Church of the Churchless

Have a wonder-filled 2012!

Wonder. It's well, wonderful. What else could wonder be?

Actually, quite a bit. That's a big part of the reason why wonder is wonderful, and why I'm wishing that for you, and for me, next year will be filled with it.

I was inspired to strike this theme in my final blog post of 2012 by reading Paolo Costa's essay, "A Secular Wonder," in the book that I've blogged about previously: The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now.

I love that Now in the sub-title. It's all that we have, even if we're engrossed in mulling over the past or envisioning the future, because the mulling and envisioning is happening now.

Costa reminds us that life is filled with ups and downs, pleasures and sadnesses, meaningful moments and existential anxiety. 

...we cannot but struggle to feel at home in it [the world], even though such an abode has many facades and some are not reassuring at all. And that is why most of us are, most of the time, restless and dissatisfied. We habitually feel at home only by dreaming of being elsewhere. And that looks like a laughing matter, in its own way.

Beautiful.

That's a terrific line: "We habitually feel at home only by dreaming of being elsewhere." Such is religion in a nutshell. It's a dream of another world, a higher reality, a dimension of spirituality rather than materiality.

Meanwhile, true believers in something more and better miss the wonder of what's here and now. Their consciousness is so fixated on a promise of a salvation, enlightenment, miracle, or whatever that's to come, they look past what is right in front of their God-seeking faces.

Wonder, says Costa, is a mood, not a particular perception, emotion, thought, or other experience. A mood is a "fundamental emotional attunement... a basic disposition to be affected in this or that way by the world around us."

That is why moods can also be depicted as objectless emotions, because they point in an indeterminate direction and operate for the respondent as open-ended signals... In particular, they are the background against which the particular emotions are the foreground.

...We can begin by being startled by thunder and end up in a general mood of astonishment. Or we can start off with a fearful mood and end up being startled by any sound in the surrounding ambience. Of course, there is no mystery here: it is only the nature of our life-world that makes a lasting dialectic between object and world not just possible but common.

As Stanley Cavell once put it, "Sense experience is to objects what moods are to the world."

There's lots of different moods. Moodiness isn't a particular emotional state, like that word seems to imply. ("She's a moody person" is taken to mean someone who is almost always unhappy.) Each of us sees the world through a unique pair of mood glasses, so to speak.

Wonder is a wonderful mood.

If we're fortunate enough to be moody in a wonder-filled sense, we should smile. Costa describes it, insofar as it can be described, as a bodily and mental thrill that results from an encounter with something in our world that appears new and is unpredicted. 

Other words for wonder: astonishment, amazement, surprise, awe, stupor, fascination, curiosity, "startlement." (Startlement is what I felt a few days ago when I glanced down and saw rain drops on a leaf that was lying on the ground.)

Moods come and go.

Probably it isn't possible, or desirable, for wonder to be the everlasting background of our emotional/affective life. But for me it is a state I can easily return to by looking upon the world with fresh eyes, marveling not at this or that, but the simple fact of thatness.

Costa quotes Czeslaw Milosz. This is a marvelous description of what is so difficult to speak about:

I am here. Those three words contain all that can be said -- you begin with those words and you return to them. Here means on this earth, on this continent, in this city and no other, and in this epoch I call mine, this century, this year. 

I was given no other place, no other time, and I touch my desk to defend myself against the feeling that my own body is transient. This is all very fundamental, but after all, the science of life depends on the gradual discovery of fundamental truths.

I have written on various subjects, and not, for the most part, as I would have wished. Nor will I realize my long-standing intention this time. But I am always aware that what I want is impossible to achieve.

I would need the ability to communicate my full amazement at "being here" in one unattainable sentence which would simultaneously transmit the smell and texture of my skin, everything stored in my memory, and all I now assent to, dissent from.

I'm with you, Czeslaw. You've won the Nobel prize in Literature. If you're enable to communicate your amazement at "being here," I'm certainly not able to either.

All I can say is that sometimes the sense of wonder I feel of simply existing here in this world strikes me as being absolutely crazy. Usually, though, I feel that now I'm the most sane I've ever been. Anyway, this sort of craziness and sanity isn't a matter of psychiatric diagnosing. It's highly subjective. 

Like wonder. May your 2012 be as crazy or sane as you like. And, wonder-filled.

I'm scolded for changing religions. But change happens.

Why is it that religious true believers are so upset when someone leaves their chosen faith? This confuses me, because many, if not most, members of a religion are converted -- either from a different religion or from unbelief.

So it isn't surprising that the process of conversion often keeps on going. People can convert to another religion. Or deconvert from religious belief entirely. (See my "Deconversion is as natural as conversion.")

Yesterday I got an email from someone who scolded me for -- shock! -- changing. Below I've shared what he said (minus his name), along with my reply to him.

hello Mr. Brian! it was amazing and rather amusing reading your views on Sant Mat. what i am more amused about is that it took 38 long years for you to realise that you were  on a wrong track!!!! i am also surprised that if something could keep you contented and satisfied for this long a period, there must surely be something Great. otherwise we human cannot be satisfied for more than two minutes. then whats keeping you? i think its more of a frustration that you were not able to see the form of the master inside. i have surely met many people who do tell what they see and hear at what stage. i pray to babaji you meet some too. i am even a bit surprised that if after 38 years of meditation (i think u did give 2.5 hrs daily) if you could go astray, then i should mind and watch myself very closely as i am new on this path.  another thing that surprises me is that how could you miss that radiance on the Master's face. have you ever, in  you life met someone as radiant and illuminated as him.  and, my friend, your mind is playing very strong tricks on you. for all that you have written are just dirty tricks of the mind to set you off the track. i m sure that it is now that you are on a wrong track. BEWARE!!!!!!! you better pray to the Almighty to set you on the right path once again. lots of prayers, X

This is the email response that I sent to X.

X, have you ever changed your mind about something? Have you ever experienced big changes in your life? If you haven't so far, I can guarantee that you will someday, because life is full of changes. 

Me, I was married for eighteen years to a woman that I loved for a long time. Then we got divorced. Now I'm married to a different woman, for twenty-one years now. I also love her. It's possible to fall in and out of love, whether with a religion/spiritual path, or with a person.

You seem to be surprised that people change. We can be satisfied with a belief, a person, a place, a belonging, a whatever, for a long time. Then we grow, evolve, move in a different direction. You might ask yourself why you seem to view religious beliefs as changeless, while everything else in life changes.

I was initiated into RSSB back in 1971 after changing from an earlier relationship with a Yoga master. Do you think that I was wrong to leave the Yogi? Way before that, as a child I went to Catholic church for a while. I had my first communion and was baptized Catholic. Do you think I should have remained Catholic my entire life?

I doubt it. 

So I'm pretty sure you believe it's good for people to join up with Radha Soami Satsang Beas, but not for people to leave RSSB. However, almost every person who is initiated into RSSB previously believed in some other form of spirituality. Why shouldn't you scold RSSB initiates for giving up on their old religions, since you seem to believe that people should stay with the same belief system for their entire life?

Some questions for you to think about, at least. Thanks for writing. 

   --Brian

No, I never saw any "radiant" (astral) form of the guru inside my psyche. I did see the guru, both Charan Singh and Gurinder Singh, quite a few times in person. I'll agree that they were/are charismatic men. However, I can't say either was more radiant or illuminating than other people I've met.

My wife has seen Gurinder Singh, once close-up. She wasn't impressed. But she doesn't believe in Sant Mat, or the notion of a guru being God in human form. So what someone expects to see in a guru is pretty much what he or she will see. 

Speaking of seeing...

This afternoon I was thinking about what I was going to write in this blog post while on a dog walk. Lost in thought, I was brought back to here-and-now reality when our dog made one of her frequent sniff stops to smell some fascinating scent that escapes me.

I looked down at the ground. And saw an amazing form. It wasn't radiant, per se, but it sure brightened my mood on a rainy Oregon day. If we open our eyes to what is right around us, perhaps that's the nearest we'll ever come to ultimate reality.

Two more reasons why I hate religion

Catholics want to discriminate against gays with taxpayer money.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews yell and spit at a 8 year old girl because she's merely Orthodox.

"The Joy of Secularism" tells it truly

Every book I got for Christmas this year was just what I wanted, including The Joy of Secularism: 11 Essays for How We Live Now. That didn't surprise me. I'd ordered each myself, then gave them to my wife to wrap up.

Such is akin to one of the book's central themes. We can either view meaning as coming from the outside, God being a commonly-perceived source, or from inside our own selves.

These aren't hard and fast dichotomies, of course, just as my book selecting wasn't entirely of my own doing.

I think a "Best Books of 2011" list in the New Yorker clued me in to The Joy of Secularism. Likewise, even if the meaning of life is considered to reside in some objective external reality, we humans have to subjectively perceive it somehow if that meaning is to become, well, meaningful to us.

I've only read the first two chapters in the book, an introduction by George Levine (the editor) and a terrific essay by Philip Kitcher, "Challenges for Secularism." But it's already clear how special the book is: a highly appealing blend of excellent writing, clear thinking, and practical wisdom.

(Plus, I love how the cover mirrors the checkered look of "The Joy of Cooking," a book I grew up with as a kitchen must-have.)

