Church of the Churchless

Another disillusioned RSSB devotee tells his deconversion tale

I'm a big fan of religious deconversions. They're just about as common as conversions, since few people stick with a chosen religion for their entire life. 

(See here, here, here, here, and here.)

Below is a mildly edited message that I got a few days ago from someone who has deconverted from the India-based religious/spiritual/mystical group I belonged to for many years, Radha Soami Satsang Beas.

At the sender's request, who wishes to be anonymous, I took out names and other personal references. I also added in some explanations (in italics) for words that will be unfamiliar to most readers, along with some links.

It takes courage and commitment to the truth for someone to break away from a religious organization that has left them disillusioned. Which is a great word, really, since it is wonderful to feel free from illusion.

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Hi Brian, 

I wanted to write to you and introduce myself. I am not sure if we have ever met but I’m sure we know some of the same people from satsang [spiritual meetings]. I happened to stumble upon your website a few weeks ago and have read a lot of what you have written concerning RSSB. There is so much on my mind that I would like to relate to you concerning the path that I always kinda questioned in the back of my mind. Luckily, your insights have helped me understand my experience with Sant Mat and put a lot into perspective. 

I attended my first Satsang in the mid 90’s when I was in my early 20’s. I was introduced to the path through a friend of mine in AA (another story) that heard about a group that practiced meditation. I met guys like Joe (not his real name) who became my AA sponsor and happened to become secretary of the sangat about a year after I started showing up. I was a voracious reader like Joe, so I ended up borrowing a lot of books from him. You see, I also did not have a good relationship with my father who was a workaholic and physically abused me as a child. 

So needless to say, I was very much looking for older men to pay attention to me and show me what it means to be a man. The idea of a mystical guru from India who was spreading the word of salvation was very appealing to me and I was attracted immediately. I was a 21 year old “recovering alcoholic” college student who was looking for the meaning of life. The fact that I had never really abused alcohol that much did not matter since I had not had any alcohol or drugs since I was 17, when I caused a car accident when I was under the influence. I was court ordered to go to rehab and then was introduced to AA, which promised a better life through working the 12 steps. Four years later and many meetings later, I was not feeling any better.  That’s when I started attending Satsang and continued to do so off and on for the last 20 years. 

I remember reading both of your books that were published by RSSB. I particularly liked God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder. And, I am really looking forward to reading your book about Plotinus. I was really into Ancient Philosophy and I remember taking a philosophy class on the Socratics in college as an elective and writing a paper interpreting their philosophy with a very Sant Mat point of view. I wish I still had it so that every time I think Kal [the Devil, basically] is playing a trick on me and keeping me away from GIHF [God in Human Form, the guru], I could re-read it and realize what I jackass I was. 

I remember coming across Mark Juergensmeyer’s book about Sant Mat and I bought it. But when I started reading it and raising questions to my AA and Sant Mat “sponsor”, I was shut down and given the traditional “There will always be critical people of the path and that once my intellect was satisfied, I shouldn’t have any more questions.” Unfortunately, I could not google Sant Mat as there was no google yet and access to information about Sant Mat was very limited. Oh sure, I heard about Kirpal Singh and Paul Twitchell while scouring through used book stores. But I had no idea, until recently, what a scam Sant Mat is. Googling "Gurinder Singh Dhillon net worth" [my post is top result] helped to alleviate any last hope I had that I was missing out on “gAnoing home.”

I tremendously respect you for having the balls to come out and say “I think I changed my mind.” You see, I’m pissed. Yes, I know, anger is a negative emotion and I’m letting Kal control me. I’m pissed for wasting 20 years of my life worried about stuff like rennet in my cheese. I treated the path with profound passion and commitment as a seeker and followed all of the rules, including all of the vows explicitly for the first 3 years. 

Since, at the time, I couldn’t get initiated until I was 24 (which appears to be a flexible age based on the new seekers guide released last year.) When I turned 24, I submitted all of my paperwork to Joe, who then passed it on to the RSSB representative to send to India. While I was waiting to hear an answer back, I accidentally tripped and had premarital sex with my girlfriend. (Who also happened to be a seeker.) 

Ironically enough, the application came back to me to revise and send back for approval. Apparently, instead of putting in my birthdate on the appropriate line, I put that day's date. But I refused to send back the amended application because I truly felt that I wanted to meet God in an honest fashion. Plus, I never thought I could pull the wool over Baba Ji’s [the guru, Gurinder Singh Dhillon] eyes, whether they be inner or outer. Since then, the girl I was dating at the time ended up getting initiated. But she lied on her application about following the vows and got accepted anyway. How do I know? She told me and I saw it myself. Around this time, I started to question whether my guru was on the up and up. 

I just re-read what I have written to you so far and realize I sound like Sarah Palin endorsing Trump. Different thoughts just seemed to flow out of my mind as I typed. I was planning on writing to you earlier, but I wanted more time to read and research. I guess I just wanted to let you know, that thanks to you, I don’t feel so alone anymore for not accepting the path. Fear of death causes people to do and believe some crazy shit. At this point I have no intention of going back to Sant Mat, or any other path or religion. It’s time to let it go and maybe get a little hedonistic. ( I may even eat a piece of cheese that is not on the approved list :).)

Thank you for your time. 

Absurd question: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God?

It's hard for me to get my atheist head around the furor over the assertion of a Wheaton College professor that Christians and Muslims "worship the same God."

