Church of the Churchless

Sorry. No winner in "Tell me why you believe in God" contest.

Well, the first entries are in, and I'm not impressed. 

Four days ago I invited visitors to this blog to leave a comment on my "Tell me why you believe in God" post. 

I said:

I'm defining "God" as a conscious supernatural being with miraculous powers. If you're a believer with a markedly different definition, include that definition in your comment.

The responses were decidedly underwhelming. Some were interesting, but none were directly related to what I wanted.

Why someone believes in God.

This is surprising, since it sure seems like quite a few regular readers of this blog do believe in God. And in many or most cases, the God they believe in sure seems to be along the lines of how I defined God.

So why the vague, meandering, disjointed responses?

Hard to say. 

Since I'm an atheist, my #1 hypothesis is that since God almost certainly doesn't exist, no one has a good reason to believe in God, for the same reason no one has a good reason to believe in Santa Claus.

If I asked Why do you believe in the moon?, a reasonable response would be "Because I can see it in the sky and there's solid evidence that humans have landed on the moon and brought back rock samples."

That's a simple declarative sentence.

Yet no one provided a similarly simple declarative sentence about why they believe in God. I expected that someone would say, "Because a holy book says God exists," or "Because a holy person says God exists."

That's pretty much the reasons I would have given during my believing days. They aren't bad reasons.  They're the reasons most Christians would give, I suspect.

Instead, the main theme of the comments on my blog post was "I'm open to the possibility that God exists and am searching for the answer to this." 

OK. But most atheists would say the same thing.

Take me. I'm open to the possibility that God exists and I'm searching for the answer to this. So far I've seen no demonstrable evidence for God, so I strongly lean in the direction that God is a fantasy.

Another theme was "Words can't capture God, so there's no point in talking about why someone believes in God." 

OK. But words can't capture anything else either.

The word "strawberry" certainly doesn't capture the nature of this red tasty fruit. Yet if I ask a store clerk where the strawberries are, they can point me in the right direction.

Words can't capture a dream. Yet if someone asks me if I dreamed last night, and I remember my dreams, I can describe them. Not perfectly. Not completely. But imperfectly and incompletely. 

I don't tell the person, "I can't say anything about my dreams because they can't be captured in words." I use words as well as I can, then add the caveat, "But what I just said isn't how the dream really seemed to me."

Nothing is. Eating a strawberry is way different from saying "strawberry." However, we can do our best to describe what eating a strawberry is like, because strawberries are real, as is eating them.

So the non-responses to my question about why people believe in God helps solidify my view that good reasons for believing are rare not because God is beyond description, but because no one has had an experience of an actually-existent God.

Tell me why you believe in God

I'm a curious guy. I enjoy learning how people view the Big Questions of Life, including one of the biggest, Does God exist?

I used to answer "Yes." Now I'm an atheist who says, "Almost certainly, no."

But I'm well aware that many of those who visit this blog and leave comments on the posts here are believers in God.

So I'm inviting you to leave a comment on this post that explains why you believe that God exists. Or, if you have some doubts about this, why you're almost certain that God exists.

I'm defining "God" as a conscious supernatural being with miraculous powers. If you're a believer with a markedly different definition, include that definition in your comment.

There's no prize for the most persuasive explanation of why someone believes in God.

However, I'll single the best explanations out for praise in another blog post. Pretty darn good prize! (Unless you were expecting $100.)

"The God Equation" is about Einstein's impersonal god

I bought theoretical physicist Michio Kaku's latest book, The God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything, after seeing him interviewed by Stephen Colbert. 

I enjoyed the book, though I agree with some Amazon reviewers that it doesn't really break new ground. But since my understanding of the old ground is shaky, I enjoyed Kaku's take on familiar topics.

Particle physics. Relativity theory. Quantum mechanics. Big bang. The search for common ground between how relativity and quantum theories view reality. String theory.

Spoiler alert: physicists haven't yet come up with a viable Theory of Everything. String theory is the leading candidate, but string theory suffers from not-so-minor drawbacks such as an almost complete lack of ability to test its validity.

To a theoretician, all these criticisms are troublesome but not fatal. But what does cause problems for a theoretician is that the [string theory] model seems to predict a multiverse of parallel universes, many of which are crazier than those in the imagination of a Hollywood scriptwriter.

...Some might argue that these alternate universes are only mathematical possibilities and are not real. But the problem is that the theory lacks predictive power, since it cannot tell you which of these alternate universes is the real one.

Still, there's a lot to like about string theory.

It could resolve the conflict between relativity theory (space-time is smooth) and quantum theory (the subatomic realm is lumpy) by positing that extremely tiny strings are the fundamental constituents of reality.

Mystics would resonate with that notion, a point I made in my first book, God's Whisper, Creation's Thunder. Here's how Kaku puts it.

As a result of the torrent of equations, a new picture was beginning to emerge. Why were there so many particles?

Like Pythagoras more than two thousand years ago, the theory said that each musical note -- each vibration of a string -- represented a particle. Electrons, quarks, and Yang-Mills particles were nothing but different notes on the same vibrating string.

What is so powerful and interesting about the theory is that gravity is necessarily included. Without any extra assumptions, the graviton emerges as one of the lowest vibrations of the string.

...As physicist Edward Witten once said, "String theory is extremely attractive because gravity is forced upon us. All known consistent string theories include gravity, so while gravity is impossible in quantum field theory as we have known it, it's obligatory in string theory."

So while a huge amount of work remains to be done on string theory, there's a possibility it could live up to the title of Kaku's book, The God Equation. 

However, this wouldn't be the God most people worship, but Einstein's God.

In this and other letters, Einstein despaired of answering questions concerning the meaning of life, but he was clear about his thinking concerning God.

One problem, he wrote, is that there are really two kinds of Gods, and we often confuse the two. 

First, there is the personal God, the God that you pray to, the God of the Bible who smites the Philistines and rewards the believers. He did not believe in that God. He did not believe that the God who created the universe interfered in the affairs of mere mortals.

However, he believed in the God of Spinoza -- that is, the God of order in a universe that is beautiful, simple, and elegant. The universe could have been ugly, random, chaotic, but instead it has a hidden order that is mysterious yet profound.

In his final chapter, Kaku speaks about meaning in a familiar fashion that resonates with me.

In the end, I believe that we create our own meaning in the universe.

It is too simple and easy to have some guru come down from the mountaintop, bearing the meaning of the universe. The meaning of life is something that we have to struggle to understand and appreciate.

Having it given to us defeats the whole purpose of meaning.

If the meaning of life were available for free, then it would lose its meaning. Everything that has meaning is the result of struggle and sacrifice, and is worth fighting for.

Humans create God, not the other way around

Since there is no demonstrable evidence that God exists, where does the concept of "God" come from? Obviously, from the minds of humans. We create the idea of God, which includes the fantasy that God created us.

The November 9, 2020 issue of The New Yorker has an interesting review of a book by a Stanford anthropologist, T.M. Luhrmann, "How God Becomes Real."

Basically, by people doing things that conjure up their imagined God, in somewhat the same way as the reader of a novel throws themself into the story line to such a degree, the fictional creation can seem real while the novel is being read.

This is the description of Luhrmann's book on Amazon.

How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people―as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort―by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others―helps to explain the enduring power of faith.

Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more.

A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits―but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Here's an excerpt from the review by James Wood. 

Modern Christians in the West like to think of themselves as believers who have left behind any cultic relationship with a usable God. Doubtless not a few of them harbor a special disdain for American Evangelicalism, with its gaudy, prosperous instrumentalism. 

Certainly, if belief were plotted along a spectrum, at one end might lie the austere indescribability of the Jewish or Islamic God ("Silence is prayer to thee," Maimonides wrote) and at the other the noisy, all-too-knowable God of charismatic worship, happy to be chatted to and apparently happy to chat back.

But it is still a spectrum, and, indeed, any kind of petitionary prayer presumes a God onto whom one is projecting local human attributes. In this sense, you could say that Christianity is essentially a form of idolatry.

The difficult, unspeakable Jewish God becomes the incarnated Jesus, a God made flesh, who lived among us, who resembles us. Theodor Adorna and Max Horkheimer blamed Christian anti-Semitism on just this idolatry of the man-God: "Christ the incarnated spirit is the deified sorcerer." The called this "the spiritualization of magic."

Evangelicals are hardly the only Christian believers to draw this Jesus, the deified sorcerer, to them. I'm reminded of that whenever I see professional soccer players crossing themselves as they run onto the field, as if God really cared whether Arsenal beats Manchester United.

Luhrmann would say, with some justice, that in such cases we should focus more on the practice than on the beliefs. Crossing oneself is ritualistic, and she would probably add that the soccer player then performs on the field as if he and his team alone determined the outcome of the game, which is to say that -- in a sense -- he performs as if God didn't exist after all.

In "How God Becomes Real," Luhrmann calls this the art of possessing "flexible ontologies," because "people may talk as if the gods are straightforwardly real, but they don't act that way." A driver who prays that the car will stop without his using the brakes "would seem mad, not devout."

The real world, dependent on the laws of physics, runs easily alongside a highly elaborated and imagined belief-world, which shares several of he properties of fiction-making and fiction-reading. The Vineyard believers, Luhrmann discovers, learn how to "pretend that God is present and to make believe that he is talking back like the very best of buddies."

As with a fictional character, this God is at once absolutely real and not quite real. Luhrmann likens the capacity for imaginative absorption to being "engrossed in good magical fiction of the Harry Potter kind." 

...Her [Luhrmann's] major refuge is a kind of therapeutic pragmatism. She's fond of the verb "work." Prayer works, belief works, real-making works, she says, in the sense that, as far as these believers are concerned, God is made real; and these prayer practices therapeutically change the people who practice them. 

But does prayer "work" in the most important sense, of achieving what it proposes -- which is to communicate with an actually existing God? Luhrmann won't be drawn out, committed as she is to a kind of Feurbachian religious anthropology, in which God is merely the reality we conjure and create through our activities, imaginings, and yearnings.

What God might say, according to Spinoza

The following post turned up in my Facebook feed yesterday. Based on my understanding of Spinoza, I have some doubts that this really reflects his perspective on God, but it might. 

Regardless, I liked what Jillenne Moore shared in her post. (I'm assuming that Moore wrote it.)

When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the question students asked him most was: Do you believe in God? And he always answered: I believe in the God of Spinoza.

Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with Descartes.

According to Spinoza, God would say: “Stop praying. I want you to go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you.

“Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you.

“Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything that others made you believe.

“Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes—you will find me in no book!

“Stop asking me, ‘Will you tell me how to do my job?’ Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry or bothered. I am pure love.

“Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you, I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies, and best of all, free will. Why would I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How could I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that?

“Respect your peers, and don't give what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life—alertness is your guide.

“My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, not a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now—and it is all you need.

“I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record. You are absolutely free to create in your life. It’s you who creates heaven or hell.

“Live as if there is nothing beyond this life, as if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. Then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is an afterlife, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask, ‘Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?’

“Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea.

“Stop praising me. What kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I'm bored with being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me.

“Stop complicating things and repeating as a parrot what you've been taught about me. Why do you need more miracles? So many explanations?

“The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders.”

Pastor's death shows that COVID-19 is larger than God

The evidence is in: the coronavirus, or COVID-19, is larger than God. Bishop Gerald Glenn, a pastor in Virginia who defied a social distancing warning, now is dead from an infection.

Despite warnings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to avoid mass gatherings and maintain social distancing, Glenn said in a sermon on March 22, "I firmly believe that God is larger than this dreaded virus," and announced he was not afraid to die.

Hopefully this will send a message to other people that they need to trust in science, not in irrational religious leaders.

Bishop Gerald Glenn

Religious people, why do you believe in God?

This blog attracts quite a few religious people, probably because my rational, reasonable, intelligent posts appeal to their subconscious mind, given how much of their conscious awareness is filled with faith-based religious dogma.

So I'd like to offer an opportunity to religious people to explain why they believe in God or some other divine entity. This includes the notion that there's such a thing as "God in human form," which is the basis of Christianity and some other forms of religion.

Leave a comment with you best explanation of why you believe in a higher supernatural power. I'm curious whether any explanations would make sense to an open-minded atheist like me. 

I'd love to see a reason for believing in God that's based on sound demonstrable evidence or a convincing argument. I'm doubtful that any religious believer who visits this blog can supply such a reason, but I'm waiting for it.

Still waiting...

Don't be 100% sure about anything, including God and life after death

In the course of looking through old blog posts yesterday to find those related to death, because I'm working on another book based on my writing on that subject, I came to a couple of posts that made me think, in my usual humble way, Dude, these are fantastic! They make so much sense, it's a freaking secular miracle!

So, behold...

Some ten years later, this is still my best guess about God. Also, about life after death, existence, and the nature of the self. Looks like I’ve reached a pretty stable stage of my atheism.

My best guess about God
May 3, 2010

Nobody knows what ultimate reality is, which religious believers call "God." All we have are guesses, some more defensible than others.

Here's mine — after some forty years of delving into mysticism, spirituality, religiosity, and philosophy. Subject to change, of course. If I've learned anything, it's that there's always more to learn. Or guess about.

I'll be as pithy as possible, a shift from my usual wordiness.

(1) God doesn't exist. Not in the sense of an all-knowing, all-powerful personal or individual consciousness. Or even a universal consciousness, though this is more likely than an anthropomorphic God.

(2) The cosmos is, always has been, always will be. In some form or another. Existence always has existed. If you want an eternal "God" to worship, there it is: existence.

