you are a system that continually confuses itself with the content of its own self-model.

This avatar doesn't know it has a visual cortex; it just sees with its eyes. It doesn't know it has a motor cortex; it just acts with its hands.

Meaning, I think, that it just seems so obvious "I" am the center of my "self."

That there is an ethereal being I call "me" who seemingly is separate and distinct from all of the crude physical goings-on in my body, neurons firing chemically/electrically, food being digested and crapped out, etc., etc., etc.

Given this assumption, which is almost universal among human beings, the quest for our true self becomes all-important.

People want to be self-fulfilled. They seek self-realization. They wonder what happens to the self after death. They yearn for enlightenment, which often is considered to involve ego-loss or becoming selfless.

Metzinger, however, dissolves these notions in some wonderfully intriguing closing remarks.

Given all this, isn't it true that the self is an illusion? I think it is not true, because it contains a logical mistake.

On the level on which we are talking, there is no such thing as truth or falsity yet. There is nobody who could have an illusion in this system.

So if you really wanted to stay with the idea that the self is an illusion, you would have to say that it is an illusion which is no one's illusion.

Then he addresses the big question: immortality of the soul.

If it is true that the self is not a thing, but a process, as I have described it, then it is also true that the tragedy of the ego dissolves. Because strictly speaking, nobody is every born and nobody ever dies.

Good news. I guess. Not that there is an "I" who guesses. But I'm still guessing.

Here's the video:

Should science have an opinion on the supernatural?

Some people think that science and religion operate in two different spheres, with never the twain meeting.

This often is called NOMA, non-overlapping magisteria -- a term coined by biologist Stephen Jay Gould, who said:

The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap, nor do they encompass all inquiry (consider, for example, the magisterium of art and the meaning of beauty).

I disagree, unless "religion" is defined so broadly as to include philosophy in both the scholarly and commonsense meanings of this word. People can ponder the ultimate meaning of the cosmos, and what is right or wrong within it, without being traditionally religious.

Also, science seems to have a role to play in evaluating certain religious claims. If God or some other supernatural power produces effects in the physical universe, these should be observable. And thus testable.

However, movie critic Roger Ebert disagreed in his essay, "Darwin survives as the fittest," written in commemoration of Darwin's two hundredth birthday last February. Even though Ebert is strongly pro-science, he said:

Science has no opinion on the supernatural. It cannot. Science deals with that which can be studied or inferred by observation, measurement, and experiment. Supernatural belief is outside its purview, except in such social sciences as sociology, anthropology, and psychology, where even then not the validity of the beliefs but their effects are studied.

Ebert's piece is interesting for what he says about evolution and the varieties of responses to the Theory (better termed Fact) of Evolution. These include "species" such as the True Believers, Reasonables, Metaphysicians, and New Agers.

But what got science blogger P.Z. Myer's attention was Ebert's contention that science can't invade religion's supernatural turf. Otherwise he mostly approved of what Ebert had to say.

In "Effectively non-existent" Myers wrote:

The premise that science can't have a stance on the validity of a religion is like the tranquilizer dart of the debates with religion; someone is thinking and questioning, and suddenly, swooosh, thock, ouch…they hear this argument that you can't question the premises of religion, they get all sleepy and soporified, nod a few times, and piously agree. Gould succumbed to this, too, and here's Roger Ebert, hit by the same dart.

WAKE UP.

Think about it. Why can't science address the existence of gods? Why should we simply sit back and accept the claim of apologists that what they believe in is not subject to "observation, measurement, and experiment"?

Good question.

Myers correctly points out that religious believers make all sorts of statements about who or what God is, how God acts in the world, what God approves of, and so on. Many of these claims have implications that are amenable to observation (such as whether prayer produces the outcomes asked for).

Yet when scientists ask for demonstrable evidence of religious claims, suddenly this God that was so well understood is said to "work in mysterious ways" and is beyond knowledge as we know it.

Well, which is it? Either a religion can say something true about God and the supernatural, or it can't. If nothing can be said, then why do all the saying? Just shut up.

However, if some truths can be spoken, then they should be able to be tested. Myers gets it right:

So where did these confident promoters of god-business get their information? Shouldn't they be admitting that their knowledge of this elusive cosmic beast is nonexistent? It seems to me that if you're going to declare scientists helpless before the absence and irrelevance of the gods, you ought to declare likewise for all of god's translators and interpreters. Be consistent when you announce who has purview over all religious belief, because making god unobservable and immeasurable makes everyone incapable of saying anything at all about it.

...This is where the "Science has no opinion on religion" argument leads us: to an atheist's world, where there are no activities by a god that matter, where at best people can claim that their god is aloof and unknowable, admitting in their own premises that they have no knowledge at all of him.

I can accept that, as long as these people are aware of the import of what they are actually saying.

Shocked at my past beliefs, should I disown me?

I picked up the book. Thumbed through the pages and located the right chapter. Scanned a few paragraphs. Then found the lines I was looking for:

Mysticism has little quarrel with the theory of evolution -- as long as it is recognized that life evolves not randomly, but under the guidance of an intelligence which is far beyond our ability to fathom. All that is evident are the results of a divine will reflected most imperfectly in the fossil record and the current diversity of species.

Oh no!, I thought. The author is an intelligent design advocate. He believes in bullshit!

I threw the book down on my office floor in disgust.

I'd been looking for a quote to use in a blog post about evolution. But I wasn't about to use anything written by a guy who obviously didn't understand the difference between real science and mystical mumbo jumbo. 

Here's the funny thing: I was that guy. I was disgusted at myself. The book whose content I disagreed with was "Life is Fair" (now back in print over at the Science of the Soul Research Centre).