Wheaton College, an evangelical college in Illinois, had placed associate professor of political science Larycia Hawkins on administrative leave after she made a controversial theological statement on Facebook that Muslims and Christians worship the same God. The school has now begun the process to fire her due to an “impasse,” it said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Hawkins said on Wednesday that she is “flummoxed and flabbergasted” by the college’s decision.

Well, I'm flummoxed and flabbergasted that anyone is taking this whole thing seriously. 

Hasn't anyone thought about this obvious fact: There is no evidence that any God exists. So it's ridiculous to debate whether one non-existent entity is the same as another non-existent entity.

Hey, maybe the Tooth Fairy is the same as Santa Claus.

Could be. They both bring gifts to children. Let's have an argument about this. Fervent believers in the uniqueness of the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus can make their case for not the same. Those who see a hidden unity between these beings can argue for the same. 

Of course, since both the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus are creations of human imagination, the whole debate would be unfounded in any sort of objective reality. 

We'd be analyzing works of fiction, tales that people tell to entertain themselves. It'd be somewhat akin to discussing whether a character in one novel is the same as a similar character in another novel. 

The question doesn't make any sense, since both are fictional characters. But I guess it could give lovers of literature something to quibble over after they've had several glasses of wine and aren't thinking very clearly.

Theological debates are absurd, especially when taken seriously. Again, it isn't possible to discuss the inherent nature of something that doesn't exist outside of human imagination.

So Franklin Graham's comments are meaningless.

This is no minor issue that should be debated. Islam denies that God has a Son. They deny that Jesus is God. They do not believe in a Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I can tell you – Islam and Christianity clearly do not worship the same God. How the faculty council can now support this professor being allowed to teach students is deeply concerning.

I do agree with Graham on one thing: this issue shouldn't be debated. It should be laughed at. Religious believers arguing over whether one imaginary God is the same as another imaginary God. 

That's funny!

Brainwashed by religious beliefs

Below is a Church of the Churchless guest post by Osho Robbins.

My wife and I had some new neighbors (husband and wife) over for dinner last night. The man used to be a hypnotherapist. He had a lot of interesting things to say about hypnotism, a topic Robbins raised in his email message to me.

Hi Brian, I've been reading some of your recent postings. The following might be of interest to you to post as a new topic. 

A lot of people who follow a certain belief (whether Radha Soami, Islam or any other) don't realize that they are simply brainwashed by that belief. Of course an outsider can see this clearly - but not the person 'in it.'

It's a bit like a live hypnosis show. The person hypnotized cannot see he is hypnotized - but the audience can.

Anyway - here's the posting. I just thought it would be interesting to see how people respond to it.

Regards, Osho Robbins

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God Save Us From Religion

There are many religions and there are many who believe the tenets and beliefs of those religions.

Once they believe – they become brainwashed by the beliefs.

From that point onwards, they view everything through those beliefs and cannot see outside that religious box. They give away their ability to think freely because they create their own prison around themselves – unaware they are doing it by their own beliefs.

In effect they are wearing coloured glasses and those glasses colour their view of the world.

After a while they become 100% convinced that their version of the world IS the real world.

People who buy into a religious or spiritual system do not see themselves as brainwashed, but rather they feel they have found the truth and can even get quite evangelical about spreading the word.

They go on a mission to save the world – but they themselves are not saved (whatever ‘saved’ means!). If you take the example of Radha Soami followers: they will become ‘speakers, secretaries, authors, sevadars etc’ and gain prestige but they can’t really honestly say they have made any progress on a spiritual path, even though they might have become quite good at being a hypocrite.

The idea of an external GOD figure is a major part of the religious trap.

Someone asks Osho – “Do you consider yourself a God?” and he says “My God! There is no God! How can I be a God?”

Then he goes into how this deep seated belief arises.

This is a far cry from the Radha Soami belief that the guru is God in human form.

Check out the video here.

 

and also this one – there is no creator

 

All religions claim to KNOW and that is the trap. The follower believes and... game over.

The Buddha went in search of the truth. After decades of searching the conclusion he came to was that there is no external saviour (including himself), and certainly no external God.

So any religion that is based on a God figure is delusional, in the sense that fictional statements are made as if this fictional God is making a factual statement. Like commandments etc.

Islam, Radha Soami, Christianity, Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Scientology, are all just a few examples of these types of religions that claim to know the truth, but in reality just trap the believers into thinking they are privileged.

Here’s a video on Jehovah’s witnesses –

 

There is always something in the message of each religion that promises you something profound – like eternal life, Sach Khand, or being part of a privileged class.

Once you believe that promise – you are screwed, because all of the promises are false.

Then there is another type of ‘spiritual message’ which is profoundly different. However it can also become the same after a while.

The message I am referring to is one that frees the follower. This is what Osho was doing – his message was not to believe him – but to stand on your own feet.

Another similar movement was ‘est’ from the 70’s which later became Landmark.

Werner Erhard’s original ‘est’ was very different from what Landmark has now become.

The Buddha did not start Buddhism – and his purpose was not to create another trap.

Here’s a video of Werner Erhard creator of the original est training (trailer)

 

I have bought the whole video and it’s very interesting to watch how Werner created a training programme designed to free people of beliefs that took a lifetime to form. In two intense weekends he would free the participants from a lifetime of false beliefs.

Pretty impressive.

Are roadside memorials justified on public property?

My wife, Laurel, is just as much a fervent scientifically-minded secular activist as I am. A few days ago she wrote a letter to a city official here in Salem, Oregon about religiously-themed roadside memorials on public property.

Roadside memorial in Georgia

What she said makes a lot of sense.