Levine has a simple goal. He's out to show the positive side of giving up a belief in the supernatural. When gods, spirits, souls, magical powers, and such are discarded, what's left can be, and often is, absolutely wonderful.

Joyful, in a word.

This book was conceived and largely developed from a totally secular perspective. It will explore the idea that secularism is a positive, not a negative, condition, not a denial of the world of spirit and of religion, but an affirmation of the world we're living in now; that building our world on a foundation of the secular is essential to our contemporary well-being; and that such a world is capable of bringing us to the condition of "fullness" that religion has always promised.

...I want to establish an affectively and intellectually powerful case that a secular world is not only worth it -- that life is indeed worth living -- but that with all the inevitable pains and losses, it can be wonderful, indeed, at times joyous, and that a sense of that wonder enhances the possibility of improving it.

Philip Kitcher's kick-off essay is so richly thought-provoking, it's tough to single out what hit me hardest as I read it. I guess it was (1) meaning is more meaningful when it comes from us, and (2) our connection with the cosmos is best conceived as horizontal, rather than vertical. 

Here's some Kitcher quotes that I liked a lot.

As already noted, secularism removes purpose from the cosmos, by denying that there is an unfolding plan, envisaged by a divine creator. The removal renders impossible a particular way of conceiving the significance of human lives. You can no longer think of your life as directed toward filling some small (probably infinitesimally tiny) part of the divine scheme of things.

What is lost here is the thought that a specific task -- perhaps that of recognizing the greatness of God and working to bring about his will on Earth, as is best in your particular situation -- has been assigned to you, and that this assignment provides your life with direction and meaning. A first secularist response would deny that this is any loss at all, and would assert that, on the contrary, we gain significance for ourselves once we recognize the importance of choosing our own pattern and our own projects.

...Thoroughly secular people can interpret the purpose of their lives, not through some "vertical" links to a dimly understood transcendent reality, but through "horizontal" connections to a natural world that is vaster than their own individual existence. 

Recognition of yourself as part of a world, including most importantly other human lives, on which your actions make an impact, the epiphany can be a rich source of broader connections without any presuppositions about the supernatural. The religious claim of especial depth or richness in these experiences is thus exposed as the residue of misguided presuppositions that ought to be foresworn.

I really resonated with Kitcher's challenging of the religious contention that our lives have to be exceptional in order to be well-lived. "In the wake of Christianity, however, it is easy to be haunted by the thought that nothing less than a permanent imprint on the universe is enough."

This isn't only a Christian notion, of course.

Hindus see the goal of life as rejoining the soul, Atman, with God, Brahman. Buddhists aspire to enlightenment, perceiving the cosmos as it truly is. So whether a religious faith is of West or East, a true believer is under a hell of a lot of pressure to make his or her life into something of cosmic significance.

During the thirty years or so when I was an active member of an India-based spiritual organization, Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB), I used to enjoy feeling special.

I was sure that before too long (even four lifetimes is a blink of the eye compared to eternity) I'd be privy to secrets of the cosmos that couldn't be realized by anyone except the few people fortunate enough to meditate under the guidance of a Perfect Living Master, God in human form.

I'd stand in line at a movie theatre, waiting to buy tickets, and look at my fellow movie-goers, thinking "They aren't on the divine path that I am; they aren't going to be taking the journey of the soul that I am; I'm so fortunate to know the truth that escapes them."

Standing right beside me would be one of the people I was thinking about, my wife. She hadn't been initiated by my guru. So she was doomed to remain in maya, the illusion of materiality, until her karmas improved enough to merit God's/Guru's grace.

Now, my attitude back then seems like total bullshit. I had distanced myself from the world and the vast majority of other people, choosing to identify with the small number of RSSB disciples scattered around the planet. I'd set my sights on an exceedingly vertical goal, a transcendence of physical reality into spiritual realms of existence.

Last Saturday, Christmas Eve, my wife and I planted a Golden Willow on the shore of a commonly-owned lake in our neighborhood. It took us quite a while to haul the heavy container from our car, dig a suitably large hole, position the tree properly, crumble the dense clay soil (almost like modeling clay) into a root-friendly composition, and give the tree a welcoming drink of lake water.

In my true-believing past, I would have viewed this volunteering as an act to be dedicated to God, my guru, or my store of good karmas. On Saturday afternoon, planting the tree simply seemed like a good thing to do. It'll take many years or several decades for the willow to grow into its full glory. We might be alive to see it. We might not.

Doesn't matter. We enjoyed planting the tree. Other people will enjoy seeing it. And we recognize that some night a beaver might enjoy chomping it down (but first the critter will have to get through a beaver barrier that we'll put around the trunk).

Realizing that a meaningful life can be filled with simple small things, rather than complex cosmic accomplishments, is a godsend to me. Except, god didn't send that realization. And that's what makes it so satisfying. 

(Further secularism reading suggestions: a New York Times piece, "Beyond 'New Atheism'"; an article in The New Yorker, "Is That All There Is?"

Merry Christmas! Here's our 2011 Holiday Letter.

My wife and I enjoy Christmas, even though we don't believe in Christ. Every year we like to ponder how the preceding twelve months have gone for us, coming up with an overarchng theme. For 2011, it's unreal. 

Check out our Holiday Letter. Merry Christmas.

Don't believe in miracles. Reality is better.

Late last night, while changing channels on our TV, I happened across a midnight mass that was being broadcast on ABC. After watching for a few minutes my wife and I were struck by how really weird the church service was. 

Understand: it wasn't any weirder than any other religious form of worship. I'll give the Catholic priest credit for talking calmly and quietly, unlike more fervent evangelical preachers. 

But what he was talking about seemed exceedingly strange to our rational, reasonable, evidence-loving psyches. Which was recognized by the priest (bishop, actually, if I recall correctly), because he spoke about how Jesus' birth and all that followed had to be accepted on faith.

For sure. 

He said that God communicated with humanity through a virgin birth. Later, that messenger from God, Jesus, died and came back to life. These miracles were violations of the laws of nature, the definition of a miracle.

Why people believe in such ridiculous notions would be a complete mystery to me if I hadn't once believed in other miraculously ridiculous religious notions myself. We humans love a good story, especially if the ending is a happy one where we're given eternal life, salvation, enlightenment, or some other spiritual goodie.

I'm glad that I've grown out of such fairy tales. After turning off the midnight mass, I decided to celebrate Christmas Eve by reading some of David Hume's "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding."

So I picked up volume 35 of the Great Books of the Western World, a set that I grew up with and inherited when my mother died (the bookcase in her living room was built to match the width of the Great Books).

I'd never read Hume before, though I've heard much praise of him from the guys and gals who frequent Philosophy Talk, a radio program that I listen to regularly. Often someone will say, "Hume is my favorite philosopher." 

His section on miracles is terrific, a lot more pleasing than Christmas music to my skeptical ears. David Hume is fearless when it comes to challenging a belief in miracles. That's particularly impressive considering he wrote in the 1700's, when denying God was a pretty damn serious matter.

A few years ago I asked, "Where have all the miracles gone?" I observed that with the advent of modern science, recording devices, and such, suddenly miracles like walking on water, manifesting loaves of bread out of nothing, virgin births, and coming back to life are nowhere to be seen.

Convenient. Hume asked the same question.

It forms a strong presumption against all supernatural and miraculous relations, that they are observed chiefly to abound among ignorant and barbarous nations; or if a civilized people has ever given admission to any of them, that people will be found to have received them from ignorant and barbarous ancestors, who transmitted them with that inviolable sanction and authority, which always attend received opinions. When we peruse the first histories of all nations, we are apt to imagine ourselves transported into some new world; where the whole frame of nature is disjointed, and every element performs its operations in a different manner, from what it does at present.

...It is strange, a judicious reader is apt to say, upon the perusal of these wonderful historians, that such prodigious events never happen in our days. But it is nothing strange, I hope, that men should lie in all ages. You must surely have seen instances enow of that frailty. You have yourself heard many such marvellous relations started, which, being treated with scorn by all the wise and judicious, have at last been abandoned even by the vulgar. Be assured, that those renowned lies, which have spread and flourished to such a monstrous height, arose from like beginnings; but being sown in a more proper soil, shot up at last into prodigies almost equal to those which they relate.

Blunt talk. Truthful talk. Miracles are lies. Repeat, lies. People lie. We observe this all the time.

It's a frequent occurrence. Some lies are willful. Others, outside the bounds of conscious awareness. Meaning, we feel like we're telling the truth, but we've been deceived. Perhaps by other people. Perhaps by our own brains, which are prone to making many errors. 

So Hume asks whether it makes more sense to believe (1) that a genuine miracle has occurred, something which transcends the laws of nature that are observed to operate with marvelous regularity, or (2) that those testifying about the veracity of the miracle are lying.

Here's Hume's central miracle-demolishing argument. It makes a lot of sense. 

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined.

 ...The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), “That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish: And even in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments, and the superior only gives us an assurance suitable to that degree of force, which remains, after deducting the inferior.” 

When any one tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

Brilliant.

Hume starts off by saying that human experience argues against the existence of miracles, because we don't observe them. After all, a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature, and we live in a world governed by those laws. So by definition, a miracle is extremely unlikely, improbable, miraculous.