(3) It may well be that our universe is just a very small part of the cosmos. But reality is thoroughly natural, not supernatural. Other universes, if they exist, are as natural as ours.

(4) We'll never understand the ultimate laws of nature. Or even know whether they exist. "Ultimate laws" probably is a human conception, not the way things really are.

(5) The biggest problem with being a member of Homo sapiens also is our biggest evolutionary advance: self-awareness. We are aware of being aware. Unlike other animals, we construct an ego, I-ness, by looping our awareness back onto ourselves.

(6) This creates a fear of death, because we know we're going to die. This creates a desire to exist forever, because we can ponder our non-existence.

(7) Thus springs up religion. Along with notions of God, soul, spirit, eternal life, heaven, and such. All are products of a self-created "self," which actually doesn't exist in the sense a stone, sunflower, star, or snake does. It is conceptual, not physical.

(8) Enlightenment — seeing reality as clearly as possible — is recognizing that ego, I-ness, selfhood, individuality, or whatever you want to call it doesn't exist.

(9) We're part of the cosmos. And the cosmos is part of us. We just happen to be beings who can conceptualize ourselves as separate from everything else, which we really aren’t.

(10) So when we die, we're dead, inasmuch as "I" consider myself to be a "Me." But the cosmos continues. And so will I. Just not as me. Whether this is a chilling or reassuring realization depends on how much "Me" is attached to my "I."

I’m confident that there’s no life after death. But not 100% confident. This is the way of science, and also of wise living. Never be absolutely sure about anything. Then you won’t fall prey to rigid dogmatism. And if a cherished belief turns out to be untrue, you’ll be more prepared for this.

Keep open a crack in your belief system
August 31, 2010

Ah, it feels so good to let in the light, to freshen the atmosphere, to relieve the pressure of a claustrophobic enclosure. Not anywhere outside — within our psyche.

All we need to do is keep open a crack in our meaning-of-life belief system, that conglomeration of thoughts, feelings, intuitions, knowings, and what-not which enable us to get out of bed in the morning, move through life with a sense of purpose, and offer us some answers to what's it all about?

Nothing is 100% certain. Including what I just said.

Hey, there might well be something that is 100% certain. So far, though, it isn't apparent. Even the most intensively validated theories of science, such as quantum theory, are considered by the scientific method to always be open to falsification.

So living in touch with reality requires that we remain open to the possibility that whatever we fervently believe to be true, isn't. Otherwise truth could smack us in the face and we'd pretend that we didn't feel a thing.

If you're absolutely sure that God exists, erase the absolutely in your mind. Ditto if you're absolutely sure that God doesn't exist. Double ditto for any other belief that you don't see yourself ever letting go of, or modifying.

Loosen your hold. Lighten your dogmatism. Lessen your certainty.

I'm not saying that we should uncritically embrace every alternative belief path that appears before us. The human mind generally moves along well-trod patterns for good reasons. Sticking with the tried and seemingly true allows us to learn from experience rather than having to figure out again today what was known yesterday.

However, whenever we find ourselves defending some position with unusually rigid zeal, that could be a sign that a retreat is in order. How far we move back from our personal 100% Certain Maginot Line is up to us.

I don't think it matters much how large the doubt gap is. Truth can slip through the eye of a psychological needle, or a wide open mental barn door.

What counts is that some crack exists in the otherwise solid structure of our belief system. This is where the benefits will come from that I mentioned above: lightness of being, freshness of attitude, relaxing of rigidity.

Recently I was lying in bed, about to fall into sleep, with thoughts of what one day will come, death, running through my mind. I mulled over one of my favorite frightening fascinating topics, non-existence.

I recalled how in a conversation with friends a few days ago, someone told a story about an atheist she knew who was in a hospice, close to dying. He kept asking staff and visitors, "What happens next? What happens next?"

Meaning, after death.

Now, since he was an atheist, one would expect that he already had an answer to his own question: nothing. When you're dead, you're dead. No more consciousness, no more existing.

But that prospect can be scary, especially if life feels like it's well worth living. If you're happy being alive, it's only natural to want to hold onto that good feeling for as long as possible.

That's why eternity is so appealing to religiously minded people. They don't believe they'll ever stop existing. To them death is just a transition to an even better life.

I could feel some familiar anxiety arising as I visualized my own non-existence (yes, I know that's impossible). I could tell that it was going to be difficult to fall asleep so long as I felt trapped within the bounds of a reality marked by an absolute finis at the moment of my last breath.

Then I thought, "That isn't absolutely certain. No one knows for sure what happens, or doesn't happen, after death. There's a slight possibility that my consciousness will continue to exist, just as I used to believe.”

Instantly I felt the mental pressure subside, like I'd opened a stress-release valve. I relaxed into a pleasant state of who knows? Sure, I still considered that the vastly most likely possibility is that death is The End.

But allowing even a small likelihood of To Be Continued into my mind changed everything. And the same would have been true if my certainty had been in life after death.

Cracks in belief systems are beneficial no matter what the content of our convictions are. It's never healthy to believe that you can't be wrong. That's egotistical, dogmatic, and, well, wrong.

In one of Huston Smith's books he talks of meeting a Zen practitioner who tells him, "I've got a new koan: I could be wrong.” Beautiful. Fully embrace that koan and it seems like enlightenment would be close at hand.

Ugh. Brady Breeze says fumble recovery in Rose Bowl was "gift from God."

Well, obviously my 2004 request to God for no more sky-pointing in televised sports events was met with deaf divine ears, probably because God doesn't exist, so has no ears (nor anything else, of course.)

Because here's Brady Breeze, safety for the Oregon Ducks football team (number 25), lifting his eyes skyward, along with his right hand, following his recovery of a fumble by the Wisconsin punter which he ran in for a touchdown.

Being a big Oregon fan, living as I do in Salem, about 60 miles north of Eugene, the home of the University of Oregon, naturally I was thrilled by Breeze's touchdown. And with the nail-biting 28-27 win that Oregon came away with, even though it seemed that Wisconsin outplayed Oregon for most of the game.

But when it came time for Breeze to make some remarks after he was named defensive player of the game, I wish he had kept his questionable theologizing to himself.

Breeze said on ESPN that the fumble recovery was a "gift from God." He then went on to use the word "blessings" several times in the rest of his remarks.

Hmmmmm.

I deeply doubt that Wisconsin players, and their fans, consider that Breeze scooping up the ball for a touchdown was a divine dispensation from God.

Assuming that God exists, for the sake of argument, it seems extremely unlikely that God would look down from heaven and decide that Oregon needed a break at that point of the game, so God made the Wisconsin punter drop the football so Breeze could recover it.

Of course, religious believers typically don't engage in this sort of reasonable logic. They just like to thank God for good things that happen to them, choosing to ignore the fact that often one person's good fortune is another person's bad fortune. 

For example, a believer might say "thank you, God" when a car pulls out of a parking space at just the right time for them to pull into it. Meanwhile, a person in a car behind them is disappointed that they have to keep on looking for a parking space. And both people could be devout Christians.

Here's an idea: religious believers should stop talking about what God does or doesn't do for them, since they have no idea whether (1) God even exists, and (2) what God is up to assuming God's existence. 

Will they act in accord with that good idea? Of course not. But that won't stop me from continuing to criticize sky-pointing and thanking God for fumble recoveries.

Do you believe Jesus was the Son of God?

It's Christmas day here in the United States. Seems like a good time to put up a poll about Jesus' divinity. Finally, a post from an Oregon blogger will settle the question! (In my dreams.) 

Feel free to leave a comment on this post if you want to expand on your poll answer, which is anonymous, of course.

 

 

Belonging is what we long for

I'm not religious now. But I used to be. 

What turned me off about religions was how divisive they often are. Each religion has its own theology, its own rituals, its own moral codes. 

I got tired of feeling special. I got tired of feeling different. My spiritual quest now is to find common ground, to come to grips with whatever universal human yearning leads people to seek solace in religions.

Today I started reading a book about how psychedelic entheogens -- psilocybin, peyote, mescaline, LSD, and I'd add marijuana in a sense -- can produce a sense of divinity that is common to other varieties of mystical experiences.

The second chapter of Entheogens and the Future of Religion featured a transcript of an extemporaneous talk by Brother David Steindl-Rast that he gave at a 1984 gathering of scientists and religious thinkers at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

I liked how Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, spoke of belonging as being what we all long for. Sure, as you can read in the passages below, he gives the term "God" to that to which we absolutely belong. 

Since I'm an atheist, I prefer "cosmos," "universe," or "world." But what's important isn't the word used to describe what we long to belong to, because there's no end to those words.

Family. Neighborhood. Friends. Nation. Lover. Humanity. Planet. Ecosystem. Life.

So many words, all pointing to a sense of belonging, of connectivity, of interrelationship. There aren't any bounds to belonging, because we can feel that we belong to all kinds of entities, with "God" being a traditional way of expressing the grandest sense of belonging (though again, cosmos or existence is equally grand).

Here's what Steindl-Rast says about belonging in his talk.

I thought I would briefly sketch how I see the relationship between spirituality and religion and theology -- all terms that have been tossed around here. In my understanding of it, and from the particular perspective from which I come to it, it all starts with our mystical experience.

This is one point where I would question how John Perry meant his statement. I wrote it down and tried to capture it verbatim: "It is impossible to convince the general public that there is such a reality as a mystical experience."

Now I question that.

I have had the opportunity to address all kinds of "general public." Some of them were most unlikely to be convinced offhand that there is such a thing as a mystical experience, let alone that they themselves had one. But I have never come across a group in which the majority could not be led to realize that they had had a mystical experience.

In fact, I am convinced that our typical awareness as humans, our human consciousness, is based on the mystical experience, i.e., the experience that we unconditionally belong. This is my way of expressing the essence of a mystical experience: an overwhelming sense of unconditional belonging. 

I would be very interested in hearing how some of you express the same thing from different perspectives.

I always try to speak about it in common human language, in terms that anybody can understand. First, I get people settled and willing to listen, willing to look at themselves. 

Then I ask them, "Does it make sense to you that before you are aware of anything else, you have a sense of belonging? Not necessarily before in time, but ontologically. Is that sense of belonging not the basis of your awareness that you are and who you are? 

Almost everyone says "Yes." That is enough for me.

...In some respects it is easier to speak about these things without using the term "God." It lends itself to too many misunderstandings. But if we want to use it as a kind of shortcut, it is in the context of our mystical awareness that "God" comes in.

For anyone who uses that term "God" will agree: God is the one to whom we absolutely belong. We are back at that sense of belonging. 

Before you fill this notion of God with anything else, you can say, those who use the term "God" correctly mean by it the reference point of our sense of belonging. But with this sense of belonging goes a sense of longing. Check that out against your own experience.

Here this whole thing comes in motion. This is something I cannot explain further. It is an experiential fact. We long for that to which we most deeply belong. Poets have expressed this very beautifully. T.S. Eliot says:

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and knew the place for the first time.

That is Home. Home is where one starts from. This tension of belonging and longing constitutes the dynamism of our inner quest.

What if God existed, but life after death didn't?

I think the question I asked in the title of this blog post is an excellent one. After all, most religious people believe in these two things.

(1) God exists
(2) Life after death exists

So what if only the first proposition was true? Would religion have such a hold over billions of humans if God was real and so was the finality of death?

Meaning, no life in heaven. No life in hell. No life after reincarnation. No life at all after we humans take our last breath.

I strongly suspect that religiosity would lose a large part of its appeal if the world's religions didn't have theologies along the lines of (1) and (2).

Which points to the seeming fact that while religious people talk a lot about their love of God, actually much of that love is based on a feeling of "If I do what God likes, such as worshipping her and obeying her commandments, then God will give me good things -- like a pleasant life after death."

Part of what got me to thinking about this was a conversation I overheard in a grocery store checkout line this week.

The checkout employee was telling a customer that the past few days had been tough for her. I didn't hear all the details, but apparently a friend, or relative, was in a car accident that led to them losing their legs. The checker then said:

I guess God had a plan for them that didn't include going back to Him now, but rather losing their legs.

In other words, it wasn't their time to die. Yet when they eventually do, God will welcome them. I can certainly understand the appeal of this faith-based belief, since it provides meaning to what otherwise would seem to be a senseless accident.

And I have no doubt that billions of people around the world find it easier to live their lives by believing that God is watching out for them and will take care of them after death.

However, just because a belief makes us feel good doesn't mean it is a pointer to something real. In many countries young children get a lot of joy out of believing in Santa Claus. Which, of course, is how atheists like me view God -- as a nice idea that doesn't have any foundation in reality.

Placebos work because the human mind is highly suggestible. Religious belief is akin to a placebo, since it has no active ingredients, yet provides benefits to many who imbibe it because they believe it works.

 

Breaking news about God! (don't get excited, there isn't any)

If you listen to CNN for more than a few minutes, especially if Wolf Blitzer is the anchor, you're guaranteed to hear "Breaking news!" 

Of course, usually it isn't genuine breaking news that hasn't been reported before, but rather fairly fresh news that I'd heard before, though not a whole lot.

When was the last time, though, that you recall hearing breaking news about God? 

I'll provide the answer: never. Not once in my lifetime, all 70 years of it, has there been a credible story about some new divine revelation from the Big Guy/Gal upstairs in heaven. 

For some reason -- and I'm pretty sure I know what this is -- all of the breaking news about God stopped being broadcast many hundreds of years ago, if not thousands. 

Today I was walking down three flights of stairs after a meeting of the Salem City Club. A woman slightly ahead of me on the top landing stepped to the side and said, "Go on by. I'm as slow as Moses."