Now, I still believe in much, if not most, of what I wrote in Life is Fair. After all, life is. Fair.

But as I blogged about a few years ago, for different reasons that I argued in that book. That's how I see things presently, at least. Back in the late 90's I thought differently. In the future, who knows?

The only thing I can be certain about is that from this moment until the day I die, I'm not going to be absolutely certain about anything. Probably, I should add, to be consistent.

So after a few days of pondering my emotional reaction to re-reading what I wrote a dozen or so years ago, I've concluded that I was too hard on myself.

Yes, I was disturbed that my beliefs back then fell into a "religiously mentally ill" diagnosis. And when I read how the Brian of that time looked upon evolution, it bothered me that I was less scientific than I'd remembered myself being.

But here's the thing: I changed. And I'm still changing. As are we all. Thankfully.

Because change only stops when we're dead. Until then, living leads us in largely unpredictable ways. Our relationships with other people change; our bodies change; our lifestyles change; our physical activities change; our personalities change; our philosophical and religious beliefs change.

Which is unavoidable. And largely to the good, even though many of life's changes are objectionable to us.

Here in the United States, as likely is true elsewhere in the world, people like to play a "gotcha" game. Politicians and other public officials come in for special gotcha treatment. 

Opponents will drag up a quote from a speech someone made a decade ago, showing how that person believed in such-and-such back then and now holds a different view.

Gotcha!

Oh, really? Is there something wrong with a person changing his or her mind, arriving at a different conclusion, evolving into a more nuanced conception of reality?

No, there isn't. That's what I believe.

But still, if I really believed this, I wouldn't have had the throw-the-book-on-the-floor reaction that occurred when I was presented with evidence of how my notions about evolution have changed.

Which seems to point to some sort of lingering attraction toward a self that is more constant than I really am. Cognitive dissonance probably is at play here -- me wanting to resolve the conflicts between what I believe now and what I believed then by forgetting how different "now" and "then" were.

At any rate, this experience has reminded me not to judge other people's seemingly deluded beliefs overly harshly. One of my favorite blog post titles is "I've become the person I warned myself about."

Or reversing the arrow of time, "I used to be the person I now warn myself about."

I've got no clue who I really am, assuming there is an "I" at all. But the fact that I can be aware of how much I've changed shows that some aspect of me stands apart from being and becoming.

What we believe -- religiously or otherwise --  is important. However, re-reading "Life is Fair" reminded me that who I was deeper down, beneath my beliefs, when I wrote the book is pretty much the same person I am now.

If that's the case, doesn't it follow that we're all much more similar than alike? That what separates us all too often is our focus on beliefs. Political, religious, philosophical, moral, and so on.

We forget how easy it is to trade one belief system for another. How interchangeable ideas can be, while the person doing the mental changing is someone quite different from his or her thoughts.

Are you religious, or mentally ill? Take the test.

Problematic symptoms can have many different causes. Differential diagnosis aids mental health experts like me*** to tell what you're suffering from.

(*** I have a Master's Degree in Social Work. I had field placements in a Community Mental Health Clinic and a Family Counseling Agency. The fact that I never worked in mental health after I graduated, or got any sort of licensing, shouldn't bother you. After all, this is the Internet -- where advice is free and always worth what you pay for it.)

Please consider the following ten statements carefully. Answer "yes" or "no" honestly, according to whether you agree or disagree.

-----------------------

(1)  Someone who is vastly powerful and all-knowing communicates with me in mysterious ways.

(2)  A being no one can see, but who I know exists, is aware of all of my thoughts and actions.

(3)  I can be punished for my bad desires because someone can look into my mind and can't be blocked from doing this.

(4)  Repeating certain words over and over pleases invisible forces; then they are more likely to give me what I want.

(5)  I am very, very special to the ultimate power of the cosmos.

(6)  Horrible things are going to happen to most other people when they die, but I'm going to be wonderfully rewarded by an invisible friend.

(7)  Things are going to go well for me in this life if I follow certain rules exactly, never ever deviating from them no matter what.

(8)  A non-material entity is trying to make me do bad things, so I always have to be ready to resist it.

(9) There's no way I can die, because a part of me has immortal super-powers.

(10)  Other people who don't look at life the way I do are crazy, not me.

-------------------------

If you answered "yes" to one or more of these statements, don't feel alone: billions of people are just like you.

Help is available, whether you are religious or mentally ill. But we still don't know which you are.

A differential diagnosis can be made in this fashion. Attempt to heal yourself. If that fails, seek competent mental health treatment. Psychotherapy and medications can do wonders for thought disorders.

If you are still agreeing with all or some of the statements above, face reality: you're religious. Curing this disorder is going to be tough.

There are resources to help you. Books. Web sites. Proofs.

Don't accept your condition. Millions have been cured of delusional religiosity. You can be too.

Evolution reflects the beauty of science

Reality is so much more attractive than illusion. This is why science is so much more beautiful than religion.

It just takes an open (and humble) mind's eye to see. Science places us within an interconnected cosmos where we are part and parcel of everything in existence.

This is akin to the "oneness" of religion and mysticism. Except, it is demonstrably real. Behold:

I'm a couple of chapters into Richard Dawkins' new book, "The Greatest Show on Earth." Which happens to be evolution.

Great read. A spine-tingle on just about every page for those, like me, who get turned on by scientific facts.

Yes, all life is one -- since every species is related to all the rest, sharing a common ancestor.

On the 'population-thinking' evolutionary view, every animal is linked to every other animal, say rabbit to leopard, by a chain of intermediates, each so similar to the next that every link could in principle mate with its neighbors in the chain and produce fertile offspring.