In the second paragraph above, Hume shows his understanding of both the scientific method and how people get along in everyday life. Rarely are we absolutely certain that something will happen. Even the sun rising is indeterminate to an infinitesmial degree. Maybe scientists have miscalculated the physics of solar goings-on, and the sun will flash out of existence suddenly. Extremely unlikely, but possible.

So almost always we weigh the evidence for one proposition against contrary evidence. This is what Hume means by a "mutual destruction of arguments." It's kind of like matter interacting with anti-matter: each annihilates the other, until what remains is the more massive, the largest quantity, the most substantial.

How much force remains behind an argument that a miracle is real after opposing arguments are arrayed against it? None at all, says Hume. The only way a miracle could be accepted is if its falsehood would be more miraculous. Again, brilliant.

Which brings us to the third paragraph in the quotations above.

To accept a miracle, like the story of Jesus being resurrected, we'd have to accept that it would be even more improbable, even more unlikely, even more miraculous for early Christian true believers in Jesus' divinity to not stretch the truth, to not lie, to not choose to pass on certain stories of Jesus' life and death rather than stories which would counter the prevailing Godly narrative.

In short, we'd have to accept that it'd be a miracle if humans acted like human beings: deceitful, biased, untrustworthy, mistake-prone. And that, Hume says, would be absurd, because we observe people acting that way all the time.

So when the evidence for and against a miracle is assessed, the balance always weighs heavily against the miracle. Always. After describing some hypothetical miracles supported by considerable seeming evidence, Hume still says:

All this might astonish me; but I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature.

In short, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Such has never happened with a miracle. Thus, there is no reason to believe in them. Have faith in miracles, if you like. Just recognize what you're doing: denying reality.

If "God" (however we define that word) is the most real entity in existence, and the creator of this universe, I suspect She isn't happy when people deny reality. This is like supposed lovers of an artist ignoring her works of art.

The genuine lovers of God, if God exists, are those who, like Hume, seek to weigh the evidence for and against the existence of something, choosing to accept as real only that which really exists.

Getting down to absolute nothing

Fans of nothingness (I'm one, and enjoy the company of Nothing'arians, but it's difficult to organize a fan club around nothing) should enjoy this letter in a recent issue of New Scientist. 

It's in response to a special issue on the nature of nothingness that I blogged about last month.

From Dave Howells
I found your articles on nothing interesting but dismaying (13 November, p. 40). Strictly speaking, none of them was about nothing. They surveyed the mathematical zero, empty sets, electronics, the quantum vacuum, and the noble gases.

Nothing, I believe, is when we are unconscious. Say I have an operation under general anaesthetic. I count down from 10, reach seven, and then wake up to discover that I am in a different place. What happened in between?

For my conscious awareness, absolutely nothing -- no time, no space, no matter, no emptiness, no experience whatsover.
Swansea, UK 

True. But Dave couldn't "know" about this nothing until he became something again. So it's tough to put your finger on nothing absent a something to poke at it with.

[Note: I'm trying out the LinkWithin feature that appears below. Supposedly it does better at recommending related posts as it learns about a blog. Currently the recommendations seem more than a little random. But, hey, surprises are good.]

Janis Joplin, vapor trails, and falling leaves

Oh, man, this has got to be a terrific post now that I've come up with that title. It's almost Christmas, so naturally my thoughts are turning toward utterly unreligious stuff.

But I'm still getting signs from the universe.

At least, I like to think that I am. And who else is better qualified to tell whether a seemingly random event actually is a message from... [fill in the blank; me, I have no idea who might be the messenger].  

Like, yesterday I was driving around, listening to Classic Vinyl on Sirius XM, grooving to sounds of the '60s when -- oh, my God! -- two of my favorite songs came on in a row: Janis Joplin singing "Me and Bobby McGee," then Grace Slick singing "White Rabbit."

Clearly, a message from [X]. 

There's a lot of great lyrics in "Me and Bobby McGee." Like:

Freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose
Nothin', don't mean nothin' honey if it ain't free.
And feeling good was easy Lord, when he sang the blues
You know feeling good was good enough for me
Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee.

I love how the song is so earthy, so real. It's easy to picture windshield washers beating time, as a woman "holds Bobby's hand in mine," singing every song the truck driver who picked them up knew. 

Abstractions, they're fine. Ditto with dogmas, theologies, concepts, hypotheses about what the cosmos might be all about. Then there's what Joplin sings about with such soul: holding Bobby's body next to mine.

I couldn't find a video online of her singing this song. But it's her voice that sends chills up my spine. There is only one Janis Joplin. I've never heard or seen anyone else like her. Which should remind us: there's also nobody else like us.

 

Shortly after I arrived at San Jose State University in 1966 as a freshman, I stumbled across a free concert on campus by Big Brother and the Holding Company. Janis Joplin was holding forth on stage. Watching her, I knew that I wasn't in conservative central California anymore.

A new magical world was dawning. The mantra: "Do your own thing." Still damn good advice, especially when it comes to religion, spirituality, philosophy of life, morals, ethics -- all that stuff. 

Janis Joplin died at twenty-seven from a heroin overdose. Seems like it was too soon, but who am I to say? She lived life her way. Full tilt. Holding nothing back. Expressing herself like nobody before or since. She was unique. Again, like we all are. 

Here she is singing "Ball and Chain" with every ounce of her being. 

 

Some people flash through life like a vapor trail, appearing and disappearing suddenly, making a sonic boom that grabs our attention. I thought of Joplin when I glanced up during my afternoon dog walk in the woods today.

The jet wasn't in sight. But it had left its mark. The vapor trail was surprisingly long lasting. It was still very much in evidence, though somewhat diminished, when we reached Spring Lake.

l thought, "That's Joplin. That's me. That's everybody and everything. No one and no thing lasts forever. We all fade away, dissipate, vanish over the horizon."

Like the setting sun, which greeted dog and me as we turned toward the west and headed around the lake. 

That oak tree must be several hundred years old. It started growing way before me, and almost certainly it'll still be alive when I'm dead and gone. I hate those words "dead and gone," because I love life. Yet... out in nature, like I was this evening, I feel much more comfortable with the thought of my own demise.

Life happens. Death happens. It's what happens.

And didn't Joplin sing, "Freedom is just another word for nothin' left to lose"? What do we have that is really ours? Is this body mine, this brain, this anything? I came from somewhere/nowhere and I'm heading back to the same place.

I was thinking along these lines as dog and I walked across the dam at the end of the lake. As so often happens, I wasn't aware of what nature was speaking, I was so focused on what the voice inside my head was talking about. 

But, just in time, I noticed another vapor trail. Another jet, headed in the same direction as the first one. Yet now I could see the jet. It was illuminated by the setting sun. 

The vapor trail was crisp, new, clear, strong. Unlike the old one. Also, exactly like the old one. Life keeps on happening. Janis Joplin is gone. Other singers have come. 

Earlier this month I also fired up my iPhone's camera on a dog walk. I made a one minute video of what was happening with some trees at the time. Leaves were falling. The moment was strangely moving. For me. Likely, not for anyone else who sees the video.

As is so often said, "I guess you had to be there." And not only there, but there inside my head. Here's my quasi-poetic (very quasi) narration, since the sound wasn't recorded very well.

Leaves
Softly falling.
Hard to catch,
Hard to predict.
Dog's ready to move on.
But...
I want to catch a few more.
Like life,
Try to look for it,
It's not there.
Have to be patient.
Nice one! 

 

On a different note...here's Grace Slick singing "White Rabbit." Wow. Wow. Wow.

  

"Survivor: South Pacific" shows ridiculousness of religion

My wife and I are big Survivor fans. We've watched every episode of each season. "Survivor: South Pacific," which concluded last Sunday, was one of the most captivating series for this reality show.

Also, one of the most annoying for us, because religion played a much larger role in the interactions between the people trying to outwit, outplay, and outlast (the Survivor mantra) each other on the island until one becomes the "sole survivor."

One tribe was filled with obnoxiously explicitly devout Christians who regularly stood in a circle, held hands, prayed together -- and then proceeded to do their best to screw each other over. But since it was in the name of God, hey, no problem.

For example, good Christian "Coach" (Benjamin Wade) is shown asking God for guidance as he tries to decide whether to vote off good Christian Brandon. In a total non-surprise, God tells Coach to do what is in Coach's best interest. 

After the vote is announced, and Brandon prepares to head to Redemption Island, a sort of purgatory where contestants have a chance to get back in the game, Coach hugs Brandon and says "It was God's will." 

Total bullshit, which also is an excellent description of religion. 

In "Survivor: South Pacific" the hypocrisy of religious believers was on full display. Christians promised to do one thing, and did something else. Christians professed their commitment to one another, then stabbed fellow tribe members in the back (figuratively).

Of course, this happens in every season of Survivor. That's why the show is so watchable: we get to see real people acting like we humans often do: deceiving, scheming, and manipulating to benefit ourselves while establishing enough social relationships to support those unsocial efforts.

This season, religion came to the fore as another tool for deceiving, scheming, and manipulating. 

Jon Kraszewski summarizes the details in his post about the spirituality of Survivor: South Pacific. He correctly points out that the most spiritual contestant was non-religious Ozzy, a guy who is comfortable in both his own skin and in communing with nature (also, in Playboy TV sex scenes).