Sure, the desire of relatives and friends to put up a cross, flowers, and such at the place a loved one was killed in a traffic accident is understandable. But not all intuitive impulses deserve to be allowed as lawful acts, especially when they appear to go against the grain of the U.S. Constitution.

Here's Laurel's letter, with her brief introduction:

I drive by a roadside memorial of a cross everyday and have long been bothered by these memorials which the City of Salem allows to remain indefinitely on the public right-of-way. Emboldened by reading the FFRF [Freedom from Religion Foundation] newsletter, I am sending the letter below to the Salem Public Works Director. I spent all evening researching the issue to devise the letter. 

Here it is:
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RE: Religious Roadside Memorials            January 21, 2016

Dear Mr. Fernandez,

I recently called to ask why religious roadside memorials are allowed to stay up indefinitely, often for many years, on the public right-of-way in the City of Salem. I spoke to Kevin Hottman, and later your own assistant, and was told that the City allows such memorials unless they become a hazard or become unsightly and unmaintained.

I have explored this issue and am providing some articles and information easily obtained from a Google search about the legality issues of such memorials, especially when they have religious symbols.

As I am sure you are aware, the U. S. Constitution supports a separation of church and state. While religious symbols are supported by free speech on private property, when a public governmental organization allows them to exist on public property, like a street right-of-way, it can be construed as governmental support of a specific religion.

Though courts have yet to provide clear guidance on the constitutionality of erecting and allowing private memorials on public spaces, there have been increasing numbers of legal challenges regarding such memorials, which have resulted in many states, including Oregon, to not allow such memorials on State highways.

Private religious speech in a designated or traditional public forum is generally free from the Establishment Clause, which prohibits government endorsement of a religion. However, private religious speech may lose its purely private nature by its placement in a public space like a city road right-of-way. By not removing the private religious displays, a government may risk appearing to tacitly adopt the religious message.

The Supreme Court has noted that the First Amendment does not guarantee the right to communicate one’s views at all times and places or in any manner they desire.

But regardless of the religious aspect of crosses in the memorials, the real issue is that no one private person or family has the right to use public land for his or her own purposes. If I were to decide to erect a memorial to Michael Jackson, a giant ceramic dog statue (which I might like), or a symbol of devotion to the Flying Spaghetti Monster on Kuebler Road or Commercial Street right-of-ways, would I be allowed to do that?

The roadside memorials are eyesores to the vast majority of the public who do not know the deceased, but possibly may even be traumatic for some, due to being a traumatic reminder of witnessing the accident, or of some other accident or death of a loved one every day as they drive by. I doubt there is any evidence that the memorials increase safety by reminding people about the need to drive safely. They are more likely to distract a driver who glances over at the memorial out of curiosity.

The real issue and problem is the location of the memorials, not just the content. People should not be able to put anything they want on public property and leave it there.

The City of Salem is already violating their policies about advertisement signs private people or businesses place on public property. There have been numerous complaints about this issue, with the mayor and others just saying the city lacks funds to deal with the problem effectively.

I urge the City of Salem to adopt a policy about roadside memorials. At the very least, the religious symbols should not be allowed, but the memorials themselves are unnecessary and should not be allowed. People can grieve their loved ones at cemeteries or in other private place of their choosing. Our streets and roads belong to us all; we pay taxes for their maintenance and they are not cemeteries for private memorials.

I would like to know what the City of Salem is going to do about this situation. If nothing is done, and there is to be no action on this issue, my next step will be to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation, which I am a member of, to see if they will become involved in our local matter.

Sincerely,

Laurel Hines

Book of Mormon musical: weirder is better when it comes to religion

My wife and I hugely enjoyed seeing The Book of Mormon musical in Portland last night. I enjoyed the show much more than I thought I would. 

My uncertainty about The Book of Mormon wasn't because it is the creation of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who came up with the animated South Park series.

I'm a big South Park fan. I love profanity, bathroom humor, and gross jokes. I expected these marvelous qualities to be in The Book of Mormon, and they were!

What I was unsure about was how funny Mormonism could be. Sure, Mormons have weird beliefs (there's a listing of 101 of them). But all religions do. Can this be made humorous enough to warrant the price of spendy tickets to the musical?

For sure!

I'm not going to give away the plot of The Book of Mormon here, especially how the show ends. But there's no harm in sharing my main takeaway philosophical conclusion of the final act:

Weirder is better when it comes to religion. 

This fits with a review of the show I read on my iPhone while we were sitting in our seats, waiting for The Book of Mormon to start.

Of course, there are also countless potshots at Mormonism. But for all the criticism of the 190-year-old religion, the show is never cruel. Sure, the characters mock believers' unflappable optimism and the faith's Upstate New York origin story. The message is never anti-religion, though. Rather, it's uplifting and spends just as much time mocking the musical genre itself.

Mormonism is simply a front to point out all the absurdities in life. And in mocking religion, the show is, in a way, endorsing it: If you need an absurd story to get you through the horrible parts of life, then by all means, have it.

Most of the musical centers around the problem a bunch of Mormon missionaries have in converting Ugandan villagers to their religion. They succeed only when the already-weird Mormon teachings are made even weirder.

I liked this plot twist a lot.

If you're going to believe in strange stuff, why not go all the way to the farthest reaches of strangeness? Since religious supernaturalism is unbelievable, why not burst the bounds of believability to the fullest extent possible?

Like Janis Joplin sang back in the '60s, "Feeling good was good enough for me." If it feels good, do it. This isn't a statement about the nature of reality -- just a reflection of human nature.