Showing that I'm pretty much clueless about the Bible, I said to the woman and her husband as I walked past them, "What makes Moses so slow?" They gave me a quick Old Testament lesson about how it took Moses forty years to get his people to the promised land, if I recall what they said semi-correctly.

That got me to thinking about the Ten Commandments and other godly subjects.

Why have messages from God dried up now that the Old and New Testaments have been written, along with the Koran and other holy books such as the Adi Granth Sahib, Bhagavad Gita, and so on?

It doesn't seem to be a coincidence that with the rise of science, there's been an almost total decline in miracles. Now that miraculous events can be critically questioned and examined through the microscope of logic, reason, and demonstrable evidence, they've dried up.

Which leads me to conclude that either God is afraid to have his communications tested for veracity, or God doesn't exist. I'm going with the latter theory, being the most believable.

So the next time you pick up a newspaper, listen to the radio, or turn on a TV, ponder the fact that there's no new news about God. Which is pretty damn strange, given that religious believers consider that God is the ultimate reality, the power behind creation, the source of all that is good.

A lengthy silence can be construed either as the absence of an entity capable of making noise, or as a willful desire to not communicate one's presence.

The first possibility points to atheism being true. The second possibility points to some form of deism where God chooses to absent himself/herself/itself from the world. Both are far removed from what most religious people believe. 

Yeah, I know. This truth is painful. But it must be told. There's no news about God because either God doesn't exist, or God doesn't care about us. So get on with your life and pay attention to all the other news about things that are real. 

 

 

Thank God you know God doesn't exist

Here's some thoughts about Thanksgiving (holiday today in the United States) from "JB," a regular commenter on this blog. Can't disagree with anything he said. If God is in charge of this world, He/She/It would have to be a sadistic, uncaring psychopath. 

Much more likely alternative: God doesn't exist. Here's JB's comment on a recent post:

On this day of thanks, I also want to thank the precious lord God for all of his selfless care. I want to thank him for all of the children that are dying of cancer and all of the parents that spend every moment with that pain, telling their child that "it will be ok" when they know everything isn't ok.

I also want to thank him for all of the children that have been slaughtered in one of the many genocides that are happening right now. Hell, throw in those born with birth defects and strange syndromes. This person I know with spina bifida thanks God everyday that he made him in such a special way. God loves his special babies.

I want to thank God for watching over all of the families that got burned alive in this year's wildfires just as he has done on the last. Ditto for watching over the hurricane victims. I want to thank him for the 2004 tsunami and the 230,000 people that got wiped off the face of the earth in one fell swoop.

That just shows how much God values life. That was a good job. High-five buddy! Thank you for this sacred world, full of sacred agony. So, I want to thank God that I have the wherewithal to know that God doesn't exist.

 

Stephen Hawking asks "Is there a God?" (Spoiler alert: No.)

Being a big fan of both science and Stephen Hawking, naturally I had to buy his last and most recent book, "Brief Answers to the Big Questions," which was published after he died this year.


So far I've only read up through the first two questions, "Is there a God?" and "How did it all begin?" Since Hawking was an atheist, you can predict what the answers are. But I'll save the details for later in this post.

First, I want to acknowledge Hawking's amazing courage and commitment to truth. He talks about the progression of his ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), which eventually left him only able to control his cheek movements -- but through technology he still was able to communicate via this means. 

I found this paragraph deeply moving.

My illness seemed to progress rapidly. Understandably, I became depressed and couldn't see the point of continuing to research my PhD, because I didn't know if I would live long enough to finish it. But then the progression slowed down and I had a renewed enthusiasm for my work. After my expectations had been reduced to zero, every new day became a bonus, and I began to appreciate everything I did have. While there's life, there is hope.

And in case you're wondering, yes, Hawking was an atheist until the moment he died. Apparently there are rumors to the contrary, but those are false. Like so many other atheists, Hawking found meaning in life without the fantasy of God. 

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist,” Hawking said of the meaning of life. “Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at.”

Here's how Hawking starts off the chapter in his book that addresses the Is there a God? question. 

Science is increasingly answering questions that used to be the province of religion. Religion was an early attempt to answer the questions we all ask: why are we here, where did we come from? Long ago, the answer was almost always the same: gods made everything.

The world was a scary place, so even people as tough as the Vikings believed in supernatural beings to make sense of natural phenomena like lightning, storms or eclipses. Nowadays, science provides better and more consistent answers, but people will always cling to religion, because it gives comfort, and they do not trust or understand science.

Hawking then makes clear what his overall attitude toward God is.

I do not want to give the impression that my work is about proving or disproving the existence of God. My work is about finding a rational framework to understand the universe around us. For centuries, it was believed that disabled people like me were living under a curse that was inflicted by God. Well, I suppose it's possible that I've upset someone up there, but I prefer to think that everything can be explained another way, by the laws of nature.

This is key.

The laws of nature are universal. So far, it appears that they operate the same way in every corner of the universe. Further, even though many religious people believe in miracles that supposedly defy the laws of nature, there is no demonstrable evidence that miracles exist, either now or in the past.

Thus where is the need for God, if the laws of nature are sufficient to understand the universe? (This understanding is incomplete, and likely always will be; however, science is by far our best means of comprehending the cosmos, since religion does a terrible job with this.)

Hawking then discusses scientific theories about the origin of the universe, as the Beginning of Everything appears to be the only area where religion might have something to say, since the laws of nature do a good job of explaining the current state of the universe.

He writes:

At the moment of the Big Bang, an entire universe came into existence, and with it space. It all inflated, just like a balloon being blown up. So where did all this energy and space come from? How did an entire universe full of energy, the awesome vastness of space and everything in it simply appear out of nothing?

Interestingly, because this was an idea that either I hadn't come across before, or failed to understand properly, Hawking describes how right now the universe is still "nothing" in terms of matter/energy. So nothing became another form of nothing via the Big Bang.

This is an easy to grasp metaphor.

Imagine a man wants to build a hill on a flat piece of land. The hill will represent the universe. To make this hill he digs a hole in the ground and uses that soil to dig his hill. But of course he's not just making a hill -- he's also making a hole, in effect a negative version of the hill. The stuff that was in the hole has now become the hill, so it all perfectly balances out.

That negative energy now is in space. The positive energy is in mass and energy that comprises stars, galaxies, us. Again, nothing has become nothing in a different form. Hawking says the only question is "What could cause the spontaneous appearance of a universe?"

Here's his answer, which is based on the laws of quantum mechanics and relativity theory.

The laws of nature tell us that not only could the universe have popped into existence without any assistance, like a proton, and have required nothing in terms of energy, but also that it is possible that nothing caused the Big Bang. Nothing.

The explanation lies back with the theories of Einstein, and his insights into how space and time in the universe are fundamentally intertwined. Something very wonderful happened to time at the instant of the Big Bang. Time itself began.

Hawking concludes his Is there a God? chapter with this:

When people ask me if a God created the universe, I tell them that the question itself makes no sense. Time didn't exist before the Big Bang so there is no time for God to make the universe in. It's like asking for directions to the edge of the Earth -- the Earth is a sphere that doesn't have an edge, so looking for it is a futile exercise.

Do I have faith? We are each free to believe what we want, and it's my view that the simplest explanation is that there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate.

This leads me to a profound realisation: there is probably no heaven and afterlife either. I think belief in an afterlife is just wishful thinking. There is no reliable evidence for it, and it flies in the face of everything we know in science. I think that when we die we return to dust.

But there's a sense in which we live on, in our influence, and in our genes that we pass on to our children. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that I am extremely grateful.

Now, to my knowledge Hawking doesn't address a question that I love to ponder, but which I admit may be an artifact of the limited human mind: Why is there something rather than nothing?

As we've seen, Hawking says that actually there is still nothing, even though our universe sure appears to be something, since the positive mass/energy is balanced out by the negative energy of space.

However, seemingly there had to be laws of nature within this nothing to allow that balancing to occur. And laws of nature aren't nothing at all, but something within nothing.

I suspect that Hawking looked upon Why is there something rather than nothing? as an uninteresting philosophical question, since there doesn't appear to be any way to answer it, even in theory. The question boggles the mind, but this probably is because our human minds are used to causes and effects happening within time.

If the cosmos always has existed, this takes us outside of time. And also seemingly outside of eternity. We're into a realm of "is'ness" beyond our capacity to envision. As I've noted many times before on this blog, it appears that something must have always existed. 

Religious people typically term this something God. Scientific people typically term this something the laws of nature that allow things to come from nothing. Either way, we're left with mystery, awe, the grand design of the universe which was Stephen Hawking's life work.

Meaning comes from us, not God

Many religious people wrongly believe that atheists, secular humanists, and others who don't believe in a personal God (most Buddhists and Taoists fit this category) lack meaning in their lives. Actually, we do.

Most of my friends and relatives are atheists. They live deeply meaningful lives. 

In his book, "Finding Purpose in a Godless World," psychiatrist Ralph Lewis explains how an unguided universe contains people who lives caring, loving, purpose-driven lives. Below is a summary of key themes in his book from the final chapter.

I've written a couple of other blog posts about Lewis' book:
"Why God is an illusion, along with other supernatural stuff"
"Why God is a psychological illusion"

Here's the excerpt from Finding Purpose in a Godless World. I want to point out that while Lewis calls our world "random," "unguided" is a better term for the world. Obviously laws of nature aren't random, or they wouldn't be laws. They just don't proceed from the guidance of a God.

A random world -- which according to all the scientific evidence and despite our intuitions is the actual world we live in -- is too often misconstrued as nihilistic, demotivating, or devoid of morality and meaning. My hope is that this book will help people to see the scientific worldview of an unguided, spontaneous universe as awe-inspiring and foundational to building a more compassionate society.

Nonbelievers and doubters of religion, as well as those who remain believers, can be reassured that the increasing trend toward loss of religious faith that is occurring in modern societies is not leading to a generalized loss of morality or to an alienated feeling of purposelessness and meaninglessness.

Far from being nihilistic, the fully naturalist worldview of secular humanism empowers us and liberates us from our irrational fears. With its emphasis on humans having to rely on ourselves and each other, it motivates us to live with a sense of interdependent humanistic purpose. This deepens our feelings of value, engagement, and relatedness.

The secular humanist worldview reminds us that while the universe doesn't care, people do.

We have seen in this book that biological, evolutionary factors can explain how it is that we are inclined toward generally prosocial, cooperative, and motivated behavior. Biological evolution enabled morality and purposive, meaning-oriented human behavior; cultural evolution refined it. We will need to continue to work actively toward this collective goal of more caring societies in order to further strengthen the progress of our species.

If, like me, you started out on this journey with a vague sense that our lives and the universe are somehow directed, then I hope you have experienced this book as a gentle invitation to move beyond the naive, soothing stories we have been telling ourselves about a purposeful universe. I truth you have encountered in its place a solidly science-based, yet deeply humanistic worldview, freed by rationality from neurotic torment.

In countering fears of societal nihilism, this book has walked a fine line, just as I try to do every day with my patients -- a line between cautious optimism and realism.

Societal progress in our increasingly secular modern era has been uneven and faltering; catastrophic derailments have occurred along the way and will always be a risk. But the long-term positive trend toward more compassionate, purpose-driven societies has been strong and unmistakable. Developing more caring societies is a realistic, far from naive project for humanity.

Those who have embraced science, not only as a profession but also as a worldview, tend to be among the most inspired and purpose-driven members of society. It is my hope that the worldview presented in this book might motivate you, valued reader, to become just such a person.

"Atheist Experience" guys demolish arguments of a supernatural believer

I've come to the conclusion that a big part of being a spiritual person is thinking clearly.

(When I say "spiritual," I don't mean religious or supernatural; I mean finding meaning in life, the underlying spirit of one's life, so to speak.)

If we don't think clearly, there's a danger that our emotions, feelings, desires, intuitions, and such will lead us astray. I'm certainly not saying that thoughts are more important than other aspects of our psyche -- just that we need to find a balance between the rational and non-rational parts of ourselves.

Case in point: this You Tube video is a 24-minute example of how a deist caller to the Atheist Experience TV show is utterly unable to discuss in any sort of coherent fashion why he believes God, or any other supernatural entity, exists. 

I watched the whole video, but in the first 5-10 minutes you can get a good feel for the discussion between the atheist guys and Jeff from Aptos, California. 

The person who emailed me a link to the video yesterday said:

Hi Brian, I just listened to this call on the call-in program called The Atheist Experience. What is so unbelievably fascinating about this call is that the caller has absolutely no clue about what's being said.

I would go further and say he is unable to comprehend or make sense of what the hosts of the show are saying so clearly. It is like they are speaking a foreign language.

 

The caller is so fixated on his own viewpoint that it is impossible to have a normal conversation with him. It is the same with many of the people who comment on your blog.

I agree that many Church of the Churchless commenters display the same lack of understanding of what it means to believe in the supernatural, and not to believe in the supernatural.

Over and over, the caller, Jeff, is asked to explain why he is a deist, a believer in God. He's repeatedly asked to provide reasons, or evidence, to support his belief in God. But all of his explanations are either circular, or unresponsive.

Of course, there's no demonstrable evidence of God, or I and almost every other atheist in the world would believe in God. After all, us atheists typically are open-minded, as Don and Matt, the Atheist Experience guys, are. 

As noted regularly on this blog, most recently in this post, atheism isn't a belief; it is the absence of a belief in theism, in God. Don and Matt keep pointing out that they aren't saying there is no God. Rather, they consider that because of insufficient evidence that God exists, they assume that not-believing in God is the wisest choice.