I tune in every week for the joy of watching Ozzy’s genuinely moral, selfless, humble, and spiritual game contrast with Coach and Brandon’s hypocritical one. Both gaming strategies involve aspects of excess, but the different ways to bring excess into the game speak to the split between Ozzy’s genuine game and Coach and Brandon’s phony game. Coach and Brandon’s excess ultimately comes through over-the-top performances of religious faith, which humorously and ironically point out Coach’s ego-centered motives and Brandon’s mentally unstable personality during moments when they claim to be charitable.

Nature-loving Ozzy was much more likable than God-loving Coach or Brandon, a fact that denied him a place in the finals, since his rivals knew that he'd get the votes of the jury (players already voted off) if Ozzy was one of the final three.

Indeed, Ozzy didn't win the million dollar first prize, but he won $100,000 by being selected as the season Fan Favorite, getting a larger proportion of votes than any Fan Favorite in other seasons. This shows that naturalness is more popular than sanctimoniousness, good news for us churchless folks. 

I'm pretty sure that even most religious true believers don't enjoy over-the-top, in-your-face proclamations of faith. After all, didn't Jesus counsel to pray in secret? (Not that I believe Jesus ever said such a thing, or anything else attributed to him, but the Bible says this.)

Watching "Survivor: South Pacific," there were times when I did feel some affection for Coach, Brandon, and the other God-obsessed Christian contestants. This was when they seemed genuine, not play-acting how a religious person supposedly should behave.

Admitting that they were flawed hypocritical failures at living up to their Christian ideals -- that's when I found them most likable. In other words, when they came across as normal human beings, not one of God's chosen.

Religion is most ridiculous when people take it seriously.

When religiosity is treated as simply another strange thing that people do, I've got no problem with it. Even Ozzy made some mentions of God when he spoke about how close he felt to nature in the ocean, while climbing palm trees, and such.

But Ozzy's "God" is this world, here and now, not a transcendent father figure. Kraszewski commented on his own post, saying, "I view Ozzy as some combination of Emerson, Kerouac, and a surfer dude in terms of his religious actions and spirituality."

Right on. That's why Ozzy is my kind of saint.

The notion of a cosmic illusion is illusory

I loved "The Matrix." It's an entertaining movie with a compelling plot line.

Eventually, Neo finds Morpheus, and is then told that reality is actually very different from what he, and most other people, perceives it to be.

Morpheus tells Neo that human existence is merely a facade. In reality, humans are being ‘farmed’ as a source of energy by a race of sentient, malevolent machines. People actually live their entire lives in pods, wtih their brains being fed sensory stimuli which give them the illusion of leading ‘ordinary’ lives. Morpheus explains that, up until then, the “reality” perceived by Neo is actually “a computer-generated dreamworld…a neural interactive simulation” called the matrix.

This notion that the everyday world, which seems so real to us, actually is a shadow, maya, illusion, a reflection of some higher reality, lies at the core of almost all religions and mystical philosophies. 

It's older than Plato, though his Allegory of the Cave described this concept in a fashion that influenced a lot of thinkers who followed him. We don't see the Sun of Reality directly, only illusory shadows cast on a wall. Those who discern the truth aren't believed; that bright sun is too uncomfortable for people used to living in caves.

Spirituality is a search for something more real than the world of our bodily perceptions.

This is akin to the goal of science, but with an important twist: religions, spiritual practices, and mystical faiths generally believe that the illusion of the physical world can't be seen through by looking more deeply into it, by understanding more fully how materiality is put together and functions.

Rather, a cosmic illusion is assumed akin to the philosophy of "The Matrix."

There are forces afoot that are dedicated to keeping us immersed in unreality. Penetrating the illusion is difficult, if not impossible, unaided. We need a guide, a guru, a master, a savior, someone who can simultaneously communicate with us at our deluded human level while also being privy to secrets that transcend everyday understanding.

But what if the biggest illusion is the idea of a cosmic illusion? What if fear of death, yearning for perfect happiness, and other human cognitive propensities are how a higher reality has come to be imagined? 

Zen speaks of how first there is a mountain, then there isn't, and then there is. Similarly, perhaps what enlightenment truly consists of is first believing in the reality of the physical world, then doubting this, and then embracing this world again -- albeit from an enriched perspective.

By "enriched," I mean this: most people take this world for granted. They either don't ponder their place in it very deeply, or assume that Earth is a temporary stepping-off place for an eternity in heaven, paradise, nirvana, the lap of God, or such.

However, discarding the illusion of an illusion after believing strongly in it brings us back to everyday life with a fresh perspective. Now we look upon everyday life with new eyes. We aren't trying to look past or through this world.

We're content to look at it. To be an integral part of it, no longer feeling like a stranger in a strange land who belongs elsewhere.

One of my favorite churchless affirmations is:

I'm flawed and fucked-up, just like the world is.
We belong to each other, the world and me. 

Straining for personal perfection is exhausting. Seeking to know a perfect reality is senseless. If you find it, good for you. Be sure to tell me all about it. But when you do, it'll be while you're here in this flawed and fucked-up world, along with me.

Why materiality? What's the point?

One of the reasons I love my blogging gig, even though I get paid precisely nothing, and even have to pay for the privilege of doing what I do, is getting email messages like this:

I'm in the process of reading Return to the One which led me to your website and blogs.  Your writings have made me question, think, and laugh.  Thanks! I have spent many a year searching for something to satisfy this deep longing within.  I've known for sometime that I wasn't going to find "it" in the material world and have read zillions of books and tried various spiritual traditions hoping that they would lead me to that place of "final fulfillment." Long story short, your book and my recent foray into Buddism have led me to the realization that everything I seek is within me already and meditation is the highway to my destination...which really isn't a destination, but you know what I mean. So, now I'm trying to practice daily meditation and throw in a bit of yoga.... My question for you Brian (keeping in mind I haven't finished the book yet and you may provide an answer on the last page), is why materiality?  What's the point?  If Spirit residing in the upper realms is complete as it is and needs nothing, why does it take this journey  into bodies, animals, and nature?  Is it because it wants to "know or experience" itself, is it just an unstoppable desire to move from the simple to the complex? It's like "we" incarnate here and then we all, in some form or fashion, try to get back to where we came from.  Why don't we just stay where we are and kick back? Once again, thanks for your book and sharing your thoughts and musings online. Peace, Margie

Margie, you've asked some excellent questions.

My short response to why materiality? is... "Why" implies a choice; the cosmos isn't a product of choice. My short response to what's the point? is... there isn't one.

Now, these responses aren't incompatible with the Neoplatonic teachings of Plotinus that I described in Return to the One. Plotinus says that all things emanated from the One as if by necessity. And since he viewed the One (ultimate reality) as ineffable, there's no point to the cosmos that could be understood by us humans -- assuming such exists at all.

But if you've read some of my blog posts, almost certainly you know how much my attitude toward life has changed since I wrote that book.

I'm pleased to keep it in print because there is a lot to like about Plotinus. Plus, Amazon sales bring in over half of the cost of my Mini Cooper S loan payment each month. With my turn toward here-and-now materiality-embracing, I get more meaningful enjoyment from driving my Mini than envisioning abstract spiritual possiblities that only exist in the human mind.

Yesterday I was talking with a philosophically-minded friend about the classic "Why is there something rather than nothing?" question. What I said to her was basically how I ended a post I wrote earlier this year.

What is simply is. There is something rather than nothing. I find this eminently satisfying. More than that, actually, much more. It's awesome. Mindblowing. Astoundingly meaningful.

Why? LIke existence itself, there's no why.

Which means, there's no point either. Not to the universe. Not to me. Or to you, to anything.

"Why" and "point" are human intellectualizations. They have their place in certain situations, like my wife asking me why her printer isn't working, or when we're confused about what someone is saying and ask, what's your point?

But when it comes to the cosmos, "why" and "point" are meaningless words.

This is why I've become even more irreligious since writing Return to the One. I'm no longer interested in getting back to where I supposedly came from (heaven, God, the One, pure spirit, whatever) because I no longer believe there's any place but where I am right now.

So, yes, let's kick back. 

Yesterday my wife and I had a pleasant private dance lesson. Though we've been learning ballroom/partner dancing for over five years, a lot of moves aren't in our repertoire. So near the end of the swing lesson, when our instructor said "Do you want to learn how to dip?", I told her, "Absolutely. This is what has been missing from my life!"

I could tell that my wife wasn't quite as excited, since after learning a simple Lean to Side Dip, we moved on to the much cooler Woman Goes Way Over dip. (Don't know the actual names of these dance moves.)

With the second dip I embraced my wife with both hands, took a fairly large step to my left, and turned my body, holding my wife up as her back faced the floor and her non-standing leg assumed as much of a feminine, graceful, elegant position as was possible for a woman wondering if I was going to drop her.

The dip took trust. On her part. On my part. My wife had to believe she would be embraced as she relaxed into the dip. I had to believe that I was fully capable of holding her up.

Materiality is what holds us up. It sustains us. We can trust it.