To illustrate this non-essentialist view of life, where there isn't an unchangeable Platonic form of a rabbit or leopard, Dawkins relates a marvelous image of how evolution works.

Take a rabbit, a female for convenience. Envision her mother next to her. Then, her grandmother. And so on, back through megayears, "a seemingly endless line of female rabbits, each one sandwiched between her daughter and her mother."

Walking along the line, you can't discern any meaningful generational differences between the rabbits for a very long time. But...

Nevertheless, steadily and imperceptibly, as we retreat through time, we shall reach ancestors that look less and less like a rabbit and more and more like a shrew (and not very like either). One of these creatures I'll call the hairpin bend, for reasons that will become apparent.

This animal is the most recent common ancestor (in the female line, but that is not important) that rabbits share with leopards. We don't know exactly what it looked like, but it follows from the evolutionary view that it definitely had to exist.

Now, Dawkins says, you keep on walking. Except, you've turned the bend in the hairpin and now are moving forward in time.

...aiming towards the leopards (among the hairpin's many and diverse descendants, for we shall continually meet forks in the line, where we consistently choose the fork that will eventually lead to leopards). Each shrew-like animal along our forward walk is now followed by her daughter.

Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the shrew-like animals will change, through intermediates that might not resemble any modern animal much but strongly resemble each other, perhaps passing through vaguely stoat-like intermediates, until eventually, without ever noticing an abrupt change of any kind, we arrive at a leopard.

This tale is so much compelling than the bullshit of Genesis in the Bible. Truth has a vibrancy that lies can't match.

Dawkins presents us with a vision of life on earth marked by continual change -- of the natural variety, not God-inspired. We humans are a culmination of those changes. And also linked to countless changes in speciation yet to come.

(Some speculations here and here.)

Evolution takes away our uniqueness. But it offers human understanding something better: a sense of commonality with each and every life form on the planet.

The Beatles got it right: "I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together."

The point is that for any two animals there has to be a hairpin path linking them, for the simple reason that every species shares an ancestor with every other species: all we have to do is walk backwards from one species to the shared ancestor, then turn through a hairpin bend and walk forwards to the other species.

Second, notice that we are talking only about locating a chain of animals that links a modern animal to another modern animal. We are most emphatically not evolving a rabbit into a leopard.

I suppose you could say we are de-evolving back to the hairpin, then evolving forwards to the leopard from there. As we'll see in a later chapter, it is unfortunately necessary to explain, again and again, that modern species don't evolve into other modern species, they just share ancestors. They are cousins.

This, as we shall see, is also the answer to that disquietingly common plaint: 'If humans have evolved from chimpanzees, how come there are still chimpanzees around?'

Enlightenment: there's an iPhone app for that

Since I love my iPhone, and it can reliably guide me to earthly destinations, I figured that spiritual enlightenment also would be available via one of the many downloadable applications for this marvelous device.

And yes, it was. In the form of Guided Insight Meditation.

Buddha must have been looking out for me, because I came across this app on the very last day, October 17, that it was still free. (As of now, you'll have to fork out $2.99 for enlightenment. Plus the cost of an iPhone, if you've got bad karma and don't have one yet.)

I liked how most of the meditation lessons fit on a single iPhone screen. The introduction was a bit wordier, requiring some scrolling, but ended with an appealing offer.

Meditation is about developing your mind. It requires a significant amount of energy, determination, discipline and patience. The goal is awareness and concentration. The reward is real and unconditioned happiness, peace and a true understanding of what, why and how things are.

Cool. At least the reward part was.

I wasn't so wild about the significant amount part. Hey, this is an iPhone app! I assumed that Guided Insight Meditation should go as quickly and smoothly as everything else Apple'ish does.

So I was ready for instant enlightenment yesterday morning. I took my iPhone with me onto my meditation cushion, as I always do.

(Making my way past another level of Ragdoll Blaster each day is a big part of my spiritual path, for reasons that won't be understandable to anyone who hasn't experienced the mystic bliss of shooting ragdolls out of a cannon while figuring how to hit a target in a manner guided by immutable laws of physics.)

After dutifully spending five minutes or so reading about meditation misconceptions -- for example, I wouldn't be running away from reality, or, sadly, getting high -- and the correct attitude (accept yourself; experience everything; let go; and so on), I was ready for my guided meditation.

I pressed the "start session" button. A male voice led me through ten minutes of instruction.

I sent out loving feelings of kindness toward everyone and everything in existence (I wanted to make an exception for Fox News, but stifled the urge). I took three deep cleansing breaths. I followed my inhalations and exhalations. I was especially conscious of certain sensors in my nostrils (upper right corner of my right nostril seemed acutely breath aware).

Wanting to assure my rapid spiritual progress, I kept on meditating for ten minutes after the instruction stopped. Twenty minutes total. The timer on my iPhone chimed.

Yay! I was enlightened. Had to be! iPhone apps almost always work as promised.

It's difficult for me to convey what enlightenment is like. Just as Zen masters say, my life doesn't seem to have changed, in line with the adage "first there is a mountain, then there isn't, then there is."

Yet obviously I now have a true understanding of what, why and how things are. This is what the Guided Insight Meditation app promised, and so this is what I must have achieved.

I'll do my best to remain humble, though this is difficult for me now that I know so much more about the cosmos than almost everyone else. If you don't believe me, consider this:

I am so enlightened, I don't even feel any difference from my previous unenlightened state. This shows that I've been enlightened from birth, a Bodhisattva. All the iPhone app did was make me aware of my pristine awareness.

I'm not sure what to do next. Traditionally, I gather I'm supposed to help all sentient beings attain Buddha-hood.