I liked how they interrupted the caller when he tried to answer their question about why he is a deist by starting out with, "But you..." They correctly said that when someone begins to answer a question about themselves with "But you...", it's clear that they aren't intent on providing an answer.

Asking an atheist to prove that there is no God is an example of how religious believers fail to think clearly. The burden of proof is on a believer, not a skeptic.

In a trial, the prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone committed a crime. Fairly frequently, the defense won't call a single witness. Why? Because they don't have to prove that the defendant didn't commit a crime.  

Likewise, an atheist doesn't have to prove that God doesn't exist. Atheists like me, and like Don and Matt, leave open the possibility that God or some other supernatural entity might exist. If there is sufficient evidence of this, we would believe. Because there isn't, we don't.

Of course, there are good reasons to believe in God, even if God doesn't exist. Here's some of them:

(1) It feels good to believe that death isn't the end of us, but the beginning of an afterlife.
(2) It feels good to be part of a religious community, given the social support that comes with this.
(3) It feels good to be provided a moral code, rather than having to decide what is right and wrong on our own.
(4) It feels good to consider that we're part of a "chosen people," instead of just being an ordinary person.
(5) It feels good to believe that a divine power is guiding your life.

Here's the thing though: just because something makes us feel good doesn't mean it is true. Fantasies can be fun. 

I regularly get comments on this blog along the lines of, "Brian, why are you trying to take away an important source of support for people, their belief in God?" My answer: "I'm not trying to do this. What I'm trying to do is learn the truth about God and supernaturalism in general."

For me, the arguments in favor of believing in God or the supernatural are weak, too weak for me to accept. Yes, I used to believe in not only God, but in the existence of living masters, or gurus, who essentially were God in human form. Now I don't believe in either.

However, since I used to believe, I understand the appeal of believing. Life is hard. The Buddha got it right when he taught that life is suffering. We all need shoulders to lean on. I get why most people in the world believe in God and the supernatural. This feels good.

There's nothing wrong, and a lot right, with feeling good. I'm simply saying that feeling good because of a belief in God is one thing, and that belief being true is a very different thing.

Science was mentioned in the Atheist Experience video as being our best way of determining what is true. For sure. Here's a 4-minute video in praise of science that's well worth watching.

Oneness is like the Hotel California: you can't leave it

I'm a big fan of spontaneous, well-written, heartfelt descriptions of how someone realized that atheism is the way to go. And if they've got a bunch of profanity in them, even fucking better!

So when I read a comment by regular Church of the Churchless visitor Osho Robbins that met those criteria, I knew the comment should be elevated into a blog post.

There's references to Indian words in the comment, but it can be understood just fine without knowing Indian philosophy. Briefly, Sach Khand is roughly equivalent to heaven. Sat Purush is God. And the lyrics to Hotel California are here. 

(The key lyric: "You can check out any time you like. But you can never leave!")


This is the sort of comment I envisioned when I started this blog fourteen years ago. One of my first posts was "Our Creedless Creed." It's worth reading whether or not you're new to this blog, because it shows what my philosophical intention was both at the start, and now.

I mention this because periodically I have to remind commenters on this blog that it's a damn churchless blog.

I'm fine with religious people commenting on my posts, so long as they keep preachiness to a minimum. Today I had to put one regular commenter, "777," on a month-long time out, because he was an unrepentant repeat offender -- too often preachy, incoherent, and off-topic.

Anyway, here's Osho Robbins' pleasingly on-topic comment. I've corrected a few typos and changed the formatting a bit to make it more readable.

Appreciative Reader, I read your comments. My first response is this: “I ain’t got a fucking clue.” However, now that you’ve raised the subject, I will attempt to give a rational explanation.

I have never bothered to categorize myself, but I’ll do it now – just for the hell of it. I am just thinking aloud here and have no idea where this will lead me.

First thing: I don’t like the ‘God’ word – nothing personal – just in case she is reading this blog. So I don’t fit into the theist category or the gnostic category. I neither believe in God; nor do I know there is a God. (personal god)

The issue I have with “God” is the ideas and concepts attached to that word. (A powerful, all knowing guy who lives in Sach Khand and hangs out with his two pals Anami Purush and Agam – or I might have that wrong – whatever.)

So I used to believe in a character called Sat Purush, many many years ago in the days when I used to follow Darshan and Thakar and Charan.

Back then I was definitely a Theist. Then someone told me it’s all bullshit.

My first reaction was that he just hasn’t meditated hard enough. But as I spent time with him, it became clear that he fucking knew what the fuck he’s talking about. Which is more than you could say about me at the time.

All I had was grand ideas and concepts about the inner regions and about the man in the sky and I “knew” I would get there one day and have a good chat with him.

He showed me that I was a fucking lunatic. And I fucking listened – and one day I fucking agreed. That day my life turned fucking around.

I still had one question that would not go away. “What do I need to do next?” “How will I realise this fucking oneness?”

He laughed at my silly questions. “You still don’t fucking get it, do you?” I admitted the obvious. Then he dropped the bombshell.

There is nothing to do, nowhere to go, nothing to attain.

“You mean I am already there?” I asked in disbelief.

“Where?” he asked

“Well, you know, in the ONENESS?”

He laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? You never left because you’re not allowed to leave. Nobody is allowed to leave. Nobody leaves.”

“You mean, it’s like the Hotel California?”
“I can check out any time I like?”
But….. “I can never leave?”
I laughed too. “You mean everyone is trying to get back to where they never left?”
“Well fuck me!” were my last words before I left him that night.

Oneness – at least to me – has nothing to do with God. There is only one thing that is real (the way I define real: changeless, formless etc). The oneness cannot be seen or experienced. It just is. Everything I say about it will be a lie.

I could call it “nothingness” and it would be just as valid (or invalid) as calling it the ONE. I don’t claim any mystical experience. I don’t believe there is any such thing. I believe the seekers make it out to be mystical because they don’t understand the simplicity of it. It’s a very simple realization.

Actually it appears I might actually be an atheist after all. The atheist says he doesn’t believe the theist claim of a God. Well – I don’t believe it. Since I don’t have a belief in a personal God of any sort – including Sat Purush.

The hard atheist goes further and says “I know there is No God”  I would say the same when it comes to a personal God. I now say categorically that there is no Sat Purush or Sach Khand. And his pals, Alakh, Agam and Anami don’t exist either, except in the fertile minds of the seekers.

So it turns out I am actually a hard atheist – a far cry from the Theist I once was, many years ago. Not sure where this leads – but at least it was entertaining to write about.

Atheism isn't a belief. It is the absence of a belief.

I don't know why it is so difficult for religious believers to understand that atheism isn't a belief. But during the 14 years I've been blogging here on the Church of the Churchless, I keep hearing, "Atheism is just another belief system."

No, it isn't. Atheism is the absence of a belief in theism, which means believing in a god or gods. (See here and here.)

Below is a recent comment on this subject by Osho Robbins. I liked the way he described the atheist position, and how he related this to a not guilty verdict by a court.

If I say I have a disbelief you are a king, it generally means that I believe you are not a king. If I have no belief one way or another whether you are a king, I would not say I have a disbelief you are a king.

Example: when a person is accused of a crime and is before the court, the verdicts are either GUILTY or NOT GUILTY. There is no verdict called INNOCENT.

Here's why: GUILTY verdict means: There is enough evidence to determine the accused is guilty. NOT GUILTY means: There is NOT enough evidence to determine the accused is guilty.

He may still have committed the crime. But there is not enough evidence to determine this. It does not mean he is INNOCENT, he may or may not be.

The atheist position is this: I don't think there is enough evidence to warrant a belief in god. Hence he says, I have a disbelief in a god. Lack of belief.

He does not say, "Therefore there is no god." Rather he says "there might be" but there is no reason or evidence to support the belief that there is a god.

Hence the atheist has no burden of proof. A negative cannot be proven anyway.

The burden of proof falls on the person who makes a claim. The atheist makes no claim. The atheist simply states he does not believe in a god. He is not saying there is no god. That would be making a claim. This is the 'soft' atheist position.

Why God is a psychological illusion

Billions of people believe that God is real, even though there is zero demonstrable evidence of God's existence. So there must be something in the human mind that produces the illusion of God.

In his engrossing book, "Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even if the Universe Doesn't," psychiatrist Ralph Lewis quotes evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering on why people are so prone to supernatural beliefs. 

Theory of mind is mentioned in the quotes below. Heres's how Lewis succinctly describes what this is.

Part of people's belief in a higher power stems from our ability to form a "theory" about the mental state of another person wherein we can imagine or infer what that person might be thinking or feeling. This is referred to as "theory of mind."

Bering says:

As a direct consequence of the evolution of the human social brain, and owing to the weight of selective importance placed on our theory of mind skills in that process, we sometimes can't help but see intentions, desires, and beliefs in things that haven't even a smidgeon of a neural system there to generate the physiological states we perceive.

...In particular, when inanimate objects do unexpected things, we sometimes reason about them just as we do for oddly behaving -- or misbehaving -- people. More than a few of us have kicked our broken-down "untrustworthy" vehicles in the sides and verbally abused our "incompetent" computers.

Most of us stop short of actually believing these objects possess mental states -- indeed, we would likely be hauled away to an asylum if we genuinely believed that they held malicious intentions toward us -- but our emotions and behaviors toward such objects do seem to betray our primitive, unconscious thinking: we act as though they're morally culpable for their actions.

...So it would appear that having a theory of mind was so useful for our ancestors in explaining and predicting other people's behaviors that it has completely flooded our evolved social brains. As a result, today we overshoot our mental-state attributions to things that are, in reality, completely mindless.

And all of this leads us, rather inevitably, to a very important question: What if I were to tell you that God's mental states, too, were all in your mind?

That God, like a tiny speck floating at the edge of your cornea producing the image of a hazy, out-of-reach orb accompanying your every turn, was in fact a psychological illusion, a sort of evolved blemish etched onto the core cognitive substrate of your brain?

It may feel as if there is something grander out there... watching, knowing, caring. Perhaps even judging. But, in fact, that's just your overactive theory of mind. In reality, there is only the air you breathe.

Thanks to Ariana Grande, I now believe God is a woman

Hey, I've become a believer. In God. Who is a woman.

The lyrics explain this profound theology:

You, you love it how I move you
You love it how I touch you
My one, when all is said and done
You'll believe God is a woman
And I, I feel it after midnight
A feeling that you can't fight
My one, it lingers when we're done
You'll believe God is a woman

I don't wanna waste no time, yeah
You ain't got a one-track mind, yeah
Have it any way you like, yeah
And I can tell that you know I know how I want it
Ain't nobody else can relate
Boy, I like that you ain't afraid
Baby, lay me down and let's pray
I'm tellin' you the way I like it, how I want it

(Yeah)
And I can be all the things you told me not to be
(Yeah)
When you try to come for me, I keep on flourishing
(Yeah)
And he see the universe when I'm in company
It's all in me

You, you love it how I move you
You love it how I touch you
My one, when all is said and done
You'll believe God is a woman
And I, I feel it after midnight
A feeling that you can't fight
My one, it lingers when we're done
You'll believe God is a woman

I'll tell you all the things you should know
So, baby, take my hand, save your soul
We can make it last, take it slow, hmm
And I can tell that you know I know how I want it, yeah
But you different from the rest
And boy, if you confess, you might get blessed
See if you deserve what comes next
I'm tellin' you the way I like it, how I want it

(Yeah)
And I can be all the things you tell me not to be
(Yeah)
When you try to come for me, I keep on flourishing
(Yeah)
And he see the universe when I'm in company
It's all in me

You, you love it how I move you
You love it how I touch you
My one, when all is said and done
You'll believe God is a woman
And I, I feel it after midnight
A feeling that you can't fight
My one, it lingers when we're done
You'll believe God is a woman, yeah, yeah

(God is a woman)
Yeah, yeah
(God is a woman, yeah)
My one
(One)
When all is said and done
You'll believe God is a woman
You'll believe God
(God is a woman)
Oh, yeah
(God is a woman, yeah)
(One)
It lingers when we're done
You'll believe God is a woman

Why God is an illusion, along with other supernatural stuff

Here's a perplexing question: Why are so many people convinced that they've had an experience of God, or some other supernatural entity, when there is no demonstrable proof that these things exist?

Are these people lying? Some probably are, but not all. So the most likely explanation is that they've fooled themselves into believing that their divine experience was real.

How this happens is one of the subjects psychiatrist Ralph Lewis discusses in his fascinating book, "Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even if the Universe Doesn't." 

I've just started reading this book,  but can tell that I'm going to enjoy it a lot. Here's some excerpts from the initial 60 pages.

It is said that seeing is believing. But actually believing is seeing -- we often see what we believe to be there, misinterpreting our senses in illusory ways. Moreover, our senses are sometimes susceptible to complete hallucinations, creating perceptions out of nothing at all.

When people experience perceptions of non-actual reality, the last thing they are willing or able to believe is that those perceptions could have been due to their own brain malfunctioning -- their mind playing tricks on them...We give our subjective experience too much credence.

...Clearly we find our own subjective perceptions arrestingly compelling and are more willing to doubt the laws of physics than to doubt our own minds. People underestimate the capacity of our brains to create their own convincing realities.

They underestimate how powerfully realistic some dissociative experiences, hallucinations, and other well-recognized mental/neural misperceptions can seem. Come and sit in my office for a week and listen to people argue passionately (and even seemingly rationally) that their demonstrably implausible perceptions are real.

Then judge for yourself which explanation is more plausible -- that the bizarre experiences that you will hear described are actually real, or that the human brain can easily fool us into believing weird things.