Like you said, Margie, "why don't we just stay where we are and kick back?" No reason not to. We have no choice. No alternative. If we find ourselves in a spiritual realm -- unlikely, but possible -- then that's where we are. For now, though, Earth is our home. Probably the only one we'll ever know.

Try resting in the embrace of God, spirit, or some other supposed supernatural entity. No one can do it, because these are abstractions, concepts, neurological brain-firings that we humans mistake for substantial reality.

I'm not saying that materiality always dances with us as we want it to. Quite the contrary. Just as with person-to-person dancing, there are bumps, missteps, awkward moments, feelings of "what the hell is happening?" (That's how my wife and I dance, at least.)

But it's the rhythm of the dance between us and materiality that's important, not the specific steps. This is a lesson that's been drummed into us by our dance instructors: stay in harmony with the music, and you'll be dancing the way you should, even if how you move is simple and basic.

Same with the music of life.

The only band that's really playing is that of materiality, the physical universe. Thoughts about spirituality, Platonic forms, divine beings, they're just... (duh) thoughts. They can't sustain you, because they exist only within your own brain. 

There's no point to materiality because it simply is. It holds us up because there is nothing else. We trust it because there is no other option for us.

God didn't design the world. Neither do humans.

Scientifically-inclined people like me dismiss the idea of "intelligent design" when it is applied to the universe as a whole, or Earth in particular. It just is extremely unlikely that our world was designed by an intelligent being, rather than coming to be as it is through evolution's process of natural selection.

Strangely, though, even most scientists assume that history is the record of how we humans have designed cultures, civilizations, and such. So intelligent design isn't accepted as an explanation for how the natural world came to be, but it is accepted as an explanation for how the "built" world came to be.

Is this correct?

Why shouldn't whatever humans do fall under the same laws of nature as what other animals do? Sure, we're more intelligent (in some ways) than non-human animals, but are we capable of design, while those other creatures aren't?

In "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," Alex Rosenberg says no to the last question. It's an interesting argument, one which strikes at the heart of cherished societal and individual presumptions about how people think, decide, and act.

Darwin made good physics' claim to banish purpose from nature. The process he discovered underlies the appearance of purpose wherever it emerges, even in the human mind. 

Not only are the individual acts of human beings unguided by purpose; so are their thoughts. Combine the purposeless but well-adapted thoughts of a lot of people over a long time, and the result is history. Could history have purpose, meaning, or a direction even when people lack them?

Sure, it could, if there were any purposes. But physics has already ruled them out. Science excludes God's designs, or some purpose operating in the universe to navigate events into some safe harbor hidden in the future.

There is no alternative to blind variation and environmental filtration in human history, so there is no source for meaning or purpose in our history.

What we're left with is nihilism.

Fortunately, Rosenberg says it is nice nihilism. "Nice," because humans (like other animals) naturally are driven to choose life over death, getting out of bed in the morning rather than laying around in a depressed, listless state.

Nice nihilism undermines all values. This also goes for the silly idea of the existentialist philosophers, who realized that science rules out meanings or purpose and so insisted that we each had to create them for ourselves.

...Existentialism didn't see the fatuousness of trying to create something that nature had ruled out as impossible. Creating purpose in a world that can't have any is like trying to build a perpetual motion machine after you have discovered that nature has ruled them out.

...Luckily for us, Mother Nature has seen to it that most of us, incuding the secular humanists, will get up most mornings and go on living even without anything to make our lives meaningful. The proof is obvious. There is nothing that makes our lives meaningful, and yet here we are, out of our pajamas.

The notion that we need something to make life meaningful in order to keep living is another one of those illusions fostered by introspection.

Excellent. I'm going to search for my Nihilism wristband that I got six years ago, along with Apathy and Despair. After all, there is joy in nihilism.

(I've also blogged about Rosenberg's book here, here, and here. Reading the link in the first "here" will help you understand arguments made in this post.)

Hafiz warns, watch out for spiritual la-la land

Hafiz is pretty cool, for a religious'y guy. He's a Persian mystic poet who did his thing in the 14th century. 

Daniel Ladinsky has written a book, "A Year With Hafiz," that contains 365 poems that are versions of Hafiz, in much the same sense that Coleman Barks has popularized Rumi. Meaning, liberties are taken. These aren't word for word translations.

Fine with me. I'd rather get the spirit of a poet, than the letter of what he or she said. 

Here's the January 17 poem, "Watch Out for Spiritual La-La Land."

Watch out for spiritual la-la land, where you might wind up comatose.

Some early warning signs are:

A. You start wearing all orange or white and count your beads in public.

B. You chant something mysterious in Sanskrit or some language from another planet while burning incense that (unknown to you) is laced with potent hash, that makes you think you are on the right track when naked devas start appearing.

C. You start believing some basically regular guy or gal with drowsy eyes -- who parrots wisdom -- is a saint.

D. Even with those imaginary devas running around (who you would have thought might have stimulated your lower chakras), your wife or husband or lovers start to think: Gosh, what happened to my sweetheart? We used to do it in the car, in traffic jams, behind our tinted windows to pass the time constructively, and now look, yes, now just look...my sweetheart hasn't gone down on me in three months, and may never again.

E. Your high school graduating class pitches in for the best cult deprogrammer in the world for you, as a birthday present. Especially if you were a runner-up, or ever even remotely considered most likely to succeed. 

Ooh, that last one hurt. I indeed was the male deemed "most likely to succeed" by my Woodlake Union High School class of 1966.

But I never got a cult deprogrammer birthday present from my classmates.

Probably should have, since I joined up with a crazed Christian-Hindu-Whatever yoga teacher in 1969 and had some pretty darn strange experiences with him. Yeah, I was off in spiritual la-la land. Stayed in that realm for many years.

Now I can say, reality is better.

"How to Die in Oregon" made me less afraid of death

I'm going to die eventually. And I live in Oregon. So it figures that the award-winning 2011 documentary "How to Die in Oregon" would be of considerable interest to me. 

In 1997 Oregon became the first state to allow terminally-ill people to end their lives through self-administered lethal medications if a physician certified they had six months or less to live. It's officially called the Death With Dignity Act, but often is midleadingly referred to as physician-assisted suicide.

The movie shows that suicide isn't what terminally-ill people are doing when they choose to control the time and place of their death, rather than being subject to the vicissitudes of a painful, debilitating fatal disease.

They're doing just what the name of the Oregon Act says: dying with dignity. 

I recorded "How to Die In Oregon" months ago when it was first shown on HBO. Since, until a few days ago, it's sat on our DVR, passed over for other programs when we wanted to watch something -- mostly because of me.

My wife would say, "Why don't we watch How to Die in Oregon tonight?" I'd tell her, "Please, let's not. Too depressing." 

I was wrong. Very wrong.

I was deeply moved by the movie in some highly positive ways. If you're like me, scared to death of, well, death, you've got to find a way to see "How to Die in Oregon." (It'll probably be available on Netflix eventually.)

After the movie ended my wife said to me, "I'm surprised you liked it so much, given how you feel about dying." She probably was thinking of how, when we sat down with an attorney to discuss our wills/living trusts, I insisted that the attorney say "gerbils" instead of "dies" when she was referring to my eventual demise.

So rather than say "When Brian dies..." our attorney would say "When Brian gerbils..." This made the discussion easier for me to handle, though my alternative word demand must have confused any of her colleagues who overheard us talking.

The older I get (I'm 63 now), the easier it is for me to envision my death. Or rather, dying, because my bet is that after I die my consciousness will be as dead as my body, so I won't be aware that death has happened. 

"How to Die in Oregon" made me feel even better about dying.

From the opening scene to the final credits, I was mesmerized as I watched the movie, fascinated by how positive, upbeat, humorous, and courageous the people were who took advantage of Oregon's Death With Dignity law.

Even as they were drinking the liquid mixture of barbituates that would put them into a coma, and then cause them to die.

A review by Ebert at the Movies mentions how the first man shown looks into the camera and says, "Tell the next person this stuff tastes woody!" He's marvelously alert, aware, and blunt as he thanks the voters of Oregon for giving him this option to end his life on his own terms, not that of his disease.

(Watch the review to see some moving scenes from the movie; also, watch the trailer, where the above-mentioned man is shown at the beginning saying he knows what the medications will do: "It will kill me and make me happy.")

"How to Die in Oregon" shows how people act when they know this is the last day, hour, or minute they'll be alive. It's incredibly moving to share these moments. I'm grateful they and their families were so welcoming of the camera crew.

What a gift. The movie is transforming. At least, it was for me. I'll never look upon dying in the same way again. Or living.

Because the terminally ill people shown in "How to Die in Oregon" teach us how to make the most of our last moments. Which could come upon us at any moment, given that death usually can't be predicted.

There were a few allusions to an afterlife in the movie, but I can't recall any explicit displays of religiosity from those who chose the death with dignity option. Of course, most people who choose to die at a time and place of their own choosing likely aren't highly religious.

Mostly, the movie shows them living their last moments honestly, bravely, light-heartedly, warmly. They were supported by friends and family. They were sustained by nature (gardening, walks in a park). They trusted that when it was the right time to die, they'd know it.

I've struggled with a fear of death for much of my life. "How to Die in Oregon" taught me that there's a simple way to deal with that fear: don't be afraid. I realize those three words may not make much sense to someone who hasn't seen the movie.