I was in an Apple store today and got to play briefly with an iPhone 3Gs, the most powerful iPhone ever. Seemingly my enlightenment would be even more enlightened if it was transmitted over a 3Gs rather than a mere 3G.

Unfortunately for all sentient beings, I'm not eligible to upgrade at a reasonable price for nearly another year.

"The Evolution of God" falls flat at the end

My prophesy turned out to be correct: I didn't agree with the final chapters of Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God," just as I anticipated.

But there wasn't anything miraculous in my ability to see into the future, just as a transcendent divinity isn't needed to explain how religions change over the course of history -- embracing, by and large, a more inclusive, tolerant, and universal moral code.

Mostly, this is what Wright says in his book.

This book’s account of the moral direction of history has been a materialist account. We’ve explained the expansion of the moral imagination as an outgrowth of expanding social organization, which is itself an outgrowth of technological evolution, which itself grows naturally out of the human brain, which itself grew naturally out of the primordial ooze via biological evolution. There’s no mystical force that has to enter the system to explain this, and there’s no need to look for one.

However, in some final observations that seem to be designed to make the book more appealing to religious believers (since they conflict with what Wright says above), "God" comes across as an intelligent designer who fashioned evolution to arrive at a moral endpoint.

Maybe the growth of "God" signifies the existence of God. That is: if history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, than maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe--conceivably--the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.

Jerry Coyne, a professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, blasted all these "maybe's" in a largely critical review: "Creationism for Liberals."

Wright wants to give true believers a reason to keep on believing in God despite all the reasons not to. So he ends up arguing -- weakly -- that just as scientists haven't seen electrons, but know they exist by their effects, "God" can be viewed as the source of religions' moral evolution even though divinity isn't apparent.

Huh?

Particle physics is extremely precise in its predictions. So is quantum mechanics. Yet physicists recognize that any sort of description of electrons in terms of everyday existence (such as "tiny planets orbiting the nucleus") is decidedly inaccurate.

Religions operate entirely oppositely.

Their dogmas are unable to form any reliable explanations of the natural world beyond those known to science, but the source of these supposed truths, God, is described in considerable detail.

Coyne, appropriately, bashes Wright on his attempt to equate electrons and God.

Does Wright really not grasp that science, unlike religion, posits testable explanations for the world, explanations that are discarded if they fail to comport with the facts? Is he unaware that, unlike religious explanations, scientific explanations are validated by public agreement among people from every faith and culture?

On one hand we have Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and the whole panoply of faiths with their irresolvably conflicting claims, and on the other hand we have science, and only one brand of science. Independent scientific observers can decide whether electrons are real, but there is no way to decide whether Jesus was the Son of God or Muhammad was the Prophet.

In a response to Coyne's criticisms on "The Evolution of God" website, Wright claims that when the supposed misrepresentations of his book are corrected, Coyne's critique collapses.

Well, not completely.

Wright does point out some passages that clarify his position on certain issues. But he still bears responsibility for leading the reader in the direction that Coyne criticizes. I also finished the final chapters feeling that Wright sees a directionality or design in human evolution that supports the notion of a monotheistic God.

I enjoyed "The Evolution of God," which -- on the whole -- is pleasingly churchless. However, Wright's puzzling change of tone in his final chapters left me with an unpleasant literary aftertaste.

I like Coyne's ending of his review more than Wright's conclusion to his book.

Except for his claim that theology is malleable to social forces, which is hardly novel but never mind, there is nothing in Wright's argument that withstands close inspection--nothing in his understanding of theology, of morality and its history, of evolution, of science. There is absolutely no evidence, beyond wishful thinking, that God, if there is a God, had anything to do with setting up biological evolution or directing its operation, much less driving history toward goodness.

God doesn't exist, but is improving

I'm expecting to disagree with the final chapters of Robert Wright's "The Evolution of God," as I prophesied a few months ago.

So I wanted to write a positive blog post about this book, which I'm almost finished with, before I turn more negative. As a New York Times review says, there's a good news/bad news joke for religious believers here:

Wright makes it clear that he is tracking people’s conception of the divine, not the divine itself. He describes this as “a good news/bad news joke for traditionalist Christians, Muslims and Jews.” The bad news is that your God was born imperfect. The good news is that he doesn’t really exist.

This is what Wright means by the evolution of God: religious conceptions of divinity have, on the whole, been changing in the direction of more tolerance, inclusiveness, and interconnectedness.

For example, he argues that at first Judaic and early Christian teachings about loving others were limited by tribal, cultural, and nationalistic barriers. Only later was the brotherhood and sisterhood of man extended to include everyone on Earth.

One of Wright's central theses is that non-zero-sum relationships lead to more evolved moral codes.

If two cultures are in a win-win situation where cooperation benefits both, each is going to look more favorably upon the other than if they're engaged in a win-lose battle. Thus as humanity becomes more interrelated (economically and otherwise), people are going to have more of an accepting attitude toward those who aren't like them.

We have some more God-evolving to do, obviously, as Wright points out:

So if the God of the Abrahamic faiths is to keep doing what he has often managed to do before -- evolve in a way that fosters positive-sum outcomes of non-zero-sum games -- he has some growing to do. His character has to develop in a way that permits, for starters, Muslims, Christians, and Jews to get along as globalization keeps pushing them closer together.

Amen to that.

Earth has plenty of problems that require close cooperation between people scattered all over the world: global climate change, famine, epidemics, nuclear weapons proliferation, and such.

The last thing we need is more religion-caused divisiveness.

Nationalism already stands in the way of communal global action, as various countries each consider that their view of the world obviously is correct, so other misguided nations should fall in line.