...A scientifically valid hypothesis must therefore be constructed in such a way that the potential for it to be falsified is built into the hypothesis itself. In other words, it should be a hypothesis that is testable and that lays itself open to the challenge of potentially being proven wrong.

The hypothesis that all swans are white is falsifiable by finding a swan that is not white. In contrast, a hypothesis that there exists a green swan is unfalsifiable: it cannot be undermined by evidence because it is structured in such a way that it cannot be definitively disproved, no matter how many swans we find that are not green.

Supernatural and superstitious beliefs are almost invariably structured as unfalsifiable hypotheses. The existence of God is the green swan hypothesis. 

Psychiatric delusions are often also structured this way: the delusional person explains away evidence that contradicts the delusion by expanding and elaborating the delusion with additional layers of explanation.

For example, the doctor who points out the impossibility of the paranoid conspiracy against the patient must be one of the conspirators. Delusions typically cannot be reasoned away. 

Five reasons why I don't believe in God

Since 2004 I've written 2,365 posts on this here Church of the Churchless blog. That's a scarily large number, which testifies to my commitment to churchlessness after spending 35 years being firmly churched in an Indian guru-based form of religiosity.

During the past fourteen years I've talked a lot about why I no longer believe in God. I've put forth numerous reasons for my conversion to atheism. Here's a fairly brief description of five key reasons. 

(1) Existence must always have existed. Most religions teach that God brought our universe into existence. But I've never heard any believer argue that God brought existence into existence. That's because God must have existed prior to bringing everything else into existence.

So it sure seems like existence must always have existed. Otherwise, how could anything exist, including God? This leads to a strong argument against God: if religious believers say that God has existed eternally, this means that existence has existed eternally. 

Thus where is the need for God, since eternal existence, along with certain laws of existence necessary for further acts of creation, fills God's role without the need to posit a supernatural being?

(2) Religions and supernatural belief systems differ widely. If God or some other supernatural entity existed, one would think that there would be considerable agreement about his/her/its nature. But there isn't. 

Yes, I'm familiar with ideas such as Huxley's Perennial Philosophy, since I used to argue myself that there was a common denominator to the world's spiritual belief systems. However, I now realize that I was doing my best to cram wildly different forms of belief into the peculiarly-shaped hole of the faith that I followed.

There are literally thousands of different forms of supernatural  belief in the world. The major religions are just the tip of the iceberg, given the number of animistic, ancestor-based, and other types of spiritual systems scattered across our planet. So either God exists in a dizzying variety of forms, or God doesn't exist.

I'm going with "doesn't exist."

(3) The cosmos is vastly larger than needed for most religions. Christianity, along with Judaism and Islam, are examples of religions that were founded by a human being who was considered to be in some fashion "God in human form." Meaning, if not actually God, a messenger from God.

Problem is, there are hundreds of billions of stars in our Milky Way galaxy, and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe, which is a fraction of the cosmos (the known universe, plus at least that portion of the universe that has expanded beyond our light horizon, since space itself has expanded faster than light since the Big Bang).

The makes Earth utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Yet many, if not most, religions would have us believe that happenings on Earth reflected God's plan for creation. Well, if this is the case, why is creation so much larger than needed if humanity was made in God's image and has a special place in God's consciousness?

(4) Those who supposedly know God aren't anything special. Some religions teach that God sent a prophet, savior, or other form of messenger to Earth a long time ago. Other religions teach that there are God-realized people living today. 

Regardless, at best there is scant (I'd say none) evidence that those who supposedly have come to know God are any different from you and me. Sure, there are plenty of stories about miracles, divine powers, and such, but somehow these all occurred in the past.

Now that modern science has ways of assessing whether someone has supernatural abilities, the flow of miracles has dried up. Which leads me and other skeptics to wonder whether they ever existed in the past, other than in the gullible minds of believers.

(5) There's no demonstrable evidence that God exists. This is an overarching reason that encompasses some of what I've already said in this post. I realize that plenty of people, alive and dead, are convinced that they've had experiences that prove God or some other divine entity is real.

OK. There also are lots of people who claim to have experienced alien abductions, seen Big Foot, had visions of heaven after almost dying, and so on. It simply isn't possible to accept that every subjective experience reflects an objective reality. That way lies, if not madness, an inability to distinguish fact from fiction. 

Along with almost every other atheist, I'm very much open to evidence of God. I've meditated virtually every day of my life for the past fifty years, or so. I've prayed, sat at the feet of a supposedly God-realized guru, contemplated the nature of existence, looked for divine signs inside and outside of myself.

If God exists, God is doing a heck of a job of keeping hidden. So I choose to consider that God doesn't exist. 

There are lots of other web pages that discuss why someone doesn't believe in God. Here's one that I found to be nicely convincing. 

Young Sheldon beats a pastor at the God game

Young Sheldon is the precursor to Older Sheldon in the popular TV series, The Big Bang Theory. So says Wikipedia. Here's a video of Young Sheldon showing his scientific and logical skills as he gets the best of a church pastor. This clip gets Einstein wrong. He didn't believe in the Christian God. Einstein believed in Spinoza's god, which is Nature.

My atheist interpretation of the Lord's Prayer

Sometimes I feel like praying, even though I don't believe in God. The only prayer that I remember from my brief time in Catholicism as a child is the Lord's Prayer.

So I enjoy interpreting the familiar words from a scientific atheist point of view. 

Our Father who art in heaven,

The laws of nature aren't bound by time and space, being both universal and responsible for the space-time continuum of our universe. These laws are our father, mother, sister, brother, and every other sort of familial relationship we might consider ourselves having with them.

Hallowed be thy name.

We humans have an evolved consciousness that allows us to not only experience the universe, but to conceptually understand its workings -- which includes giving names to entities within our experience and formulating mathematical equations that reflect many of nature's laws.

Thy kingdom come.

Of course it comes. It is already here. The cosmos is unimaginably vast, but more and more of it is being comprehended through the advances of science.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

This "will" is the expression of the laws of nature, which govern the most minute subatomic earthly goings-on as well as the course of the hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe. So far as is known, nothing in the cosmos fails to fall under the sway of those universal laws.

Give us this day our daily bread,

Nature provides for our needs through the presence of solar energy and the marvelous habitability of our one and only planet Earth.

and forgive us our trespasses,

Everybody screws up regularly. There is no such thing as omniscience, so human life is a continual effort to find the best way forward while avoiding danger spots as much as possible. Of course, the worst "trespass" is failing to preserve the natural environment that makes our planet so suitable for us Homo sapiens to prosper here.

as we forgive those who trespass against us,

Nobody is perfect, since there is no transcendent God or any other divinity able to rise above human frailties. So it makes sense to be tolerant of imperfection, since this is the way of the world. We can strive for the best, but we should be content with the good. 

and lead us not into temptation,

It is temping to believe in a nonexistent God, because this belief can provide some comfort and solace, but we need to resist the lures of supernatural fantasies. 

but deliver us from evil.

Which includes falsehood, superstition, and failing to recognize reality. Religion is one of the most common guises these "evils" come in, so we need to do our best to be delivered from it.

If God is real, why do religions disagree so much about God?

One of the best arguments against believing in God is that there so many varieties of religious belief.

This doesn't happen in science, where there isn't an Eastern or Western science. Nor is there a Chinese or American science. Because modern science deals with entities that are real, there's agreement on, say, how subatomic particles behave, or the equations needed to put a satellite into orbit.

A friend of ours recently overheard a conversation between two men sitting behind her while she was on a plane. It started with one of the men asking the other, "Are you a believer?"

Turns out he was, so they launched into a rather loud discussion about Christianity. All went well until friction arose after it was learned that one of the men was a Jehovah's Witness.

Then the conversation became rather heated. Is God a unitary being, or is God a trinity of Father, Son, Holy Spirit? Our friend said they argued about this question for the rest of the plane trip.

What this shows is that nobody knows.

Whether God exists. What God would be like, if God does exist. There's very little agreement among religions about God's nature. Even Christians disagree about what God is like. Mormons and Catholics have little in common other than faith in Jesus.

(I think they agree on this; maybe they don't.)

Now, I used to argue that there was a common denominator among religions. It just was necessary to focus on what mystics in various religions taught about God. 

But now that I've left behind my true-believing days, I'm aware that what I was doing was selectively choosing evidence for commonalities between mystical beliefs, because actually Christian mystics have a very different take on what God is like than, say, Sikh mystics or Islamic mystics.

So the fact that religious believers can't agree about God's nature is pretty conclusive evidence that God isn't real. The god of the Koran is very different from the god of the Bible. And Buddhists don't believe in any god at all, along with Taoists. 

As the familiar saying goes:

“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”

This atheist has a few simple questions for religious believers

I don't believe in God. I'm virtually certain that God doesn't exist, because there is no demonstrable evidence for a god or gods.

Thus I deeply doubt that anyone, alive or dead, has ever known anything about God other than what they make up in their own mind.

So I've got some simple questions for religious believers -- a number of whom are regular readers of this blog (which is kind of weird; it's sort of like avid meat-eaters frequenting a vegetarian web site).

I understand that many religious believers just have faith that God exists. They don't claim to have any special knowledge of a supernatural divinity. They hope to be ushered into God's presence after death. My questions really aren't for these people of faith.

Rather, I'm interested in those who purport to have experienced the presence of God, or at least a reflection of God, such as a holy spirit, angel, divine energy, or whatever. 

Here's my questions to them:

(1) Do you claim to know something about reality that isn't known to ordinary people? If so, what is this special knowledge, and how do you know that it is true?

(2) Do you claim to have an elevated sense of morality that isn't possessed by ordinary people? If so, what makes you a better sort of moral person from ordinary people?

(3) Do you claim to understand what God is like? If so, enumerate some attributes of God and how you came to comprehend them.

I ask these questions because I've spent many, many years talking to people who believe in God, and I've never met a single person who had a convincing story about an actual experience of God.

One would think (as I do) that anyone who has had a glimpse of God, if not a full- blown vision, would come away from that experience with some special knowledge, special goodness, special morality, special understanding, special something. 

If they can't demonstrate what this special something is, then they shouldn't expect that anyone else should take them seriously when they claim to have experienced God. Talk is cheap. Truth is expensive, in that it requires proof, evidence, facts. 

In everyday life, if someone says, "I know X," it is perfectly appropriate to ask, "How do you know X? What reasons do you have for believing your knowledge is true? Show me some evidence for X."

But in the realm of religion, people are allowed to spout all sorts of crap without being challenged. Well, this atheist, along with many of my atheist friends, is tired of religious believers getting a free pass on the Truth Train.

So I'm curious to see if any religious person steps up to the Truth Plate (to mix metaphors) and takes a swing at my three questions.

Egos gone wild: religious believers thinking God is on their side

First off, I've been there and done that: thinking God is on my side. So when I say that this is a crazy belief, I'm criticizing an earlier version of myself -- along with everybody else who has an ego massive enough to believe such a thing.

Which includes the Green family, founders and owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores. Yesterday I wrote a post on one of my other blogs, Salem Political Snark, "Here's 5 good reasons not to shop at Salem's Hobby Lobby." 

As part of my Google research for that post, I listened to an interview a Slate podcaster, Mike Pesca, did with Candida Moss, a professor of theology who wrote a book about the Green family's quest to Christianize the United States ("Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby").

Here's a transcript I made of part of the podcast where Pesca and Moss discuss how the Green family just knew that God looked favorably upon their decision to close Hobby Lobby stores on Sunday.

Pesca: In fact, they made a decision early on, the family did, to close the stores on Sunday. How they decided was kind of interesting. They kind of rolled it out slowly, and it wasn't going well at first. But then when it did, they took that as proof it was the Lord's plan all along. 

Moss: That's right. They started with states that only had a few stores and closed them there. And by the time they were done with Texas, which had the most stores, then their profits took off again. And they interpreted that as a sign that they had won God's favor. 

Pesca: It seems like there are so many instances in your book where that wouldn't be the accurate interpretation, or even a logical interpretation, or an interpretation, you know, that a reasonable person, or anyone approaching a reasonable person would have. But they always interpret everything as telling them that they're right and God is on their side.

Moss: That's right.

This is a dangerous belief.

What makes it dangerous, rather than just plain crazy, is the fact that the Green family has billions of dollars to spend on promoting their fanatical brand of evangelical Christianity, spurred on by their conviction that whatever they do, God approves of it.

Here's how I summarized my blog post on Facebook:

Don't shop at Hobby Lobby, which just opened a store in Salem. Here's the headlines of my 5 reasons why. Those who shop there are having their money go to:
(1) Denying contraception coverage to women employed by corporations owned by religious zealots.
(2) Teaching the Bible in public schools as "true" and "good."
(3) Smuggling artifacts from Iraq, an act that supports terrorism.
(4) Supporting the election of Trump.
(5) Helping fund a $500 million Museum of the Bible.

Item (3) above resulted in Hobby Lobby having to pay a $3 million fine to the government after the company was caught smuggling Iraqi artifacts. So I guess the Green family believes that God approves of illegal acts that support terrorism.

I realize how easy it is for religious believers to look upon themselves as God's chosen people. This belief is comforting. It soothes the ego, even though religious people put on a false humility with words such as "God is doing everything" and "I'm just a servant of the Lord."

False, because I've seen how religious egos go wild when devotees of a particular faith are told that they are looked upon with special favor by God. Or, in Eastern religions, by a guru who is considered to be God in human form.

I've both seen this in other people, and also in myself.

For example, when I used to give spiritual talks at a Sunday meeting of fellow believers, and I was late leaving for the place where the meeting was held, if I found that all of the traffic lights were green when I came to the intersections between my house and the meeting location, I'd look upon this as a sign that God was helping me be on time.