Everybody needs some help to get them through the tough side of life. Religions are one of the crutches people lean on. If a crazy belief relieves anxiety, pain, suffering -- I'm fine with that, so long as it is recognized that the belief is just that, not a truth about the cosmos.

Here's some videos that will give you a feel for The Book of Mormon. Be sure to check out "I Believe," as this song reflects a core theme of the show.

 

 

More evidence that religions are completely crazy

Are you fucking kidding me!?

No, of course not. Because there is no limit to the craziness religious believers can create in the name of their non-existent God.

LAHORE, Pakistan — Late one night, the imam Shabir Ahmad looked up from prayers at his mosque to see a 15-year-old boy approaching with a plate in his outstretched left hand. On it was the boy’s freshly severed right hand.

Mr. Ahmad did not hesitate. He fled the mosque and left the village, in eastern Punjab Province.

Earlier that night, Jan. 10, he had denounced the boy as a blasphemer, an accusation that in Pakistan can get a person killed — even when the accusation is false, as it was in this case.

The boy, Anwar Ali, the son of a poor laborer, had been attending an evening prayer gathering at the mosque in the village, Khanqah, when Mr. Ahmad asked for a show of hands of those who did not love the Prophet Muhammad. Thinking the cleric had asked for those who did love the prophet, Anwar’s hand shot up, according to witnesses and the boy’s family.

He realized his mistake when he saw that his was the only hand up, and he quickly put it down. But by then Mr. Ahmad was screaming “Blasphemer!” at him, along with many others in the crowd. “Don’t you love your prophet?” they called, as the boy fled in disgrace.

Anwar went home, found a sharp scythe and chopped off his right hand that same night. When he showed it to the cleric, he made clear it was an offering to absolve his perceived sin.

See: "Boy's Response to Blasphemy Charge Unnerves Many in Pakistan."

The universe is indifferent to us. But religions believe we're special.

Here's a big reason why religions appeal to people: they claim that humans are special.

Christianity says we are made in God's image. Eastern religions like Hinduism have a similar notion, since the soul (Atman) supposedly is essentially the same as God (Brahman).

Not only that, but almost every religion teaches that the cosmos has a special relationship with us Homo sapiens. We're being looked out for, guided, loved, and embraced by the Creator of It All. 

Even when it comes to the Devil or other sorts of negative cosmic powers, human beings are viewed as being the special focus of the dark side. It isn't my dog who is at risk of being led astray by Satan; it is me.

I no longer believe in this crap. 

Sure, I understand the appeal of feeling special, unique among all the other inhabitants of the universe, chosen by the highest divinity for a starring role in the grand scheme of things.

But reality argues otherwise.

Here's some passages from Mihaly Cskikszentmihalyi's classic 1990 book about the psychology of optimal experience, "Flow." (Somehow I've never read it before; I finished the first chapter today and am finding it highly enjoyable.)

The foremost reason that happiness is so hard to achieve is that the universe was not designed with the comfort of human beings in mind. It is almost immeasurably large, and most of it is hostilely empty and cold.

...It is not that the universe is random in an abstract mathematical sense. The motions of the stars, the transformations of energy that occur in it might be predicted and explained well enough. 

But natural processes do not take human desires into account. They are deaf and blind to our needs, and thus they are random in contrast with the order we attempt to establish through our goals. 

A meteorite on a collision course with New York City might be obeying all the laws of the universe, but it would still be a damn nuisance. The virus that attacks the cells of a Mozart is only doing what comes naturally, even though it inflicts a grave loss on humankind.

"The universe is not hostile, not yet is it friendly," in the words of J.H. Holmes. "It is simply indifferent."

...How we feel about ourselves, the joy we get from living, ultimately depend directly on how the mind filters and interprets everyday experiences. Whether we are happy depends on inner harmony, not on the controls we are able to exert over the great forces of the universe.

Imagine, as John Lennon did, that all the time, money, and effort people pour into trying to get on the good side of God or some other divine power was devoted to making things better here on Earth. 

Imagine that instead of praying for special supernatural dispensations from a higher power, people focused on how best to align themselves with the laws of nature -- understanding them as fully as possible, and putting them to use for the betterment both of humanity and our planet as a whole.

Imagine that human beings came to look upon themselves simply as parts of a greater natural whole, the universe, nothing special, yet also nothing not-special.

I like these imaginations.

Because they're eminently capable of being made real. Atheists like my wife and myself are living our lives this way, as are many other people around the world. We're not yet a majority, because feeling special is so addictive to religious believers.

But the ranks are growing of those who realize how harmful and false it is to put human beings up on a special pedestal. This isn't conducive to either individual happiness, or communal well-being.

When we separate ourselves out from the rest of existence as something uniquely precious, good things don't happen. Love, harmony, compassion, generosity to all -- these flourish when people feel humbly average, not egotistically special.

"Higher" states of consciousness actually are lower

I was turned on to an intriguing TEDx talk by neuroscientist Arne Dietrich about Surfing the Stream of Consciousness by a reader of this blog.

His description of the core theme of the 17 minute video starts at about the 13 minute mark, if you want to get the gist in only four minutes.

 

A blog post on The Peaceful Self site, "Flying With the Pixies," includes a transcript of part of Dietrich's talk. 

"Your mind, your soul, your hopes, your dreams, your emotions is about a cantaloupe size of meat crackling with electricity inside your skull. There's nothing sacrosanct about altered states of consciousness.