If so, see it.

This film is like no other. It looks straight into the eyes of death, a subject that most of us dance around rather than embrace. (The Ebert video review says that at the Sundance Film Festival showing, the theatre was half empty; people wrongly thought the movie would be a downer.)

After watching the movie, my wife and I can't understand how anyone could argue that death with dignity shouldn't be an option for everybody. Every state in this country, and every country in the world, needs to pass similar laws.

When death is inevitable -- and even when it isn't -- people who aren't seriously depressed or mentally ill should be able to decide whether they want to keep on living. Why should anyone else be able to make that choice for someone? 

God almost certainly is an illusion. Death is real. The main objection to death with dignity is religious, which makes no sense. Illusions can't be allowed to overrule reality.

(Here's a good review of the movie.)

Looking into the void...and waking up

Recently I got an email from someone who resonated with my take on death, not-existing for eternity, and the virtually certain unfortunate/fortunate fact that when we die, we're gone forever (aside from the atoms that make up our time-limited assemblage into a living entity).

I asked the guy, Yeager St. John, if I could share his thoughts. "Sure," he emailed back. Here they are.

Hey Brian,

I came across your website, "Church of the Churchless" and must say, bravo. I have only read a few of your posts, but have enjoyed every bit. I came across your "death and the primal fear of non-existence" post and what you said really resonates with experiences I have had. I have never seen someone explain exactly how I felt.

It's not so much the act of dying as much as, "what about everything that was before and will come after," thoughts on eternity and infinity, where the universe is, what it all means, etc. I too have had the experience of looking back into the void, as if a curtain was pulled away suddenly. I feel like so many people have not realized this both unfortunate and fortunate truth about ourselves.

Instead so many people seem to concern themselves with material things in order to feel happy and deny the fundamental nature of their existence and being, using other things (monetary goals, religion, material things...) to distract themselves from their own existence and coming to terms with it.

Sometimes I think it is only the smarter people who ever have this epiphany of life, and that we are also the only ones who are able to deal with it and actually "wake up" to ourselves. Just like yourself, I do not seem to have "beat" the feeling of....I don't even know how to describe it. There are no words for the emptiness and fear that comes to you when you realize non-existence, as I'm sure you know.

But, I have found that being "woken up" to this fact of life and death has made me appreciate all that I have, which is to say, all that I have in the here and now. I have begun the process of living and being aware of the current moment and just doing what I can to be happy, which is mostly controlling my outlook on life, as that is the only thing I am completely in control of.

I don't let petty things bother me, because I've seen behind the curtain and don't fall for the social distractions. It's not to say that I live a perfect happy life and wake up every day happy, smiling, etc.

I still have off days, I still dislike certain things, I still get angry, sad, and a whole range of emotions. But I remember to ground myself. To remain in this moment, the only moment I have - and enjoy every bit of the eternal here and now. I take bigger risks, my levels of anxiety and fear in every-day life have reduced, and continue to do so, because I realize it's all a big game and really there is nothing to lose.

Listening to Alan Watts, Carl Sagan and other philosophers and mystics has really helped as well. It seems that we are all in this together, and even if we don't really understand, it's ok. Whatever this is will keep on going. I might not understand my purpose and existence, but like chaos theory proves, every little thing seems to matter and influence everything. 

I hope I've made myself somewhat clear, hahah. I tend to get jumbled when I think on this matter; my brain races and all the thoughts I have inside come gushing out. 

Either way, I just wanted to let you know there are are other deep thinkers out there, curious and aware about ourselves. Keep living and enjoying the here and now, and may your life be thick with experience.

Cheers,

Yeager
Yeager St. John

Since Yeager shared a link to his web site, I browsed around a bit. Checking out his videos, my eye was caught by the title "Dreams," and an image that said when did we forget our dreams? Great question.

For an answer, see below. I liked the video, in no small part because Fuck. That. Shit. is part of the answer.  

Dreams from Yeager St John on Vimeo.

Made in Adobe After Effects, the text is from an amazing comic - xkcd.com. The title of this particular comic is 'Dreams' and the number is 137 if you're up to read it, it's worth it.
 
"Does the routine destroy our creativity, or do we lose our creativity and fall into the routine?"

How science supports left-wing politics

Do people have free will? No. 
Is almost everything in the cosmos determined? Yes. 
Have humans evolved a core morality? Yes. 

Put these facts together, and you arrive at a persuasive scientific argument for favoring progressive politics. Read all about it in a post I wrote for my other blog, "Science supports a progressive political agenda."

One more fact:

Will lots of people disagree with this conclusion? Yes.

Science: a minimalist "get real" walk through life

Most people like to be insulated from reality. After all, it hurts sometimes. So everybody puts on physical and mental coverings of one sort or another. Clothes, shoes, gloves, beliefs, hopes, imaginings. 

I used to do this much more than I do now. My inward churchlessness has been matched by an outward "get real" approach to how I dress and get around. For example, I enjoy a healthy dose of minimalism in my footwear.

Currently these are my favorite shoes, Teva's Zilch and Nilch. I Zilch in warm weather; I Nilch in cold weather (with wool blend socks). They're wonderfully light: 7 and 7.5 ounces per shoe, respectively. By comparison, a pair of Columbia shoes I'd been wearing weigh 14 ounces per shoe.

So I've reduced by half the weight of what I carry around on my feet most days. Likewise, I've ditched most of the metaphysical, supernatural, mystical, and spiritual notions that I used to cart around in my psyche.

Minimalism feels good to me, whether physical or psychological.

Along with lightness, I love how these shoes connect me with the earth in ways firmer, bigger, bulkier shoes can't. Walking across some rocks, like those in the photo, I really feel them through the soles. Both the Zilch and Nilch are flexible, like my churchless state of mind. 

Here's some Teva ad copy that contains some more-than-shoe wisdom.

Minimalist protection is the name of the game with the Nilch. Blending all of the benefits of minimalist construction with full foot coverage, the Nilch gives you the feeling of complete freedom without sacrificing the all around security of a shoe. Freedom and security at the same time… maybe the airlines should take notes. 

Sometimes the thinner you go, the better it feels. Hey get your head out of the gutter… we're talking about shoes here. The Zilch is the thinnest, most minimalistic sport sandal we've ever made. Minimalist construction means that the Zilch will bend and flex naturally with your foot, giving you an amazing feel and connection to the earth, but also giving you traction and protection that a bare foot doesn't. ...With the Zilch, you can use your feet like Mother Nature intended. 

Now, like I said, some people don't want to get close to Mother Nature.

They want to distance themselves from nasty, dirty, impure, imperfect physical stuff. These people embrace religions, mystical practices, and spiritual paths which proclaim that really real reality is in some other realm.

So they clothe themselves in nature-separating beliefs.

These, of course, necessarily are anti-scientific, because science is the study of the world in which we live, not of worlds that exist only in imagination (yes, I realize physicists are enamored of the multiverse; but they realize that such remains only a hypothesis without substantial confirming evidence).

"Get real" thus is an adage that doesn't appeal to religious true believers.

They seek the unreality of fantasized heavens beyond the physical. There, worldly pain is absent. Yet so is the pleasure of feeling intimately connected to reality through here-and-now perceptions, emotions, feelings, and other experiences.

In his book "Becoming Animal: an Earthly Cosmology," David Abram eloquently speaks of this common (most people are religious) urge to transcend everyday existence, and how self-defeating it is.

Corporeal life is indeed difficult. To identify with the sheer physicality of one's flesh may well seem lunatic. The body is an imperfect and breakable entity vulnerable to a thousand and one insults -- to scars and the scorn of others, to disease, decay, and death. And the material world that our body inhabits is hardly a gentle place.

The shuddering beauty of this biosphere is bristling with thorns: generosity and abundance often seem scant ingredients compared with the prevalence of predation, sudden pain, and racking loss. Carnally embedded in the depths of this cacophonous profusion of forms, we commonly can't even predict just what's lurking behind the near boulder, let alone get enough distance to fathom and figure out all the workings of this world.

We simply can't get it under our control. We've lost hearing in one ear; the other rings like a fallen spoon. Our spouse falls in love with someone else, while our young child comes down with a bone-rattling fever that no doctor seems able to diagnose. There are things out and about that can eat us and ultimately will.

Small wonder, then, that we prefer to abstract ourselves whenever we can, imagining ourselves into theoretical spaces less fraught with insecurity, conjuring dimensions more amenable to calculation and control. We slip blissfully into machine-mediated scapes, offering ourselves up to any technology that promises to enhance the humdrum capacities of our given flesh. And sure, now and then we'll engage this earthen world as well, as long as we know that it's not ultimate, as long we're convinced that we're not stuck here.

...Thus do we shelter ourselves from the harrowing vulnerability of bodied existence. But by the same gesture we also insulate ourselves from the deepest wellsprings of joy... We seal ourselves off from the erotic warmth of a cello's voice, or from the tilting dance of construction cranes against a downtown sky overbursting with blue. From the errant hummingbird pulsing into our cupped hands as we ferry it back out the door, and the crimson flash as it zooms from our fingers.

This Nature-embracing life Abrams describes is scientific, yet not in a dry, detached, laboratory sense. He urges the science of wide-eyed, open-minded observation, of being as aware as possible of what isn't possible, but real.