 Crazy? Yes. Just like the Green family believing that God is on their side? Yes. 

It took me many years, decades, really, before I came to realize that I'm nobody special, and that the universe isn't treating me any differently from everybody else. 

That realization was a relief, actually. I could stop pretending and start living an authentic, honest, down to earth life. 

God isn't on anybody's side, because almost certainly there is no God. (I'd leave out the "almost," but I'm scientifically minded, and in science nothing is 100% certain.)

Ancient religious writings couldn't predict modern science

My wife, Laurel, has had another faithless letter to the editor published in our local newspaper, the Salem Statesman Journal. The paper titled it, "Newspaper can't be faulted for decline in respect for God." Enjoy:

A recent letter to the editor suggested the a decline in "respect for God," even by newspapers, is responsible for an increase in crime (as supposedly evidenced by the space given to sports versus religion).

The newspaper is merely keeping up with the times and focusing on fact versus fiction.

In this day and age, people are smarter than in the past, (especially younger people) and as science evolves, they see the conflict between science and religious myths. They are increasingly non-religious and would rather spend their free time in enjoyable activities (like sports) rather than meaningless rituals and hearing someone spout the same old ancient stories that have little to do with modern life.

Perhaps if ancient religious writings are found that support facts of modern science, evolution, and which predicted a world of automobiles, solar cells, and gene therapy, people would read a big scientifically supported "religious section."

Humans gave up believing in the sun god and a myriad of other gods as science evolved. Religion is not needed for moral behavior. A number of non-religious European countries have far less violent crime. Newspapers should report on realty, not myth. That is up to churches.

Laurel Hines
Salem

Believers, be clear about what sort of belief you want others to accept

Someone recently emailed me, asking if I read the many comments (223, currently) on a recent Church of the Churchless post. Here's part of my reply.

I admit that I haven’t read the many comments on this post in much detail. In my current irreligious frame of mind it just strikes me as mostly meaningless to discuss/argue about subjective experiences as if they reflect some objective reality. There’s no way to tell whether someone’s supposed “mystical” experience is anything other than a projection of their own mind absent some sort of convincing demonstrable evidence.

 

Logical or reasonable arguments can lead anywhere. To me, most of the content of the comments is akin to debating the details of how unicorns look and act. The first question to ask is, “Do unicorns exist?” If they don’t, then it is just an exercise in creative fiction to delve into details of an imaginary creature. 

 

Philosophical debates aimed at how one lives in this world strike me as quite different. I read a lot of philosophy, both explicit and implicit. Finding meaning in this world clearly is a subjective exercise. But the world itself is objectively real, which gives meaning to the search for meaning. 

 

Trying to find meaning in supernatural realms and powers for which there is no evidence of their existence strikes me as a waste of time. And I say this as someone who has wasted a lot of time in this pursuit.

Here's another way of expressing what I was trying to say in my reply: believers should be clear about what sort of belief they are claiming is valid, and so worthy of being embraced by other people.

The basic distinction is between subjective and objective reality, as I noted in my reply. Now, I realize that "subjective" and "objective" mean different things to different people. But the dictionary definitions make good sense. 

Subjective: characteristic of or belonging to reality as perceived rather than as independent of mind :  relating to or being experience or knowledge as conditioned by personal mental characteristics or states

Objective: of, relating to, or being an object, phenomenon, or condition in the realm of sensible experience independent of individual thought and perceptible by all observers :  having reality independent of the mind

So let's say that someone speaks of experiencing God, heaven, or some other manifestation of a supernatural reality beyond the physical universe. For example, as in the above-mentioned comments, some people talk about astral realms, radiant forms, divine light and sound. 

I have no problem accepting that a person had an experience along these lines. After all, the mind is capable of creating many mental manifestations that are much different from everyday reality.

If you take a psychedelic drug, likely you're going to have profound personal experiences.
If you have a psychotic form of mental illness, likely you're going to have profound personal experiences.
If you meditate for lengthy periods, likely you're going to have profound personal experiences.
If you meet with a holy leader you're deeply devoted to, likely you're going to have profound personal experiences.
And if you deeply desire to have a certain religious experience, likely you're going to have profound personal experiences in line with that desire.

Naturally this doesn't exhaust the ways religiously-minded people can have deeply moving experiences of what seems to be a divinity beyond themselves. Every religion is awash with stories about devotees who have experienced a glimpse -- or a full-on encounter -- with the divinity they believe in.

I'm interested in these stories in much the same way I'm interested in hearing someone talk about going to Glacier National Park, a Monster Truck event, Paris, a Taylor Swift concert, or any other experience that leaves this person with an amazing feeling best expressed as "You had to be there to believe it."

Meaning, I accept that they had a profound experience. But I don't accept that this was an objective manifestation of reality.

Well, in the examples above the experience was of something objectively real, such as Taylor Swift. However, the person's experience of a Taylor Swift concert was their own, whereas the objective reality of the concert was independent of their individual mind.

In the case of religious, mystical, or spiritual experiences, often the discrepancy between subjective and objective is much greater.

After all, there is no shared experience of God, heaven, soul, spirit, or any other supernatural entity. All we have are descriptions of individual experiences, and there is no way to prove that these are anything other than the manifestation of a person's subjective mind.

So I wish religious believers would be clearer about what they claim to have experienced.

I had numerous profound encounters with what seemed to be a higher reality in my college days, when I imbibed LSD, mescaline, and other psychedelics. But I rarely, if ever, told other people that my psychedelic experiences were of an objectively real reality.

Yes, at the time the sensations I experienced seemed like a doorway to a higher state of consciousness. And maybe they were, in a personal subjective sense. Meaning, for me. Not for anybody else.

Yet religious believers often extrapolate from their individual personal experience of some supposed divinity and claim that their experience proves that the divinity is objectively real. Which, of course, it doesn't. 

"I had a subjective experience of X" is very different from "X exists as an objective fact." The first statement doesn't demand proof, because subjective experiences basically are unprovable. The second statement does demand proof, because it is a claim about universal reality. 

Gurinder Singh: the One is the goal, God without attributes

I no longer believe in God. Meaning, a God who is this or that, a God who can be described, who can be known, who can be experienced.

But I'm very much open to the notion that One is at the heart of reality. Heck, I wrote a book called "Return to the One" about the teachings of Plotinus, a Neoplatonist Greek philosopher. 

After all, something has to have always existed, or existence wouldn't exist. So why not call this the "One"? Just don't ascribe any attributes to the One, because the One couldn't have any attributes, being, obviously, One. 

Interestingly, Osho Robbins asked a question of Gurinder Singh, the current guru of Radha Soami Satsang Beas (the spiritual organization I belonged to for about 35 years), that shows the guru looks upon God in much the same way as Plotinus did.

Which isn't how most RSSB disciples do.

They still think of God as some sort of person, or at least as a being that can be known. Likewise, they consider that heaven, or Sach Khand as RSSB terms it, is some sort of place rather than a quality of being or an essence of existence.

Here's what Osho Robbins sent me as a guest blog post. I'm pleased to share it. "BabaJi" is an Indian term of respect for the guru, Gurinder Singh. 

I asked BabaJi a question at the last Sunday gathering. I asked him to explain about SARGUN and NIRGUN.

His first response was “Are you trying to test me?”

I said “No,”, because I wasn’t – I just wanted him to comment on the subject.

The response he gave was pretty impressive but I somehow think hardly anyone in the congregation understood him.

What he said was that SARGUN is God with attributes – the path we all follow and NIRGUN is the goal – the God without any attributes – the ONE. Sargun is the MEANS and Nirgun is the END or GOAL.

So the Goal is to get to the ONE – where these is no duality.

This is in line with the notion that the Guru cannot come at the time of death because there is only ONE, and there is no place to take the soul.

The idea of the guru coming at death and taking the soul to Sach Khand is as naïve as the notion of Father Christmas.

Sach Khand is not a place – so why is everyone keen to go there? What do they think is awaiting them in Sach Khand?

The true goal of Sant Mat is to DIE. Meaning the EGO (the ‘I’) dies, which means there is no longer a YOU who wants to go to Sach Khand.

That is the real meaning of “die while living”. Eliminate the ego WHILE you are alive – realize there is no YOU – no separate self. Just a deluded little disciple who thinks he is privileged and will go to Sach Khand.

-- Osho Robbins

My missing checkbook taught me a lesson about God

After getting a haircut a few days ago I reached into the pocket of my jacket where I'd put my checkbook. Problem was, no checkbook. 

"I'll have to give you cash," I told Kim, my haircutter. "Cash is good," she said. "I like cash." 

"Me too. But I also like my checkbook, and I'm pretty sure I stuck it in my jacket pocket before I left home." 

The next stop of the day in my retired life was my Tai Chi class in downtown Salem (Oregon). After I'd gotten in my car, post-haircut, I looked through my backpack and the floor of the car for the missing checkbook. 

So where the heck is my checkbook? was very much on my mind as the Tai Chi class started. I was going through the motions of the movements, but my mind was absorbed in thinking about the missing checkbook.

I recollected taking it out of a drawer before I left for my haircut appointment, since I always pay Kim with a check, not cash. I was pretty sure that I'd put it in the pocket of my jacket. I wasn't as sure that I'd zipped up the pocket. 

"I threw my jacket on a chair before Kim started cutting my hair," I mused inwardly while doing a Tai Chi form. "Maybe the checkbook slipped out and fell behind the chair. If so, hopefully either Kim or a cleaning person will notice it. But what if it gets picked up by someone else, or maybe the checkbook fell out after I parked my car and walked to Kim's salon."

These sorts of thoughts consumed my mind for about the first 20 minutes of my Tai Chi class.

I couldn't stop thinking about the hassle it would be if I'd lost the checkbook, especially since it was time to balance our bank's monthly statement, and I'm obsessive about reconciling it perfectly, to the penny. 

Eventually, though, my philosophical side started gaining some power over my worrying side. 

I remembered reading in Daniel Dennett's new book, "From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds," about the distinction between manifest and scientific reality. Here's a passage that will give you a feel for how Dennett uses these terms.

Here are a few other folk convictions that need Hume's strange inversion: sweetness is an "intrinsic" property 0f sugar and honey, which causes us to like them; observed intrinsic sexiness is what causes our lust; it was the funniness out there in the joke that caused us to laugh.

Oversimplifying somewhat, in these instances the causes and effects in the manifest image have become inverted in the scientific image. You can't find intrinsic sweetness by studying the molecular structure of glucose; look instead in the details of sweetness seekers. 

It is how our brains respond that causes "us" (in the manifest image) to "project" an illusory property into the (manifest) world.

...Our brains have tricked us into having the conviction, making the judgment, that there seems to be an intrinsically wonderful but otherwise undescribable property in some edible things: sweetness. 

So even though my way of looking at manifest and scientific was rather different from Dennett's meaning of the words, I had this intuition after I began to grow tired of thinking about my checkbook when I should have been focused on Tai Chi:

All of the worries, thoughts, concerns, and such I was having about the checkbook were manifesting in my own mind, not anywhere else. The checkbook itself -- the scientific objective reality of the checkbook -- was a different thing entirely. My checkbook was somewhere; I just didn't know where. There was a good chance it was sitting on a counter in my house, even thought my mind was almost certain that I'd put it in a pocket of the jacket that I wore to my haircut.

Once I started thinking along these lines, I relaxed. 

I realized that the checkbook was either lost, or it wasn't lost. I wouldn't know which was true until my Tai Chi class was over and I could return home. I could talk myself into believing in either possibility -- lost or not lost -- but only one of those possibilities was true, and I wouldn't know which until I walked through my front door and looked at the counter.

Where, after my Tai Chi class was over, I immediately saw my checkbook. Really Real Reality had made itself known, replacing the Might Be Reality my mind had spent considerable time pondering after my haircut.

Now, I realize that it isn't as easy to confirm the existence, or lack thereof, of God as it was to confirm that my checkbook was on the counter and hadn't been lost.

My point is just that beliefs can lead us anywhere. Religions ask us to fill our heads with possibilities about God, heaven, life after death, and such -- just as my mind had been filled with possibilities about what might have happened to my checkbook. I came to realize that no matter what I believed about where my checkbook was, the reality of where it was wasn't up to me.

And that was a big relief. Almost as big as returning home and finding my checkbook on the counter.

One of my favorite sayings comes from Philip K. Dick: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

This applies to lost checkbooks as much as it does to God.

We can believe whatever we want, but this doesn't change the reality outside of our believing mind. In my case reality confirmed that my checkbook wasn't lost. I'm not aware of any demonstrable evidence that God is real, so I continue to not believe in God's existence.

Great video about why faith is an unreliable guide to truth

A Church of the Churchless reader just sent me this thought-provoking exchange between two hosts of The Atheist Experience Internet television show and a Christian caller.

It's well worth watching. The first six minutes of the 12-minute video pretty much sums up the devastating arguments the hosts make about faith being an unreliable guide to truth.

Basically, the Christian believer considers that his commitment to God is justifiably based on faith. But the hosts point out that there are thousands of Gods, each of which can be believed in on faith.

So the chance of choosing the correct God (assuming any are real) is 1:1000. Not good odds. 

Shermer on why a supernatural God almost certainly doesn't exist

This month's Scientific American has a great "Skeptic" column by Michael Shermer: At the Boundary of Knowledge: Is it possible to measure supernatural or paranormal phenomena?

Shermer cites physicist Sean Carroll's book (The Big Picture, which I enjoyed) in this passage.