Wright has a chapter near the end of his book called "Well, Aren't We Special?" Every religion believes that it has a uniquely correct connection with God, or divinity. The false messages of deluded faiths are viewed skeptically, if not scornfully.

Not a very loving or godlike attitude.

So Wright wonders if the next evolution in Godliness will be a diminution, and possibly even a rejection, of religious specialness.

What if the Abrahamic religions really did relax their sense of specialness -- with respect to one another and even, eventually, with respect to non-Abrahamic faiths? No doubt it would feel to many Christians, Jews, and Muslims like an injury to their faith. Yet it would amount to a kind of vindication.

At the core of each faith is the conviction that there is a moral order, and for the Abrahamic conception of God to grow in this fashion would be yet more evidence that such an order exists.

For Jews, Christians, or Muslims to cling to claims of special validity could make their faiths seem, and perhaps be, less valid. As Ashoka [a 3rd century Buddhist emperor] put it in a different context: "If a man extols his own faith and disparages another because of devotion to his own and because he wants to glorify it, he seriously injures his own faith."

Is it crazy to imagine a day when the Abrahamic faiths renounce not only their specific claims to specialness, but even the claim to specialness of the whole Abrahamic enterprise? Are such radical changes in God's character imaginable? Changes this radical have already happened, again and again. Another transformation would be nothing new.

Sounds good, but I'm dubious it'll happen anytime soon.

Religious believers are too fond of feeling that they, and they alone, are the special sons and daughters of God. Humility is cherished in principle, yet not when it means giving up the notion that my way is the best way, or even the only way.

How to cheat death -- without religion

Religions offer up a damn good deal on death: have faith, do what you're told, and you won't die.

If this was really true, I'd sign up in a heartbeat, since then I wouldn't have to worry about what will happen after my last one. Which appears likely to be nothing... death being the absence of living.

But there are worse things than dying and not existing any more. I'd rank the possibilities in this order of preference:

(1) Die and live on pleasantly in another form ("heaven").
(2) Die and cease to exist.
(3) Die and live on horribly in another form ("hell").

Most of us have experienced pain, physical or psychological, that was so extreme, at some point we'd choose death over life if the suffering persisted. Knowing this, religions shrewdly use a good cop/bad cop strategy in marketing their belief wares to potential converts.

The joys of heaven await the faithful. The terrors of hell await the skeptics.

So it isn't surprising that most people in the world accept a promise of salvation from one religion or another. That's the easy way to go.

However, only if you don't think about the promise (better termed a scam) very deeply. Because obviously there's no way to know whether you've cheated death until after the game of life has stopped being played.

Thus no one --repeat, no one -- has ever confirmed for himself or herself a religion's claim that death is the gateway to more life. This claim has to be taken on faith: believe now and get the evidence later.

Well, to hell with that.

Driving around this afternoon, I heard part of an interview with Barbara Enrenreich, who has written a book decrying the relentless promotion of positive thinking in America.

She said that she's in favor of neither positive nor negative thinking, but rather realistic thinking. Excellent advice.

Religions want us to have warm and fuzzy notions of a fantasized afterlife (positive thinking), while fearing the hellish consequences if we don't have faith in the fantasy (negative thinking). 

There's another option: accepting that death is real, but not dwelling on death either positively or negatively.

In this way, death can be cheated honestly -- by not playing the heaven game, the hell game, or the "holy fuck I'm going to die and never exist again!" game. Don't play any game with death. Ignore it.

Easy to say, you may be thinking. But hard to do if you've got a life-threatening illness, or if a loved one has passed away.

Admitted. Sort of.

Yes, it may be hard to break a longstanding habit of pondering death either positively or negatively by envisioning what might happen after someone takes their last breath. However, it isn't difficult to focus on living while we're alive.

All we have to do is do it. Live. Here and now. Not there and then.

Some years back a woman told me a story about her husband's fatal brain cancer. She said that it attacked a part of his brain which controlled his fear of death. So he knew he was dying. And it didn't bother him a bit.

"Sounds like a great way to go," I told her.

Another great way to go is to live life fully, passionately, and whole-heartedly. Then, die. On-off. No mixing up of life and death. No premature dying by envisioning either a pleasant or unpleasant afterlife.

What happens after death (or doesn't happen) will happen. Or, not. 

We cheat death by walking away from the heaven/hell playing table. Eternal non-existence doesn't bother us either, because for now we exist -- thereby giving the finger to non-existence. 

If death has the last laugh, that's fine. We won't be around to be the butt of the joke.

O'Reilly vs. Dawkins shows why I'm churchless

A friend of mine is fond of saying, "No one's life is ever completely wasted. He can always serve as a horrible example for others."

This adage came to mind as I watched a video of Bill O'Reilly showing his ignorance in an interview with Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins is an eminent scientist who has just published a well-reviewed book about evolution, "The Greatest Show on Earth." O'Reilly is a right-wing talk show host who is fond of mangling facts.

And, in this case, making up facts when they are lacking.

The fundamentalist mindset is on display beautifully at the beginning of the interview. O'Reilly says that since science isn't sure about how life began on Earth, he embraces Christianity -- which does provide an answer to this question.

Dawkins is appropriately incredulous.

He can't understand why a gap in human knowledge has to be filled by make-believe. Why not just leave the gap as it is, while working to fill it?

O'Reilly demonstrates the true believer's fear of uncertainty.

It's just too damn scary not to know what happens after death, how the universe came to be, or what led life to arise from inorganic matter.

Science, as Dawkins points out, has made great strides in expanding the horizons of human knowledge, especially in the past century. There's no reason not to think that this will continue, likely at an ever-increasing pace.