You've always been told that altered states of consciousness are higher states of consciousness. The hallmark is that altered states of consciousness is the subtraction of all the mental faculties that make us so special in the animal kingdom. Hypofrontality means that the very pinnacle of human evolution, the prefrontal cortex, must be down regulated, which means that you lose these higher cognitive functions that make us so special. 

All altered states of consciousness are lower states of consciousness. You connect to nothing but your own reduced mind.

Some people find the idea repugnant, beneath the significance of the mystical experience and that's alright if you want to hold onto some sort of stone age, medieval sense of spirituality, but I think you will only find this counterintuitive if you hold onto the idea that in those special moments, when you catch a glimpse of some parallel, mental universe, in those very moments, the mind, somehow, can transcend the machinery of the brain, become a ghost in the machine, ride above the fray, and enter some sort of platonian world of eternal truth and beauty in flying off with the pixies."

Dietrich speaks about transient hypofrontality. This is when neural activation in the prefrontal cortex needed to do higher brain functions is much reduced. So you have "no ability to extract yourself from the here and now."

Hence, the feeling of being in a state of consciousness where time slows down and a sense of being at one with the world is experienced.

This is an entirely natural condition, but athletes, meditators, drug users, and other flow-junkies find the feeling so wonderful, often it is viewed as a higher state of consciousness. Actually, from the standpoint of evolution and neuroscience that sense of flow and loss of self is a lower state -- as Dietrich says in the transcript above.

Which doesn't mean transient hypofrontality, a.k.a, flow, isn't a good thing.

Our brains wouldn't have this ability if it wasn't adaptive in many situations -- such as being attacked unexpectedly and needing to fight back with our complete attention in the present moment (thinking about what we're going to have for dinner tomorrow isn't called for when there may be no tomorrow for us).

Nor is recognition of it a new thing.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi famously wrote about flow many years ago. "The Rise of Superman" is a recent book about optimal physical performance -- in line with the oft-heard advice my marital arts/Tai Chi instructor gives us students, the Yoda-like, No think, just do. 

It is indeed cool that sitting in eyes-closed meditation, smoking marijuana, ingesting a magic mushroom, or walking in nature can bring us to much the same thoughtless, timeless state of consciousness as enjoyed by a big wave surfer or expert skateboarder. 

Dietrich's point still stands, though: this is a subtraction from what makes us peculiarly human, a loss of higher cognitive functions. 

Again, this can be highly pleasant and functional. In certain circumstances.

Transient hypofrontality obviously isn't a condition we'd want to be in permanently, as we pretty much lose the ability to plan for the future or learn from the past. And it isn't a path to enlightenment or some other ethereal altered consciousness.

It's just another way the physical brain works.

"How to choose a guru" -- funny and true video

YES! In under five minutes this guy does a great job at showing up the ridiculousness of guru worship through the powerful medium of mockery.

I learned about the video from a Church of the Churchless commenter. Thanks. Great stuff.

 

Deal with these scientific facts, religious believers

I'm a proud believer in reality. That's my god, now that I've deconverted from religious belief: natural reality. 

Science is the best, and arguably the only, way we humans have of knowing solid facts about the universe, which is the only natural reality available to us.

One of the reasons I'm enjoying re-reading "The Atheist's Guide to Reality" (by Alex Rosenberg) so much is that Rosenberg -- though a philosophy professor -- has a solid background in science. 

His philosophical conclusions don't come out of thin air. They're grounded in fundamental understandings of modern science. 

Below are some of those understandings. If anyone reading this blog post wants to challenge them, describe your reasons in a comment. Hey, who knows? Maybe you know more about natural reality than the world's scientists.

If so, a Nobel prize could await you -- if you have solid evidence for your hypothesis that goes beyond a Church of the Churchless blog post comment.

If not, these scientific understandings constitute a knowledge fence within which any attempt to place God, spirit, soul, heaven, or such must contend. Meaning, any religion, form of spirituality, or mystical teaching has to conform to these facts to have a chance of being believable. 

Understand: by "facts" I don't mean unchallengeable truth. Science doesn't work that way. Scientific facts always are open to modification as better knowledge about reality becomes available. 

But given our current state of scientific understanding -- which is hugely more accurate than religious conceptions of the cosmos -- these are solid facts about the universe that, as Rosenberg says in his book's title, are the best guide to reality for those unwilling to accept fanciful religious theologies.

(1) The universe began with a big bang 13.7 billion years ago.

(2) Everything in the universe is made up of fermions and bosons (basically, matter and force fields/energy).

(3) "All the processes in the universe, from atomic to bodily to mental, are purely physical processes involving fermions and bosons interacting with one another." (A Rosenberg quote)

(4) Evolution through natural selection explains how life has come to be as it is on Earth.

(5) Core morality enabled early humans to better survive by cooperating with each other, an evolutionary advantageous trait that persists today in us social creatures.

(6) Determinism, which is different from "fate," rules the universe at levels of reality above the quantum realm.

(7) The mind/brain produces consciousness, and does everything else, through complex interactions of neural circuits.

(8) There is no non-material self within the human body, just physical mind/brain goings-on.

"The Atheist's Guide to Reality" -- a mind blowing book

I like books that take some of my cherished assumptions about how the world works and chew them up into tiny pieces before putting them in a Truth Blender where they're dissolved into unrecognizable thought-mush.

"The Atheist's Guide to Reality" by Alex Rosenberg is such a book. After reading it four years ago (I blogged about it here, here, and here) I've finished re-reading the second half of the book. 