We're so used to pushing reality away, the feeling of it can be like entering a frigid river fed by snowmelt from the high mountains -- something I did often in my youth, having grown up in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada range.

Now, at my ripe Social Security age, I relive that frigid feeling whenever I ride my beloved Burgman 650 scooter in cold weather.

The great thing (also, the worst thing) about a scooter or motorcycle is that if it is cold outside, you'll feel it; if it's warm outside, you'll feel it. Whatever the weather is, you experience it, because you're out in it. By contrast, in a car -- like inside a belief system -- you're insulated from reality.

Last Sunday I rode my scooter 30 minutes at thirty-nine degrees to have coffee with some friends. When I arrived at Starbucks they asked, "How was your ride?" "It was real," I said. My hands were cold. So was the air. Nice match between reality and me.

Abrams writes about how easily we assume that what's real is to be found in some distant realm, rather than through our immediate bodily sensations. By reducing the barriers between us and the physical world, what we're seeking in life may turn out to be much closer than we ever expected.

Here, as before, the sensuous world -- the creaturely world directly encountered by our animal senses -- is commonly assumed to be a secondary, derivative reality understood only by reference to more primary domains that exist elsewhere, behind the scenes.

I do not deny the importance of those other scales or dimensions, nor the value of the various truths that may be found there. I deny only that this shadowed, earthly world of deer tracks and moss is somehow less worthy, less REAL, than those abstract dimensions.

It is more palpable to my skin, more substantial to my flaring nostrils, more precious -- infinitely more precious -- to the heart drumming within my chest.

Sodomites and infidels should govern U.S.

This video response to Rick Perry's religious homophobia is much more to my liking. Hey, the guy makes a lot of sense.

He observes that gay and atheist presidents didn't get us into wars or financial crises. No, "It took some God-fearing vagina penetrators to pull that off." The solution: "Leave the governing to sodomites and infidels."

Sounds good to me. 

 

Cultures and religions blind us to reality

In a TIME magazine story about the Penn State sex scandal -- rape of young boys by a football coach is alleged -- I came across an analysis of how people become blinded to what is right in front of their eyes.

These excerpts from "Penn State of Mind" reminded me of religious true believers. Their blind faith causes them to become equally blind to aspects of reality that don't mesh with what they desperately want to believe in.

Within a college bubble, say organizational psychologists, the urge to shape your mental picture of the world can be overwhelming. "Culture trumps everything," says Laura Finfer, a psychologist and a principal at a New York City executive consulting firm. 

Colleges, Finfer has found, can be quite clannish. "Cultures define you, and you become blind to everything in front of your eyes."

Or the way you see things changes. Ral Aldag, a management professor at the University of Wisconsin's School of Business, points to two cognitive tricks: selective perception and subjective perception. 

Selective perception is our bias toward ignoring information that is at odds with your worldview. Subjective perception explains our tendency to couple uncomfortable information with reaffirming facts in order to make ourselves feel better.

For example, Penn Staters decry abuse. But pair that with anger over the indignity of Paterno's dismissal, and Paterno becomes a victim.

Cohesive groups like the Penn State football leadership tend to draw boundaries around themselves. "We apply rules of fair and just behavior to our own groups and people within them," says Michelle Duffy, an organizational behavior professor at the University of Minnestota's Carlson School of Management.

"But we morally exclude outsiders. In some ways you are dehumanizing out-group members -- in this case, the victims." 

Rick Perry hates gays and loves religion. Me, the opposite.

Thank you, Rick Perry.

Your homophobic video, where you bizarrely speak of Obama's "war on religion" (huh?), has inspired me to carry on with my own genuine war against hateful religious dogma such as you espouse. 

Take 30 seconds to watch it. Then, if you're as disgusted as I expect you'll be, head to You Tube and click on the thumbs-down (dislike) icon.

So far about 87,000 people dislike the video and 2,000 like it. Good to know Rick Perry doesn't represent Americans. Just the mean-spirited ones.

 

Islam's war on women

I got an email from A Mohit, who shared a link to a post he wrote about "Islam and Women." Very disturbing, this tale of an Afghan woman who is raped, then has to marry her attacker in order to be freed from jail.

Mohit tells it like it is.

Shame on her tribe, shame on their society!

I do not condemn her family, who are probably as helpless as Gulnaz herself is. I raise my hands in prayer: May God have his fury on the people who oppress women in the name of God.

Here's another story about the woman. 

“I am obliged to marry him, even though I can’t look at him,” 19-year-old Gulnaz said about the man she claims raped her. 

...A press release from the presidential palace stated that the president had decreed her release “taking into consideration the consent of both sides for a conditional wedlock.”

In other words, she was free to go – if she agreed to marry her rapist. (Even though her rapist is already married, in Islamic societies, like Afghanistan, polygamy is allowed, with the specific limitation that men can have up to four wives).

Not the victory many were hoping for, but a small victory for women in a society who have seen few.

Shocker! Thoughts really aren't about anything at all

Thoughts. Desires. Intentions. Plans. Interpretations. Meanings. These seem to be so important, so vital, so much a part of being human. 

We think about stuff. We have feelings about stuff. We argue, debate, laugh, cry, discuss, cogitate, agonize over, dream about stuff. Yet there are good neuroscientific reasons to say, "We're totally mistaken. It's impossible for our minds to be about anything."

So argues Alex Rosenberg in his book, "The Atheist's Guide to Reality." A few days ago I blogged about it here, ending with a quotation that stimulated this post:

Ultimately, science and scientism are going to give up as illusory the very thing conscious experience screams out at us loudest and longest: the notion that when we think, our thoughts are about anything at all, inside or outside of our minds.

Rosenberg doesn't deny that thinking happens. Or that emotions happen.

What he denies is our intuitive assumption that what's going on inside our minds is about something. Most challenging of all, this leads him to the conclusion that it's wrong to say things like "I'm seeking the truth about myself."

This "about" issue is the most difficult part of Rosenberg's book. He says so himself, and I agree.

I've re-read the chapters where he lays out his arguments for thoughts not being about anything at all. I agree with him, but it's difficult to describe why in a simple fashion -- perhaps because I, like everybody else, am so used to believing that I'm capable of thinking about something.

Yet this notion isn't unfamiliar to me. It's akin to Buddhism's thoughts without a thinker. Thinking happens, for sure. The questions are, who's doing the thinking, and how? 

Rosenberg travels down several argument-avenues in his attempt to convince the reader that our thoughts aren't about anything at all. He works hard at this, because he sees it as vitally important for understanding reality as it is.

What you absolutely cannot be wrong about is that your conscious thought was about something. Even having a wildly wrong thought about something requires that the thought be about something.

It's this last notion that introspection conveys that science has to deny. Thinking about things can't happen at all. The brain can't have thoughts about Paris, or about France, or about capitals, or about anything else for that matter.

When consciousness convinces you that you, or your mind, or your brain has thoughts about things, it is wrong. 

Don't misunderstand, no one denies that the brain receives, stores, and transmits information. But it can't do these things in anything like the way introspection tells us it does -- by having thoughts about things. The way the brain deals with information is totally different from the way introspection tells us it does.

Seeing why and understanding how the brain does the work that consciousness gets so wrong is the key to answering all the rest of the questions that keep us awake at night worrying over the mind, the self, the soul, the person.

This is what I love about science, especially neursoscience: it's like a Zen master.

Except, you don't get hit with a physical stick while the master yells "Wake up! Wake up!" The hitting, the yelling, the urging to wake up -- these shocks to the psyche come through understanding the deep meaning of scientific research into the human mind/brain.

After all, that's who we are.

Neurons, brain cells, synapses, all doing amazing stuff, creating consciousness, experiences, our feeling of me-ness. We know (albeit imperfectly) what bubbles to the surface of conscious awareness, but don't have any access to the brain processes which work away outside of our ability to know.

People are attracted to mysticism and the occult because they promise to reveal hidden truths. Well, that's exactly what science does. Except science offers up good reasons to accept its truths, because they are founded on more than blind faith and personal claims.

Here's my favorite passage from Rosenberg's book that aims to explain why we can't think "about" anything:

Our conscious thoughts are very crude indicators of what is going on in our brain. We fool ourselves into treating those conscious markers as thoughts about what we want and about how to achieve it, about plans and purposes. We are even tricked into thinking they somehow bring about behavior.

We are mistaken about all of these things. Meanwhile, our brain's input/output circuits are working, behind the curtain so to speak, creating these illusions by playing markers out in a (quasi-) grammatical or syntactical order through consciousness. 

Whatever neural arrangements these conscious markers consist of, they are almost certainly not sufficient in number or organization by themselves to drive the behavior that is supposed to result from conscious thoughts about stuff.

When it comes to causing and guiding our actions, the stream of consciousness is pretty much just along for the ride, like the conscious feeling of choosing in Libet's experiments. This is just another reason to treat conscious thoughts as crude indicators, not rough approximations of anything the brain is actually doing.

We humans are animals. We need to remember that.

Yes, we're the most highly evolved animals on Earth -- the most intelligent, with the best communication skills. We can tell stories to ourselves, and others, about how special we are. But really, we're not. The human brain is still a bunch of meat, just like the brains of other animals are.