Biologist Craig Venter is working on creating artificial life. If he and his team succeed, this will help to fill the gap with facts that O'Reilly wants to have Christianity plug up with mythology.

Here's the interview.

Wanted: a religion that reflects reality

Well, already there's a seeming contradiction in this blog post -- the title. Because if a religion truly reflected reality, it'd be part of the scientific world view, not religiosity.

So what I mean by "religion" is something more like a philosophy, poetic vision, or statement of what life is about. A meaning-dimension that adds depth to the everyday here and now while remaining consistent with the consensual truths about the cosmos known to science.

Traditional religions come up way short in this regard, along with most non-traditional faiths.

Consider some of the facts (open to alteration, of course) that a reality-based religion would have to mesh its teachings with:

-- Our universe is some fourteen billion years old, having gotten its beginning in a "big bang" that produced a still-happening (and accelerating) expansion of time and space.

-- Over the history of the universe, originally formless matter and energy have congealed into increasingly complex conglomerations that bear no imprint of having been formed by anything but the laws of nature.

-- Those laws led to life arising on Earth about 3.7 billion years ago. Evolutionary principles such as natural selection guided the appearance (and disappearance) of species. Now Homo sapiens is capable of pondering how and why we're here.

There doesn't seem to be room for a personal creator God in this realistic view of reality. Thus it's difficult, though not impossible, to be a scientifically-minded Christian, Jew, or Muslim (to do this, you have to embrace a non-fundamentalist conception of your religion).

Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism fit better with modern science, but by no means completely. Reincarnation or rebirth, for example, are tough to reconcile with the extremely limited (some would say nonexistent) evidence that human consciousness survives death in some fashion.

I didn't like the singer or the music much, but her churchless lyrics are appealing. Sample (with some misspellings corrected):

Don't need no Hare Krishna Hare Krishna,
Hail Mary, Hail Mary god.
Got no yen for zen, Bhagavad-Gita or Gurdjieff.
No Mormon, Methodist, Seventh Day Adventist god,
no absolutes beyond refute,
no reverential preferential Judaic Messianic god.
No Bibles, no Mahayanas, Dalai Lama
instant dharma gods.
Don't need no spiritual suicide or
prefrontal lobotomizing god.
Don't need no stoic sexless
antiseptic god.
Don't need no neon crucifix,
no jade Buddhas, no Vedas or Upanishads,
no camels or needles or Papal decrees,
no mail-order ikons, Korans or Mandalas,
no Sri Chimnoys, Meha Babas, or Ayatollahs,
no Gautamas, no Manitou, Ouspensky or Marx,
no yin/yang, no tao, no tarot or incense,
no sacred mushrooms
no dianetics,
no Tibetan prayer mats
no "Immortal invisible gods only wise".

That said, I still feel there's a place -- even more, a necessity -- for awe and a sense of mystery in my personal world view. 

For many people, religion fulfills the same need. Their faith leads them to look beyond the narrow confines of everyday existence toward the limitless horizon of whatever.

However, as a beautiful demolisher of religious fakery says, believing in dogma is like eating invisible food. You think you're getting some sustenance, but it's all empty calories.

I feel the most satiated when I dive into a hearty meal of ultimate awe -- ignoring unsatisfying tid-bits of religious, spiritual, mystical, or philosophical speculation.

The universe is. I am.

Holy freaking fucking amazingly obvious yet also astoundingly mind blowing.

Often it's said that the ultimate question is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" I used to agree. However, now I prefer to dump the question mark plus the first word, and transpose the next two.

There is something rather than nothing.

Grok that. 

When I do, or make a honestly-aweful attempt, I'm left with what feels like the closest I can come to reality-based "religion" (using that word as I defined it above).

Science tells us a lot about what the something is that surrounds us, and is us. But neither science, nor religion, nor anything or anyone else can penetrate the mystery of There is... .

Is just is. Always was, always will be. Praise is. 

No need to call it "God." Too much garbage associated with that word. I want to keep my awe clear and simple. Focused on the mystery of existence, not on what exists within is.

Reality is. Unreality isn't. Nothing more to say (for now).

Happiness is five years of churchless blogging

This being my birthday, I figured it was a great time to fire up my Burgman scooter, head to my favorite Salem coffee house, and write a blog post -- stimulated by 20 ounces of the Beanery house blend.

Next month is this blog's five year anniversary. One of the presents I opened this morning -- in addition to a bunch of books I gave to myself -- was a wall hanging that Laurel, my wife, thought was fitting for me.

Happiness: When one's spiritual needs are met by an untroubled inner life. Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.

Well, my blogging definitely makes me happy. I know it's beneficial to myself, and have a lot of reasons to believe that this is true for others as well. To be exact, 607,001.

That's how many page views this Church of the Churchless blog has gotten since November 2004. Currently the blog is averaging about 550 page views a day.

Of course, some of those visits lasted just long enough for someone to go "Ugh! Blasphemy!" and head elsewhere into cyberspace. But the 12,858 comments show that quite a few people stay around long enough to leave their feedback.

Which makes me feel good. I recall (more or less accurately) a C.S. Lewis quotation: "We read to know that we are not alone."

For sure.

Religious believers have churches, temples, mosques, and such where they can congregate with like-minded individuals. Churchless folks usually don't. So I wanted this blog to be a place where spiritually independent people could come in contact with like-minded minds.

Thank you for making this possible. Writing and reading is a two-way street. Or more accurately, a circular boulevard.

Meaning, when I throw some thoughts out via a blog post, almost always my thinking is changed in some fashion by those who read what I've written and share their own ideas. And so it goes...around and around and around, sharing how we see things leading to fresh ways of seeing.