And, yes, once again it has blown my mind. But in a different way from the first time, because I'm a different person now. 

Being a habitual highlighter and back-of-book note writer, I've found that what struck me the most about Rosenberg's ideas back in 2011 often isn't what hits me hardest now, in 2016. 

Basically, I'm finding that Rosenberg is the most radical writer about science and atheism I've ever encountered. He takes no prisoners when it comes to debunking myths about how the mind/brain works, whether these are tales told by religion, philosophy, or the humanities.

(Rosenberg is the Chair of the Philosophy Department at Duke University, so he's a heavy hitter.)

Below are some excerpts from a final chapter. This will give you a feel for the thesis of "The Atheist's Guide to Reality," though only that... a feel. It really takes reading the entire book to understand the subtleties of what Rosenberg is arguing for.

Which isn't so much complicated as, like I said, mind blowing. 

I need to point out that how Rosenberg uses scientism is very different from the usual definition of the word. Here's how I described this in my first post about the book.

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. 

Here's the passages from a final chapter.

Fatalism is very different from determinism. Fatalism tells us that no matter what happens, the outcome is unavoidable. It claims that no matter what route life takes you down, all roads lead to the same place. Determinism is quite a different matter.

If the universe is deterministic, then where you end up depends on where you start out (plus the laws of nature). Start at different points, and almost every time you will pass through altogether different places and come to a different end.

Determinism does not dictate that you'll end up in the same place at all. 

Of course, we are all going to die. The difference between fatalism and determinism is this: If fatalism is right, you'll die of the same thing no matter what you do. If determinism is right, how you die, what you die of, depends on what you did in life. 

(Did you smoke, overeat, wear your seat belt?) That's a big difference. Some deaths are worse than others. Which we experience will be determined, but not fated.

...Everything that happens in your life is determined. That doesn't mean that reading this book can't make a difference to your happiness, well-being, or adjustment to reality. That you bought, borrowed, or otherwise acquired this book was determined. So was its effect on you, if any.

If your brain is organized in roughly the same way mine is, there are neural circuits that have produced disquiet in you, along with the illusion of thoughts about the persistent questions. 

Reading this book has rearranged a large number of neural circuits in your brain (though only a very small proportion of the millions of such circuits in your brain). If those rearranged neural circuits change their outputs in certain ways when triggered by inputs seeming to pose the daunting questions, then this book will have worked.

The process will be the same one psychotherapy employs when it works. It will have changed your neural circuitry, unconscious and conscious. You will acquire the correct information about the matters that keep you up at night. You will almost certainly undergo the conscious illusion of thinking about these questions in a new way, as finally having been answered.

Don't take narratives too seriously. That is the most obvious moral of our tour through science's version of reality. By now you can see why this advice is important and also hard to follow.

After all, the human brain has been shaped by millions of years of natural and cultural selection to be addicted to stories. They are almost the only things that give most of us relief from the feeling of curiosity. 

Scientism has nothing against stories. It just refuses to be an enabler. Stories are fun, but they're no substitute for knowledge. In fact, the insistence on packaging information into narratives is an obstacle to understanding how things really work.

Scientific findings, along with the models, laws, and theories that explain them, can't be squeezed into the procrustean bed of a good detective story, or any other kind of story for that matter. 

...This advice goes double for anyone trying to sell you on religion. But if you have read this far, you don't need to be warned off stories with spooky plots that always end well for the good guys and badly for the bad guys.

Religion and some of those who make their living from it succeed mainly because some of us are even more given to conspiracy theories than others. But none of us is entirely immune.

We need continually to fight the temptation to think that we can learn much of anything from someone else's story of how they beat an addiction, kept to a diet, improved their marriage, raised their kids, saved for their retirement, or made a fortune flipping real estate.

Even if their story is what actually happened, the storytellers are wrong about the real causes of how and why it happened. Learning their story won't help you figure out the real causal process from rags to riches, from misery to happiness.

...Once you adopt scientism, you'll be able to put lots of the strife and controversies about politics into perspective. You will also be able to cease taking seriously aesthetic and ethical judgments that offend you.

When it comes to politics, you will be able to sidestep disagreements in which other people try to force you to choose just by pointing out that the dispute is at least in part a factual one, and the facts are not in. You will be able to undercut some arguments just by pointing out that they make assumptions about reality that science has already shown to be false -- for example, that humans have souls or that there is free will or that most people are selfish.

...We can organize our own lives in the absence of real purpose and planning. We do so by reorganizing the neural circuitry that produces these very illusions of design and forethought. 

The joy of deconverting from religious belief

Given how easily religious believers can accept the existence of a god they've never directly experienced, I always find it surprising when they can't accept a much more believable hypothesis:

Giving up religiosity brings more happiness and contentment, not less.

This is what's happened to me, though I readily admit that comparing states of happiness at various times of one's life is very difficult to do. After all, it isn't as if we can lay them side by side and measure how much contentment they contain.

I was happy as an atheist. I was happy as a religious believer. I'm happy now as an atheist again. 

Yet people have left comments on my blog posts claiming that I'm bitter about the thirty-plus years I spent as a devotee of an Indian guru. 

Which leaves me thinking, "What the heck are you talking about?"

First, they aren't me, so they have no way of really knowing how I felt then, or now. Second, I was very much content with my religious practice for most of those thirty-plus years, just as I was very much content with my first marriage (which lasted eighteen years) for most of the time before it ended in a divorce.

Psychological research has found that about half of happiness is genetically determined. After that, a large share of happiness depends on "environmental" circumstances: health, relationships, job, hobbies, and such.