Consider the frog. Rosenberg writes about how a fly passes in front of a frog's visual field.

The frog's tongue flicks at the fly and brings it into its mouth. We watch this display and marvel at the frog's ability, something we can't do.

...We are, of course, amazed at the environmental appropriateness of the frog's tongue flicking. We say, "The frog knows where the fly is. There must be neurons in its brain that contain information about the fly's speed and direction."

It's perfectly natural for us to say this, but it's an illusion that results solely from the environmental appropriateness of the dot-detection to tongue-flicking chain of neural inputs and outputs. The frog's neural circuitry can't be about the fly; they can't be about anything.

...Now let's turn to the human case. Here the behavior is even more exquisitely appropriate to the environment. Our behavior is not limited to anything as simple as flicking our tongue at edible insects. We engage in conversation. What could be more exquisitely appropriate to our environments?

The appropriateness is, however, only different in degree from the appropriateness of the frog's tongue flicking.

Croak! Croak! 

I've just performed a human equivalent of frog-tongue flicking by writing this blog post. As you have by reading it. 

Ribbit! Ribbit!

My brain did it. Yours also. No thoughts about required. It's just what people do. The Internet is one of the lily pads where we hang out and do stuff.

Dancing teaches me a life lesson

Quality, not quantity. Relate, don't compare. 

That's the essence of what Debra, my dance instructor, told me yesterday. On my other blog I described these life lessons. Have a read. And a look, as I included a dance video that Debra liked a lot.

Religions urge that we form an intimate relationship with God or some other supernatural entity. Ballroom dancing points us toward the here-and-now: relating to the partner who is in our arms. 

Which is more real? For me, dancing. For sure.

"Atheist's Guide to Reality" answers life's biggest questions

Here's a gift idea for the atheists and agnostics on your Christmas shopping list: Alex Rosenberg's The Atheist's Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life Without Illusions.

I'm enjoying it a lot, having bought it at Powell's Books in Portland (best bookstore in the world!) a few weeks ago. Rosenberg, chair of the Philosophy Department at Duke University, is a powerful writer. He is utterly fearless in proclaiming his atheistic thesis.

Here it is in a nutshell, on pages 2-3 of his new book where he confidently answers life's biggest questions in a few words:

Is there a God? No.

What is the nature of reality? What physics says it is. 

What is the purpose of the universe? There is none. 

What is the meaning of life? Ditto. 

Why am I here? Just dumb luck. 

Does prayer work? Of course not. 

Is there a soul? Is it immortal? Are you kidding?

Is there free will? Not a chance! 

When happens when we die? Everything pretty much goes on as before, except us. 

What is the difference between right and wrong, good and bad? There is no moral difference between them.

Why should I be moral? Because it makes you feel better than being immoral.

Is abortion, euthanasia, suicide, paying taxes, foreign aid, or anything else you don't like forbidden, permissible, or sometimes obligatory? Anything goes.

What is love, and how can I find it? Love is the solution to a strategic interaction problem. Don't look for it; it will find you when you need it.

Does history have any meaning or purpose? It's full of sound and fury, but signifies nothing.

Does the human past have any lessons for our future? Fewer and fewer, if it ever had any to begin with.

Standing in Powell's Books, thumbing through "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," what made me decide to buy the book was a positive mention of scientism that I came across in the first chapter. 

Almost always this word is used in a perjorative manner. Meaning, scientism is considered a viewpoint that fails to recognize the legitimate limits of scientific inquiry, a reductionist philosophy which ignores aspects of reality beyond the bounds of science.

Appealingly, Rosenberg proudly appropriates this word. He stands tall for scientism, and a scientistic outlook on life. 

But we'll call the worldview that all us atheists (and even some agnostics) share "scientism." This is the conviction that the methods of science are the only reliable way to secure knowledge of anything; that science's description of the world is correct in its fundamentals; and that when "complete" what science tells us will not be surprisingly different from what it tells us today.

We'll often use the adjective "scientistic" in referring to the approaches, theories, methods, and descriptions of the nature of reality that all the sciences share. Science provides all the significant truths about reality, and knowing such truths is what real understanding is all about.

You may not agree with Rosenberg. But if you read his book, I guarantee that he will make you think. He will challenge your assumptions about how the world, and you, are. I'm getting mini-revelations on almost every page. 

I'm about to read a chapter that promises a maxi-revelation. Stay tuned to this blog for what it is. Here's a preview that I came across this morning.

Ultimately, science and scientism are going to give up as illusory the very thing conscious experience screams out at us loudest and longest: the notion that when we think, our thoughts are about anything at all, inside or outside of our minds.

Religious stories are too wonderful to be true

One of the things scientists have learned about humans is how much we love stories.

People are bothered by uncertainty, doubt, not-knowing. Our brains are hardwired by evolution to jump to intuitive conclusions that seem oh-so-right, even when the evidence supporting those conclusions is oh-so-limited.

Stories fill in the gaps in our ignorance, producing a pleasing thematic arc: introductory first act, dramatic second act, tying it all together third act. For example, Christianity tells us a story of how God created a perfect world, humans screwed things up by sinning, and Jesus was sent to save us.

Of course, there are some glitches in the factual foundation of this "greatest story ever told."

For example, Jesus hasn't returned to perform his Second Coming role. But Christians explain this away through various strategems, such as this attempt which thoroughly confused me upon a quick reading (I don't have much patience for tortured theological arguments).

Here's a basic lesson about religious stories: if they seem too wonderful to be true, that's because they're almost certainly false. 

By contrast, scientific "stories," a.k.a. theories or laws of nature, have no inherent connection with what we human beings want to be true. Scientists seek knowledge of how the cosmos is, not how it ideally would be if people could wave a magic wand and change it however they like. 

I'd prefer to never die, grow old, or become infirm. I'd prefer to be happy all the time, never suffering any disappointments. At least, I think I would. Maybe perfection would come to seem imperfect after I'd experienced enough of it. Regardless, I'd like to give it a try.

And that's exactly what religions promise -- perfection. It's no wonder they're so successful at attracting most of the world's population into their dogmatic clutches. The stories religions offer are amazingly attractive.

Who doesn't want to spend eternity in heaven or paradise? Who doesn't want everlasting bliss, peace, and perfect knowledge? Who doesn't want to surrender a fear of death and embrace a promise of dying being a gateway to a much better form of existence?

For more than three decades I bought into an Eastern version of Christan salvation, the teachings of Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

Instead of Jesus, I believed that a guru was the "son of God" and had been sent by the Almighty to rescue my soul. Instead of having my sins forgiven, I believed that my store of karmas was being wiped out by meditation and the guru's grace, cleansing my soul of impurities that prevented it from ascending to a heavenly realm.

This story was firmly rooted in Indian philosophy, but I didn't view it in that fashion. To me, this was living, breathing truth. I could see the guru, listen to his words, understand his teachings as an infallible guide for living the good life both now and after my bodily death.

Best of all, there were no chinks in this story-armor, no "I don't know" blank spots that could foster doubts about the marvelous journey back to God I'd embarked on and was guaranteed to complete.

Eventually I began to see the light -- through cracks around the edges of trusted religious teachings that I'd ignored for many years because I didn't want to see these flaws in what I wanted to believe was Perfect Truth.

Why didn't the guru appear to be godlike, rather than a normal human being? The supposed reason: because God wanted it this way. A deal had been made with the "devil"; perfect gurus weren't allowed to manifest their perfection through obvious miracles, because otherwise the poor devil would lose all of his own devotees, causing the soul-population of this physical creation to plummet.

Does that sound crazy? Sure. But what's even crazier is how many disciples of the guru, including me, accepted this story. Along with equally implausible plot lines.

Why isn't there demonstrable evidence of disciples returning to heavenly realms, as promised? The supposed reason: because if any disciple revealed details about his or her spiritual progress, the progress would stop; also, talking about mystical experiences in meditation would feed the initiate's ego, so this was forbidden.

It also conveniently fostered a blackout of shared information about whether the guru's prescribed meditative practice led to the claimed results. So every disciple thought that he or she was one of the rare people who weren't having visions of God.

Eventually, though, I realized that whenever I talked honestly with fellow disciples, we all were in the same ungodly boat: nobody was living out the god-realization story that the guru promised, yet each of us figured that everybody else was -- just not us.

Many additional examples of unbelievable story lines in the RSSB teachings could be given. I'll share just one more.

Why aren't disciples of the guru experiencing the divine lights, sounds, and such that accompany the soul's experiencing of higher realms of reality? The supposed reason: because the spiritual path is like digging a tunnel through a mountain; until you reach the other side, it's dark in the tunnel. Progress is being made, but you can't discern it.

Again, this came to strike me as too cute, too convenient, too accommodating of blind faith in the guru even when no evidence of the truthfulness of his teachings was apparent.

Everybody loves a good story.

But when the story is too good, don't trust it, especially when the purveyor is a religion. Religions control people by telling stories we all want to hear -- stories with marvelously happy endings, stories where we are the heroes and heroines, whose plot focus is all about us.

Don't believe them. Choose reality. Choose the truth. Even when the resulting story has imperfections, downsides, disappointments. Don't live your one and only life as a fantasy. Make it real.