It's difficult to encapsulate how I feel that I've changed churchlessly over the past five years. I'll spend the last of my 20 ounces of coffee giving this a try.

More relaxed. Less worries about doing the right thing. I've become much less obsessed about following rigid ethical or moral rules, such as not drinking any alcohol. Now I follow what could be called a "middle way," if I was a Buddhist (which I'm not).

For example, I've found that a glass of red wine doesn't send me to hell. Just into a bit of relaxation and improved health.

It's also nice to not feel so special. I used to look upon my belief system as head and shoulders above all those ridiculous other faiths that didn't know The Truth. Now, I consider that nobody knows the ultimate secrets of the cosmos, so we're all in the same boat of not-knowing.

That's a humbler place to be.

So after trying hard for thirty-some years to lose (or lessen) my ego through meditation and devotional practices, it's interesting that by becoming faithless, I feel a lot fewer egotistical sensations of "I'm right and you're wrong!" welling up in me.

Lastly, the universe is an amazing place.

It's marvelous that we're here, conscious human beings, able to look out upon it -- and also capable of gazing inwardly at our minds that try to make sense of it all.

Almost certainly we won't ever be certain of what it all means, including what It is. All we can do is live our lives as authentically and zestily as possible, drinking in each and every experience with gusto.

Just as I'm doing with my last gulps of coffee. Time for a sunny caffeinated scooter ride home.

Christian cross shouldn't stay on public land

Driving around yesterday, I heard a Portland talk-show host get enraged about a lawsuit that seeks to have a Christian cross removed from the Mojave National Preserve in California.

Right-winger Lars Larson said that a plywood box has been placed around the cross. "Unbelievable. How can this be happening in America!"

What's unbelievable is that there would be any controversy over removing an obvious religious symbol from public property -- regardless of whether the cross was put up by the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

The National Park Service denied a request to put up a Buddhist memorial. So it looks like only Christians who die for their country deserve respect.

Ridiculous. The United States isn't a Christian country. It's a country with lots of Christians. Big difference.

This editorial gets it exactly right:

Religious symbolism of this kind on government land is, by its very nature, exclusionary. Allowing only a cross to stand over the memorial sends a message to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others that their sacrifices, and their family members’ sacrifices, are not appreciated or mourned.

It also sends a message that state and church are intertwined. A single cross does not, by itself, mean America has an established religion, but if the Supreme Court stops caring that the government is promoting a particular religion, we will be down the path toward having one.

There are no rules (including this one)

Hopefully my Suzuki Burgman 650 scooter won't burst into flames from the blasphemy of riding it while wearing a Harley-Davidson t-shirt.

But I liked the message of the most philosophical piece of wearing apparel I came across in the Indianapolis International Airport shopping area yesterday, and had to buy it.

I love my Japanese scooter. Wouldn't trade it for a Harley.

However, the Harley-Davidson philosophy of life -- encapsulated on the t-shirt -- fits with my churchless leanings.

Here's the answer someone new to Harley motorcycles got when he asked on a forum what being a member of the Florida Crew meant. It's a great response, with an earthy lack of spelling exactitude.

It means you are loyal (whatever that means), honest (as can be), trustworthy (most of the time). You like to ride (dont make rules or follow rules that someone else makes). Ya have to be at least slightly off in the head. A little perverted ( or Celebate). Church goer (if your into that). Hang out at strip clubs (if your into that). Support Republicans or Democrats ( or whickans if you want, nobody really gives a crap). You can be a flasher (male or female, we encourage this either way, especially after a few beers when the riding is done). You must have a good personality (or multiple personalities, SP Redman). You must be a hillbilly from Central Florida where the highest hill is the town dump (or a city boy from the Hills of N.C.). You have to ride a Harley (or ride a Yellow Ski Doo with 3 wheels, a 650 dirt bike, a mini crotch rocket, or a superduper turbo charged gas guzzling Road King). You have to be Black ( White, Red, Yellow, Brown, or whatever, nobody gives a crap). You have to have a lot of money ( or be a poor dude right off the boat riding a rat bike with duct tape holding it together). Ya gotta be an animal lover (or an animal eater). Ya have to have a slightly graying pony tail ( or be bald as a cue ball hehe). Ya gotta live in Fla ( or we will make you an honorary memeber once we ride with ya)

That said, it really means

NO RULES JUST RIDE

Pretty good advice, whether you're riding on two wheels down a road or on two legs down the course of life. 

Like the guy says, if you're into church-going, great. If you're not, also great.

Problem is, "no rules" doesn't appeal to most true believers. They generally consider that there's one right way to live one's life, and this happens to be the moral/ethical code of conduct enjoined by their religion.

Now, there are no rules points back at itself. Meaning, there are no rules. Unless you want to follow a rule. Feel free. There's no rule that says "never follow a rule."

We all do this: follow rules. Life would be unlivable without them.

How could I turn on my TV if I didn't press the right button on the remote control? The important thing is to remember that rules are made to be broken when they need to be.

Just because a holy book or holy person says, "do such and such," doesn't mean you should follow that advice. This also holds for a holy GPS device, such as my dearly beloved Garmin Nuvi.

I took it to Indiana, the site of my wife's family reunion last weekend. Figured it would come in handy for finding our way around as we navigated unfamiliar roads in our rental car.

Leaving the airport late at night in a thunderstorm, though, I acceded to Laurel's belief that since all we really needed to do was get on I-70 W, the simple instructions we got from the National car rental lady would be sufficient.

Wrong.

I blamed Laurel for not pointing me to the correct lane that led to the I-70 W on ramp. (I could have blamed myself also for not paying closer attention to some signs, but that wouldn't have been as satisfying.)