Religious affiliation plays a role in all this, but I suspect the belief aspect of religiosity has a relatively minor role. More important is feeling a sense of belonging to a larger group/cause, and the friendships that come along with being part of a religious congregation.

Now that I've given this up -- both the believing and the belonging -- I've found other ways of meeting those needs. I believe other things. I belong to other groups. 

While it's difficult to describe the difference between my life as a religious person, and my current life as a non-religious (in my view, "normal") person, here's my best shot at an overall description.

I feel more in touch with the world and other people now, since I no longer feel special, chosen, unique, destined to know truths about the cosmos off-limits to most of humanity. 

This is a good feeling.

In fact, a very good feeling. Before, I felt a sense of pressure to live up to standards my religion had set for me. Now, I'm considerably more relaxed. I don't feel like the fate of my eternal soul is up for grabs if I do this or that.

Because I no longer believe I have one, or am one.

In my experience, feeling like a normal, average, run-of-the-mill human being is more pleasant than feeling like you've been chosen by God (or a guru) to fulfill some divine purpose.

I've talked about this in a couple of other blog posts.

"Deconversion is as natural as conversion."
"I'm scolded for changing religions. But change happens."

I like this quote from a book by Jay Michaelson that I included in the first post.

Spiritual practice is about letting go, and that includes forgoing justification, specialness, pleasure, power, particularism, ego. At some point, it might be better to just admit that we are doing what we want to do, because any holding on to a sense of purpose is going to be counter-productive.

...Admit it all, and say so what. Let Being simply be what it is, whatever it is, without label or ascription, without looking for God, labeling an experience as God, or in any way claiming something is or isn't God.

And then, what might you notice? Perhaps a tone of relaxation, a quieting in the mind. The sound of the breeze, the feel of the air, ordinary sights of trees and sky. In other words -- whether God is delusion or not, your experience would be the same.

No, Ammon Bundy, that voice in your head isn't God

Religious craziness is a form of socially-acceptable insanity.

Case in point: Ammon Bundy is one of the militants who have taken over buildings at the federal Malheur Wildlife Refuge in eastern Oregon. 

Here's a short 90-second excerpt from a longer video Bundy made where he talks about what led him to try to help Dwight and Steven Hammond, ranchers in Harney County who were convicted on arson charges when they burned rangeland illegally -- endangering hunters and firefighters.

 

Somehow Bundy believes that when he needed to clear his mind about what to do, it was the Lord who did this for him. (Me, I've found a nap and coffee work just fine without God.)

Bundy also says that with his mind all clear, he understood how the Lord felt about the Hammonds. And the Lord wasn't pleased about how they'd been treated by government prosecutors, a jury, and the courts.

Now, ordinarily if someone claims that an Invisible Friend left messages in their mind to do this-and-that, we'd be inclined to think that's crazy. 

But if a religious person asserts that God is the Invisible Friend, a cloak of cultural OK'ness protects them from most criticism. 

Except from secular skeptics like me. 

I'm 99.99% sure that the voice Ammon Bundy heard in his head came from him, not God. Hey, I've got mental voices speaking to me all the time, as we all do. But since they sound just like me, and almost always are in tune with the way I see the world, I correctly conclude that my urge to do something emanates from moi. 

Which is both psychologically true and socially beneficial. 

Because what Bundy says in this video isn't far removed from how Islamic terrorists and other fundamentalist extremists see reality. They also believe that God is impelling them to engage in certain acts.

Granted, so far Ammon Bundy and his band of Malheur Wildlife Refuge occupiers haven't harmed anyone. However, they're armed. And previously the Bundy family was the centerpiece of an faceoff between federal officials and militants that came dangerously close to a shooting war.

Imagining that God is telling you to do something adds a lot of fuel to an extremist fire. An Oregonian story discusses the relation between religion and militancy in "Oregon militants: Why the Bundys' Mormonism matters."

"The Lord was not pleased with what was happening to the Hammonds," Bundy said in the video. "If we allowed the Hammonds to continue to be punished, there would be accountability."

Bundy and his brothers were among hundreds who protested Saturday on behalf of the Hammonds and later led a group of about 20 to take over an office at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge.

One militant interviewed by Oregon Public Broadcasting only identifies himself as Captain Moroni, a historic general who, according to church scripture, threatened to "stir up insurrections" and fight "until those who have desires to usurp power and authority shall become extinct" because he felt the government did not care about the country's freedom.

"I do not fear your power nor your authority, but it is my God whom I fear," Moroni said in the Book of Alma, "and it is according to his commandments that I do take my sword to defend the cause of my country."

An Oregon Public Broadcasting piece, "The Bundy Militia's Particular Brand of Mormonism," also dives into the Bundys' religious beliefs.

“I’m Captain Moroni, from Utah.”  

That’s how one militiaman at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge responded to OPB’s Amanda Peacher when she asked for his name.

That name is not a silly response to deflect responsibility: In many ways, it encapsulates a deeply intertwined anti-federal sentiment mixed with Mormon symbolism. Captain Moroni is a crucial figure in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He’s also a heroic figure for anti-federalist extremists.  

In the modern day west, Captain Moroni has become one of several powerful symbols for the Bundy militia’s anti-governmental extremism.

After Ammon Bundy called on militants to join him in Oregon, the OPB story says: "The man identifying as Captain Moroni said he was inspired by the call, and that the inspiration was validated by God in the form of a flock of geese he saw flying."