Take our understanding of particles and forces, which Carroll says “seems indisputably accurate within a very wide domain of applicability,” such that “a thousand or a million years from now, whatever amazing discoveries science will have made, our descendants are not going to be saying ‘Haha, those silly twenty-first-century scientists, believing in ‘neutrons’ and ‘electromagnetism.’”

Thus, Carroll concludes that the laws of physics “rule out the possibility of true psychic powers.” Why? Because the particles and forces of nature don’t allow us to bend spoons, levitate or read minds, and “we know that there aren’t new particles or forces out there yet to be discovered that would support them. Not simply because we haven’t found them yet, but because we definitely would have found them if they had the right characteristics to give us the requisite powers.”

Excellent points. After thousands of years of recorded human history, there is precisely zero solid demonstrable evidence of supernatural psychic powers. Which means, the chance is extremely close to zero that such powers exist.

In his next concluding passages, Shermer also demolishes the likelihood of a supernatural God.

What about a supernatural God? Perhaps such an entity exists outside nature and its laws. If so, how would we detect it with our instruments? If a deity used natural forces to, say, cure someone’s cancer by reprogramming the cancerous cells’ DNA, that would make God nothing more than a skilled genetic engineer. If God used unknown supernatural forces, how might they interact with the known natural forces? And if such supernatural forces could somehow stir the particles in our universe, shouldn’t we be able to detect them and thereby incorporate them into our theories about the natural world? Whence the supernatural?

It is at the horizon where the known meets the unknown that we are tempted to inject paranormal and supernatural forces to explain hitherto unsolved mysteries, but we must resist the temptation because such efforts can never succeed, not even in principle.

When I believed in a divine power that existed above and beyond the bounds of the natural world, arguments like these threatened my spiritual sensibilities. 

Now, I worship at the Altar of Reality. So I'm attracted to whatever brings me closer to what is real, even if these truths are difficult to accept. I'd prefer that a loving God was waiting to embrace my immortal soul after I die.

But what I prefer and what is real outside of my preferring brain often are very different things. We've got to choose which to pay the most attention to.

No dragon in the garage. Also, no God in heaven.

I so love it when someone writes a book that says stuff I've been saying on this blog for a long time. Except he says it even better. 

Which explains why I'm liking Paul Singh's "The Great Illusion: The Myth of Free Will, Consciousness, and the Self" so much.

Singh is a scientifically-minded professor of obstetrics and gynecology who was raised in the Sikh religious tradition, and believed in Indian forms of spirituality/healing for a long time.

Until, he saw the light of reality.

Here's an excerpt from his book that speaks to an oft-spoken theme in my blog posts. It is up to religious believers to offer evidence that God exists, not to skeptics to come up with evidence that God doesn't exist.

Carl Sagan's tale of "A fire breathing Dragon lives in my garage" is a perfect example of how those who make scientifically unfalsifiable claims try to shift the burden of proof to others by special pleading at every step of the way.

Someone tells you there is a dragon in his garage. So you take a look in the garage and you don't see any dragon. He tells you the dragon is invisible.

So you decide to spread some flour on the garage floor to detect the dragon's foot prints, but there are none. And so it goes. Your friend will always have an excuse as to why there is no evidence that there is a dragon in his garage.

You tell your friend that there is no evidence that there is a dragon in his garage. But he tells you that you can't prove there isn't. And he is right, you can't prove there isn't a dragon in the garage.

But that is precisely the point of Sagan's tale. The burden of proof is not on you to prove anything. The burden of proof is on the person who makes the claims about the dragon. It is his responsibility to provide evidence for the dragon.

And he can't provide any because there isn't any. And you can't prove his claim wrong because his claim is unfalsifiable. And it is unfalsifiable because it makes no predictions about what you will perceive when you look in the garage. 

Such unfalsifiable claims are nonsense.

This is how all superstition, pseudo-science, and religion works. Believers in such things make extraordinary claims that cannot be falsified. And when they are forced to admit that they don't have any evidence to support their claims, they respond by saying that you cannot prove that they are wrong.

But, again, the burden of proof is on the person making the extraordinary claim about miracles or UFOs or whatever to provide evidence for their claim. The burden of proof is not on the other person to prove them wrong -- something that is absolutely impossible to do given that their claim is unfalsifiable.

The take home lesson is that we should never believe a claim to be true simply because no one can prove it to be false. Theologians are experts at this kind of nonsense. 

Are delusional people making things up? Evidence shows that the human brain is universally delusional in many ways and therefore people who promote superstitions are not particularly more delusional than the rest of us.

It is just that examples of religious delusions are rather classic examples of how the brain creates illusions and delusions. The use of logic and scientific skepticism is a skill that can be used to overcome the limitations of our own brains. 

This skill is like any other skill such as learning to play the piano. It involves training in metacognition as well as basic education in all basic sciences.

The answer to "Does God exist?" must be "No"

I'd expect better from a professor of philosophy than William Irwin's poorly reasoned essay in the New York Times, "God is a Question, Not an Answer." 

I really have no idea how he can defend statements such as this:

Dwelling in a state of doubt, uncertainty and openness about the existence of God marks an honest approach to the question. There is no easy answer. Indeed, the question may be fundamentally unanswerable.

Huh, unanswerable? 

Here's how the question of the existence of God is answered: with the best evidence available. This is how we humans answer all questions. There's no other way. 

Yes, the history of science, indeed the history of everything, shows that answers often are wrong or incomplete. Aristotle famously thought that heavier things fall faster than lighter things. People believed this for a long time. 

Until Galileo came up with the bright idea of experimenting to see if the evidence fit the supposed fact. It didn't. So Galileo provided a better answer to the question of gravity. 

Which also was wrong in certain ways. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was a further advance in our understanding of gravity. So it would have been absurd for someone to say that "Gravity is a Question, Not an Answer."

Gravity is a question with different answers, depending on the state of knowledge and evidence at the time. Ditto with the question, Does God exist?

Except in this case the answer has always been the same: there is no demonstrable evidence that God exists. Likewise, there is no demonstrable evidence that fairies or goblins exist. Sure, there are myths about fairies and goblins, just as there are myths about God. 

Yet would any philosopher seriously argue that "Fairies are a question, not an answer"? We can be pretty damn sure that fairies are nonexistent, so there is no point debating any other questions about the nature of fairies. 

The only reason Irwin can have his essay published in the New York Times is that so many more people believe in the God myth, compared to the fairies myth. But a myth without any convincing evidence that it is true is still a myth, no matter how many people believe in it.

I enjoy reading the top-rated "readers' picks" comments on NYT essays like this one. They're always well-written and thoughtful. Here's #1 and #2 on Irwin's piece:

This atheist has no doubts. I don’t spare a thought for Zeus, or Baal or that Old Testament genocidal monster or any other fairy tale creature conjured up by illiterate iron-age tribal collectives to cement their authority and frighten the peasants.

The current trend is for atheists to say that we don’t claim that there definitely is no god, but that we have examined the evidence for god and find it unconvincing.

Sorry, but I say there is no god. It’s not merely about lack of evidence. It’s because the stories of miraculous visitations and resurrections and invisible worlds full of superbeings are patently absurd. If any of these things were true the world would have the consistency of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Everything we know about physics, biology, chemistry, cosmology and every other science would be wrong.

The appeal to agnosticism as the only logical position is insidious. Agnosticism has been a boon to theists because it raises the epistemological floor from “you must be kidding” to “you might be right” with no more effort than making an unprovable claim.

History is strewn with discarded gods that weren’t even there to receive the prayers of the faithful or the sacrifices that they made, sometimes at gruesomely high cost. It is an insult to our integrity as rational beings to sacrifice our self-respect on the altar of mindless credulity and superstition.

-----------------------------
"Any honest atheist must admit that he has his doubts, that occasionally he thinks he might be wrong, that there could be a God after all - if not the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, then a God of some kind."

This atheist has no doubt that God - of any kind - does not exist.

Why do believers feel they can speak for non-believers? (They don't.) It's a common, but empty, tactic when debating an issue - suggest your opponent doesn't really believe what he says.

Of course atheists can't prove that God doesn't exist. But that doesn't lessen our certainty. As Christopher Hitchens said, if something is asserted without evidence, it can be rejected without evidence.

The fact is, there is no evidence that a God of any kind exists. Maybe one day humans will dispense with belief in imaginary beings, and use the time they spent worshipping for more productive activities.

Belief in God fades away gradually for many atheists

Do you believe in God? 

This isn't an either-or question where the only possible answers are "yes" and "no." There are many shades of unbelieving and believing when it comes to God. 

Many outwardly religious people aren't inwardly sure whether God exists. This includes a surprisingly large number of clergy. 

Similarly, many atheists hold on to spiritual beliefs of one form or another, up to and including the possibility of a divine being or universal consciousness. 

Personally, I've found that after 35 years of being a believer in an Eastern/Indian variety of religion, then becoming a spiritual sceptic, I've gone through a slow but steady process of discarding religious beliefs, moving from the most obvious (like "God is guiding me") to the more subtle (like "Consciousness could pervade the cosmos").

So I resonated with quite a bit of what Elizabeth King said in her Washington Post piece, "I'm an atheist. So why can't I shake God?"

Although I’ve been a content atheist for a decade, somehow God has found a way to stick around in my mind. Not the God of the Bible who created heaven and Earth — the God that lingers with me is harder to explain. The best way I can think of to describe it is like a character from a movie that I’ve seen over and over, or like the memory of my first friends. He’s not real, but He’s present.

The idea of God pesters me and makes me think that maybe I’m not as devoted to my beliefs as I’d like to think I am and would like to be. Maybe I’m still subconsciously afraid of hell and want to go to heaven when I die. It’s confusing and frustrating to feel the presence of something you don’t believe in. This is compounded by the fact that the God character most often shows up when I’m already frustrated.

...If asked whether I believe in God, I would answer with a quick and emphatic “no.” But given that I will send a word up to a proverbial heaven if I’m on a turbulent flight, or silently ask that someone make sure my little niece and nephew stay safe, I can appreciate how some atheists may be inclined to say they believe.

...Boyer contends that there is not one part of the brain solely responsible for religious belief, but rather that the particular overlap of several cognitive systems renders religious beliefs desirable to, and easily accepted by, the human mind. This also means that when we opt for atheism, we are doing hard work to battle against what our minds are generally inclined and well-equipped to do: believe.

Great point. 

Religious people often consider that believing in God is difficult, requiring faith, courage, commitment. This is wrong. It is easy to believe. Evolution has hard-wired us for some form of belief in a supernatural being. 

I talked about this in "Religious believers are acting in accord with evolution."

Having arrived at a churchless view of reality, I'm amused when true believers accuse me of taking the easy way out by being a skeptic about God and other things divine'ish. They see religious belief as a courageous stand against rampant secularism -- a bold independent search for ultimate reality that transcends materialistic boundaries.

Actually, the truth is far different.

Religious belief is the default human condition. What takes courage, effort, and determination is going against the religious current that sweeps the vast majority of people into a faith-based ocean.

Interestingly, the evidence for this is scientific.

Evolutionary psychology has arrived at well-founded explanations for why religious belief is almost ubiquitous in cultures around the world. So those who decry the theory of evolution as undermining the Bible and other holy books are doing so because of evolutionary influences.

They can't help themselves.

Belief in the supernatural essentially is hard-wired into humans.

Thus it isn't surprising that, as King says in her piece, remnants of religious belief continue to rattle around in an atheist's brain even after the existence of God no longer appears at all likely.

I’m not sure what to do about God. If I could figure out a way to banish this figure from my psyche, I would. But psychology is not on my side. Having been conditioned to believe in God for so many years, and having a brain hard-wired for belief, I may be stuck with his shadow forever.

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!

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. 

"Faithless Feminist" speaks to irreligious women and men alike

My wife, Laurel, is an increasingly ardent scientifically-minded religious skeptic.

After starting a Meet Up discussion group here in Salem -- Science Minded Skeptics --  she's gotten to know Karen Darst, a Portland woman who runs the Faithless Feminist web site. 

Check it out. It isn't just for women, or feminists. I liked Garst's "The Devil Made Me Do It" post.

The whole idea of the devil is ridiculous, but the notion of an supernatural power in opposition to God (who is another absurd idea) can be found in Eastern as well as Western religions. 

For a long time I belonged to an Indian spiritual organization led by a line of gurus. They taught the existence of Kal, the Negative Power, who bore some resemblance to the Devil.

One weird thing, among many, about those teachings was that the human mind supposedly was the vehicle that allowed Kal to lead people astray. Yet the gurus used their minds to communicate words, concepts, arguments, and such about Kal to their disciple's minds. 

Well, one truth about religion is that it doesn't have to make sense to appeal to people. Here's some quotes from Garst's "The Devil Made Me Do It."

While this saying is often made in jest, the underlying meaning is much more sinister. It implies that there is either a supernatural entity or a cosmic force that preys upon humans to encourage them to commit heinous acts. The shooter in the recent tragedy at Umpqua Community College in Oregon is reported to have left a message on social media saying that he would be “welcomed in Hell and embraced by the devil.”

How can people believe in such a malevolent force if they also believe in an omniscient and all-powerful deity? How is the fear of evil used to motivate and control people to accept religious dogma? How does this concept of the devil and hell impinge on our ability to get at solutions to tragedies such as the one at UCC?

...But what if there is no cosmic evil force? How would our actions change?