While driving several miles in the wrong direction, looking for a suitable off-ramp to get us headed back the right way, my irritation led me to say, "If I'd been using the GPS device like I wanted to, this wouldn't have happened."

I made a mental note to self: use the Nuvi when you want to be sure you'll make the right turns in an unfamiliar place.

After all, like any GPS navigation device the Nuvi is almost god-like.

It possesses quasi-omniscience, somehow cramming in street level data for the entire United States in its small handheld case. It possesses quasi-omnipresence, since no matter where I am, it knows my location. And to true believers in technology like me, it possesses quasi-omnipotence, given that when I'm clueless about how to get somewhere, my blessed Nuvi will show me the way.

Well, almost always.

Heading back to the Indianapolis airport Sunday afternoon from a rural area about 60 miles away, I made a show to Laurel of getting the Nuvi out, putting it on my lap, and pressing "Go" after the device had found the airport in its database.

At first, it worked great.

I knew how to get back to I-70 since we'd already been that way once. But it was helpful to have the Great God Nuvi tell me when we were less than ten miles from the airport, since I could fill up the rental car knowing that the gauge would still register "full" when I returned it to National.

All was going fine. Back on I-70 E after stopping at a gas station I glanced down at all-knowing Nuvi and saw the airport was still 4.5 miles away.

Which, however, didn't mesh with the "Indianapolis International Airport next exit" sign that I'd just passed. My mind raced.

One of Laurel's relatives had told us that we were fortunate the airport was now easier to get to when approaching from the west. But I'd updated the Nuvi with the 2008 road database. Shouldn't that show any new streets leading to the airport? 

While pondering all this, I zipped past the exit. "You just went by the airport," Laurel said, stating the obvious in an irritatingly truthful manner.

"Nuvi shows it's four miles away," I replied, defensively. "OK, but the big signs over the freeway clearly said Indianapolis International Airport." I bowed to reality, reluctantly.

So three days earlier I figured that I'd missed going the right way leaving the airport because I wasn't using a GPS device. Now, I'd just missed going the right way returning to the airport because I was using a GPS device.

There are no rules. Common sense, though, is usually a darn good rule. 

When it comes to religious rules. Or, driving rules. When it's obvious what the right way is, go there, even if some supposedly higher power tells you to do something different.

Recollecting my state of mind as I looked at a freeway sign that said "Indianapolis International Airport next exit" after having just glanced at a GPS device that had an alternative view of reality, it's amazing that I was uncertain about which to believe.

The evidence of my own eyes. Or what a piece of machinery was telling me.

And yet...this is common. People often rely on something that contradicts their direct experience when deciding where to head in life. They may feel that it is fine to have sex outside of marriage, eat a hamburger, or have an abortion.

But if a religious authority says that's a no-no, this mechanical outside perspective, which gives the same advice no matter the individual circumstance, is considered to be more valid than what the person knows to be true for himself or herself.

Rules. You've got to know when to follow them, and when to ignore them.

After driving four miles in the wrong direction, and then four miles back to the airport, the rental car's gas gauge had a decided non-full look to it. National apparently let me get away with this.

However, I figured that a refueling charge was a reasonable price to pay for learning a life lesson: challenge authority (looks like I need another new t-shirt).

A Tai Chi teacher: someone who doesn't know the way

Here's one of the reasons I enjoy Tai Chi (and it's associated philosophy, Taoism) so much: a Tai Chi teacher isn't looked upon with special reverence, just respect.

After having experienced a spiritual path that places the master, or guru, up on a pedestal, it's refreshing to practice Tai Chi -- where the teacher is looked upon quite differently.

I like how John Lash, a Tai Chi teacher himself, puts it in his book, "The Spirit of Tai Chi."

No one can know with the mind what Tai Chi and the Tao are. These are things that cannot be grasped with the mind. One can only stand in awe of them. The Tai Chi journey is thus a journey without signposts or guides.

This means that the traveler is completely on his own. There is no guru, guide, or authority that can say, "This is the way." Each of us must find our own nature and flow with it where it leads us.

...The Tai Chi school is a ship that sails towards the Tao upon uncharted seas. The teacher is the captain of the ship. He is a captain who does not know the way, but he can handle a ship and has a good feeling for the sea.

He guides his ship by relying upon his own intuition and his past experience of the journey. He has no chart or guide.

...In other words, the Tai Chi teacher is experimenting with life. Every second of his life, he stands at a crossroads with no sign to point the way.

...I am a Tai Chi journeyer. I do not know where I am going for I have never been there. 

So are we all, when it comes to the course of our lives. None of us knows for sure what will happen after we take our next breath.

And nothing at all of what will happen after we take our last breath.

[Next day update: Today The Rambling Taoist has a post that reflects the watery theme in the passage above. "A Diving Platform" points out that the core writings of Taoism aren't scriptures to be taken as gospel, but as a platform to dive in on your own from:

In this same vein, the works of these three visionaries provide great insight and a foundation into Taoist philosophy. They tease out ideas and concepts that often seem foreign and contradictory. Their purpose is to provide you with a place to gain your footing. But none of them want you to stand there flat-footed -- they want you to dive into life and to swim in your own direction at your own pace!

Which reminds me of another reason I like Tai Chi: my teacher encourages us to modify the forms (or "dances" of Tai Chi movements). In traditional karate this is a big no-no, unless you're an umpteenth level black belt.

But we frequently add moves, or take some away, in traditional Tai Chi forms. Individual expression is encouraged, rather than discouraged. When you feel the Tai Chi spirit moving you to move in a certain way, you follow it -- rather than thinking "Oh, no, I'm doing something different!"]