Well, I live near the Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge in western Oregon. I see geese flying overhead all the time. Yet I've never used this as a reason to claim God wants me to do something. 

That would be freaking crazy. Unless you're religious. 

Sure, an atheist can believe in God. Here's how.

I'm an atheist who believes in God.

This isn't illogical. Or a contradiction.

I just define "God" differently than religious believers do. Which is pretty much how Paul Harrison does in his book, "Elements of Pantheism: A Spirituality of Nature and the Universe."

The word Pantheism derives from the Greek words pan (="all") and theos (="God"). Literally, Pantheism means: All is God. In essence Pantheism holds that the universe as a whole is worthy of the deepest reverence, and that only the Universe and Nature are worthy of that degree of reverence. 

The statement "Nature is my god" is perhaps the simplest way of summarizing the core pantheist belief, with the word "god" here meaning not a supernatural being but the object of deepest personal reverence. 

Pantheism is a spiritual path that reveres and cares for nature. A spiritual path that joyously accepts this life as our only life, and this earth as our only paradise, if we look after it. Pantheism revels in the beauty of nature and the night sky, and is full of wonder at their mystery and power.

Pantheism believes that all things are linked in a profound unity. All things have a common origin and a common destiny. All things are interconnected and interdependent. In life and in death we humans are an inseparable part of this unity, and in realizing this we can find our joy and our peace.

I learned more about Pantheism after I got an email from a man who said:

I live in a rural area. A conservative area. I am 70. I become more and more cynical about organized religions with each year. Too much emphasis on the afterlife. Too much emphasis on accepting things on faith alone (like the afterlife or the Bible.) But I do believe in a supreme being I call God.

I suppose if I lived in a large metro area I could find a group - maybe even a brick and mortar organization - of persons who are fellow cynics about these things. But I don't, so I turn to you for guidance! Is there a cyber-group I could consider joining. I'd really like some interaction on other persons' non-traditional "religious" beliefs.

Thank you for any suggestion.

Here's part of my reply to him.

You’re sort of unusual — and that’s a compliment. I mean, believing in a supreme being yet not being religious. Well, maybe this isn’t all that unusual. I recall reading about polls that show quite a few people have a similar point of view. I guess the key is what is meant by “God.”

You might want to take a look at this Pantheist site. I just took the quiz (link at top of page) and learned that I’m a Scientific Pantheist. Which seems to be a pretty good description. It’s easy to take the quiz. Maybe you’ll get some insights into what word describes your point of view.

http://www.pantheism.net

Well, actually the quiz is in the right sidebar on that page. The link at the top takes me to Harrison's book on Amazon. (But maybe this is because I've already taken the quiz.)

Regardless, you can find the quiz here. Title: "Are you Atheist, Agnostic, Pantheist, Deist, Pagan, or what?"

That web page is pretty cheesy looking -- like something out of the Dawn of the Internet -- as is the World Pantheism site. But if you ignore appearances and focus on the content, there's some interesting stuff here.

I ordered Harrison's book after taking the quiz. I've taken similar quizzes before, as noted in a 2010 post, "John Burrough's appealing scientific pantheism."

Whenever I take one of those quizzes that tell you what religion/ philosophy melds best with your beliefs, pantheism always ends up close to the top. That makes sense.

I've got a naturalistic view of the universe, but I also have a powerful sense of awe when I contemplate the cosmos -- either in its incomprehensibly vast totality, or the mystery of how a single flower has come to be.

Awe, in fact, is the quality that Harrison says distinguishes Pantheism from Atheism. 

Critics of Pantheism often suggest that in this case "God" is simply an extra and unnecessary name for the Universe. However, when pantheists refer to the Universe as their "God," what they really mean is that they feel the same profound sense of awe and reverence that other believers feel towards their gods. 

To call the Universe "God" or "divine" is not at all meaningless. Although it does not tell us anything extra about the Universe, it expresses the powerful emotions that pantheists feel towards the Universe. It is similar to using the word "beauty" of a natural landscape.

"Beauty" is not just another word for the landscape, it expresses our positive aesthetic feelings towards it. 

...It is quite possible for an atheist to regard the universe as absurd and hostile and human life as depressingly meaningless. Clearly, this approach is emotionally very distant from Pantheism.

Of course, you can feel wonder and awe when contemplating the Universe without calling that feeling "Pantheism."

But to me it does no harm to use that word. After all, that's what we humans do: use words to describe things that otherwise would remain indescribable. 

I agree with Harrison that "atheism" has a more negative connotation that "pantheist," even though atheism and pantheism are completely compatible. In fact, atheism is the foundation of pantheism. 

Pantheists just flip over the coin of unbelief in God, revealing the side that displays a positive sense of feeling at home in an awe-inspiring cosmos.

On the whole, I embrace the World Pantheism Movement's statement of principles. Here's a few that particularly resonate with me.

We revere and celebrate the Universe as the totality of being, past, present and future. It is self-organizing, ever-evolving and inexhaustibly diverse. Its overwhelming power, beauty and fundamental mystery compel the deepest human reverence and wonder.

There is a single kind of substance, energy/matter, which is vibrant and infinitely creative in all its forms. Body and mind are indivisibly united.

We honor reality, and keep our minds open to the evidence of the senses and of science's unending quest for deeper understanding. These are our best means of coming to know the Universe, and on them we base our aesthetic and religious feelings about reality.

Every individual has direct access through perception, emotion and meditation to ultimate reality, which is the Universe and Nature. There is no need for mediation by priests, gurus or revealed scriptures.