Instead of stating as Jeb Bush did in response to the UCC shootings—stuff happens—maybe we would look harder for solutions and seek to understand the various factors at play in a tragedy such as that of UCC: identifying and providing support to youth, especially males, with tendencies toward violence or with mental health difficulties; examining how we can reach a compromise on gun control; looking at what in our culture leads to young males feeling they are victims or losers, etc. Yes, it would require more thinking than just saying—the devil made me do it—but we might actually prevent these acts from reoccurring.

"Pascal's Wager 2.0" -- an interesting read

Most people are familiar with Pascals' Wager. (If you aren't, I've written about it here and here.)


Pascal's basic idea was that it makes sense to believe in God, because if you're right the benefits are eternal and unlimited, while if you're wrong you lose nothing.

(Or very little. Such as listening to a bunch of boring sermons and not eating meat on Fridays.)

Over on the New York Times web site, there's an interesting piece by a philosophy professor, Gary Gutting. In "Pascal's Wager 2.0" he argues that doubting God is a better bet than denying God.

The wager requires a choice between believing and not believing. But there are two ways of not believing. I can either deny that God exists or doubt that God exists. Discussions of the wager usually follow Pascal and lump these two together in the single option of not believing in God.

They don’t distinguish denying from doubting because both are ways of not believing. The argument then is about whether believing is a better option than not believing. My formulation of the argument will focus instead on the choice between denying and doubting God.

Denial of God means that I simply close the door on the hope that there is something beyond the natural world; doubt may keep that door open. I say “may” because doubt can express indifference to what is doubted. I don’t know and I don’t care whether there is an even number of stars or whether there are planets made of purple rock.

Indifferent doubt is the practical equivalent of denial, since both refuse to take a given belief as a viable possibility — neither sees it as what William James called a “live option.” But doubt may also be open to and even desirous of what it doubts. I may doubt that I will ever understand and appreciate Pierre Boulez’s music, but still hope that I someday will.

Well, at first I was pretty much on board with Gutting. But after reading his entire essay, and some of the intelligent reader comments (check out the "reader's picks"), his arguments came to seem weaker to me.

Gutting's distinction between atheism and agnosticism, which seems to basically line up with denying and doubting -- atheists deny, agnostics doubt -- is spurious.

As I've noted many times before on this blog, I don't know any atheist who wouldn't be convinced of God's existence if there was highly persuasive demonstrable evidence of this. Atheists like me aren't 100% sure that God doesn't exist. We're just highly confident, given the lack of positive evidence that God is real.

So I'd say that virtually every atheist is a doubter, not a denier. Meaning, atheists don't deny that there is some possibility that God exists. They simply strongly doubt this is true.

Further, I'd be overjoyed to learn that God is real and I'm going to spend eternity in a really nice heaven. So nice, I won't be bored with it, even if I'm there for forever. 

I'm pretty sure most atheists feel the same way.

Who wouldn't like to be proven wrong about God, if this means both life and the afterlife are going to take on a much more pleasurable appearance? This assumes, of course, that God is a good guy/gal/sexless being. 

If God is a nasty piece of shit who enjoys seeing people suffer -- not a bad hypothesis, actually, given the way the world is -- then it is great news that this God doesn't exist. 

Anyway, give "Pascal's Wager 2.0" a read. Make up your own mind about Gutting's arguments. Then scan the reader's picks comments. New York Times subscribers always leave thoughtful comments that often are better than the piece being commented on.

Here's a few comment samples:

Professor Gutting writes that belief in God's existence enables people to "find a higher meaning and value to their existence by making contact with a beneficent power beyond the natural world." What is his evidence that God is beneficent? He is ignoring the evil in the world. Even if God were beneficent, what is Professor Gutting's evidence that believing in God provides people with a higher meaning and value to their existence? It may for some people, but not for others.

Professor Gutting adds that "we have good reason to expect much greater happiness if there is a beneficent power we could contact." What is his evidence for that? Maybe God's beneficence won't affect me personally. Or maybe it would increase my happiness just a little and not make it "much greater."

Professor Gutting, like all believers, is just making stuff up.

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More nonsense from Gutting.

We should "hope" that there's a god? Why? God, based on man's made-up descriptions of him, is cruel, capricious, arbitrary, violent, and perverse. We should "hope" that there's NO god. And that's before even factoring in the evils of self-interest and self-indulgence inherent in the concept of "heaven" and "god's goodness."

If Gutting wants "meaning," there is plenty of it in the real world; we do not need fantasies and fairy tales to create meaning. People need help and care, communities need development, the natural world needs protection, human relationships need improvement; and the world needs progress and enlightenment. There can be found enough "meaning" in seeking these paths as would fill a million million lifetimes.

Let's just drop the supernatural, superstitious pablum once and for all, and deal with what actually exists in reality: an often terrible, often beautiful, always imperfect world.

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Atheism is not a form of belief. It is the absence of belief. I think it was Sam Harris that said calling atheism a belief is like calling not collecting stamps a hobby. Also, I fail to see how agnosticism is closer to science than atheism. We all acknowledge that there could be a God since the concept is not falsifiable. If simply believing makes it so, than anything I believe in can become real, whether or not it is so. So how is this more like science?

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Aside from the fact that God appears to be a psychotic monster in his disregard for human suffering, the evidence for his existence is entirely apocryphal. This raises several issues. First, who would want to make contact with such a creature? The ways in which he works are supposed to be mysterious, but they're mysterious in the same way that randomness is mysterious. Further, the "evidence" for god appears to come from some misfiring of our human presumption that there is a human-like cause behind all phenomena.

There is no good reason for engaging in any wager about the benefits or even the physical reality of such a being. When there are sightings of Elvis we don't make such wagers. We dismiss the claimants as deluded and get on with our lives.

God belief says nothing about reality, but it says a lot about our psychology. We've only recently evolved from creatures who instinctively revere the alpha male. He's the smartest and the strongest. He doles out rewards for good behavior and punishes transgressors. We're careful not to challenge him, so we abase ourselves before him and tell him that we are unworthy. These tendencies are in our DNA, shared by our ape cousins to this day. They don't have the language to create metaphors and poetry to personify this instinctive imperative, but we do, and we call it God.

It's one thing to lose money on a bad bet. It's quite another to wager your intellectual integrity on a chimp's fantasy.

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I understand from whence cometh Gutting's argument. I long ago gave up on God, but I find value in the teachings of Jesus and Buddha: values for living a worthwhile life, and values that increase my spiritual connection with the universe. People often mistake me for a Christian, but I tell them "No, I'm not. I know too much to believe the fairy tales of that religion; however, I do assess my life by the words of Jesus and Buddha, both of whom tell us to eschew a material-centered life and care for our fellow humans and refrain from activities that might soil our being and reduce our ability to be a good person." I try, not always successfully, to do that.

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Atheism derives from what one knows: One knows that no evidence of God's existence has been found. An atheist does not assert definitively that God does not exist, because to assert it definitively would require a leap of faith. We cannot prove the non-existence of God. But an atheist will not take seriously the possibility that God exists until evidence turns up.

We cannot prove the non-existence of unicorns, flying pigs, or the tooth fairy either. Therefore, we should not deny their existence. But that doesn't mean we should be agnostic about them. Agnosticism implies that we take their existence seriously.

 

A must read for the churchless: "Faith No More"

Short. Sweet. Persuasive. There's a lot to like about a piece in the Milwaukee Magazine, "Faith No More," by Mario Quadracci.

Download Faith No More PDF (in case the piece ever disappears from the magazine's web site)

Quadracci nails a theme that I like to harp on also. It isn't up to atheists to prove that god and supernaturalism don't exist; it is up to theists to prove that god and supernaturalism do exist. He writes:

I could try to convince you that we reside in a purely naturalistic universe. I could attempt to demonstrate the human authorship of all of history’s gods and the holy books ascribed to them. I could labor to show the historical, scientific and logical fallacies of many of religion’s claims. All of this could be done.

But these aren’t the reasons I abandoned my belief in God. The reason has nothing to do with the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity. They have only solidified my position. The reason I’m an atheist has everything to do with the entire lack of evidence for a god.

Theism makes a positive claim about the nature of reality: “God exists.” Atheism is simply the lack of that belief. Atheism makes no claims. Therefore, the burden of proof falls exclusively on the theist. Yet, the fact that we continue to debate the topic of God’s existence proves theism has thus far failed its probative responsibility.

Certainly, if God manifests himself in reality, we should be able to detect him in some way. If he doesn’t, then he would be indistinguishable from nonexistent and should be treated accordingly. Yet, no one, ever, not even once, has been able to demonstrate anything supernatural. And so we are told to take it on “faith.”

Read the entire short essay. It's excellent. 

As are many of the comments on the piece. Here's selected parts of an interchange between several commenters, including Quadracci, that I particularly enjoyed. I've corrected a few spelling errors.

Jeff Norman: 
I liked the first half of this story. In particular, I liked that Quadracci wrote, "Atheism is simply the lack of...belief [in God]. Atheism makes no claims."

Pity that he then goes on to make a whole host of claims—starting with the assertion that faith is "intellectually dishonest" and going on to indict the religious as being responsible for most of the world's problems. And most ironic of all, he proselytizes for the atheism he'd said makes no claims, stating that he wants to "plant the seed of doubt in someone's mind...[and] move another person away from superstition."

I'm not sure how that's any different from someone with a tie and a Bible showing up telling me how to think. As an atheist myself, I strongly dislike the arrogance of many publicly outspoken atheists, who seem to have made a new religion of their beliefs. I wish Quadracci had acted in accordance with the idea that "atheism makes no claims": it's a description, not a position. It's entirely possible to reject the claim of divine reality without insulting those who still accept it.

Jeff Ferris:
I'm an atheist, I make no claims. But I do desire evidence. Why is that a contradiction? Why cannot I not, when told of the "beauty of god", ask for someone to provide evidence? Should I keep silent, allowing the claim to be interpreted as fact, then taught as dogma? Would you apply the same argument to any other claim, such as politics, where a conservative position should never be challenged by a progressive because it might insult the conservative? When my kid's school district wants to celebrate a god, should I be silent unless I offend someone?

Voice Sanity:
Jeff Norman: "Pity that he then goes on to make a whole host of claims—starting with the assertion that faith is 'intellectually dishonest' and going on to indict the religious as being responsible for most of the world's problems."

You are confused. Theism and theists make claims, claims that go on for all eternity it seems. There are libraries full of them, people spend their lives making these claims and even interrupt you on the street and knock on your door to make them.

And there isn't even a wisp of evidence for any of this. If you'll accept claims without evidence, then why not accept this:

Xenu (/ˈziːnuː/), also called Xemu, was, according to Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, the dictator of the "Galactic Confederacy" who 75 million years ago brought billions of his people to Earth (then known as "Teegeeack") in a DC-8-like spacecraft, stacked them around volcanoes, and killed them with hydrogen bombs. Official Scientology scriptures hold that the thetans (immortal spirits) of these aliens adhere to humans, causing spiritual harm.

Might as well. Because evidence is how we decide what is really something to believe. You reject all other claims because of the lack of evidence. We reject yours for the same reasons.

Jeff Norman:
Voice Sanity -- Pretty sure I never said that theism doesn't make claims. Of course it does. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the way Quadracci moves from *rejecting* those claims (perfectly fine - and I'm in agreement with him there) to making claims of his own *on behalf of atheism*, as if it, too, is just another belief system. It's not: It's not about "belief" at all, but about (as you note) what there is and is not evidence for. But see, just as I don't come knocking on your door arguing my beliefs that (say) Roger Daltrey's singing on The Who's 'Quadrophenia' is the best male rock vocal performance ever...same thing: it's when Quadracci gets on the case of people who are just living their lives that he bugs me.

Mario Quadracci:
Mr Norman, beliefs and the processes we use to ascertain and hold them inform our actions and dispositions. Therefore I have a huge problem with people's claims about "knowledge" gained through simple assertions based on books written by people for whom the hammer was emerging technology. I just don't think it's a valid method to explain the beginning of the cosmos by appealing to a story that must be true in order to validate the feeling of Jesus in someone's heart. That is not an honest exploration of reality.

Also, I am not synonomous with atheism so the claims I make (faith is intellectually dishonest etc.) are not being made by atheism they are being made by me who counts atheist amongst a wide array of descriptive language about myself. You are right in that I could have ended the story at "Atheism makes no claims," and in a way I adopted some burden of proof when I expressed my views on faith. But that's a whole lot different than writting "atheism is the belief no gods exist." As for my burden of proof here, I don't think it's an immense challenge to defend the proposition that faith is dishonest etc. I welcome any debate on this.

Tjaart Blignaut:
Jeff Norman -- the problem is that people of faith do claim to know things they cannot possibly know, like how the universe was created. We don't need to put on velvet gloves just because there is a perception of atheists as being annoying or constantly picking fights. No matter what we do we will be perceived negatively. If we are too nice we will be accused of trying to be manipulative. I don't think this is a fight we can win.

As for Dawkins, I have to come to his defense despite his many mistakes. If someone didn't come out and say it boldly like The God Delusion did, nobody would be questioning their strongly held beliefs. Yes we have a voice, but if we are too quiet nobody will listen. Not everybody needs to rock the boat, but I think you owe some empathy to those who do. Understand their goal of starting the conversation without just being ignored. 

Aliens test the faith of Earth's religious believers

So here's a thought experiment to ponder, religious believers...

Aliens have come to Earth. They're from an advanced civilization in a galaxy far far away. Their spaceship is way beyond anything our scientists have even imagined. 

Technologically, it's immediately apparent that we are as sophisticated in their eyes as a chimpanzee with a termite-removing twig is to us. 

Fortunately, the aliens haven't come to destroy humanity. Well, let's rephrase that: they're fine with destroying us Homo sapiens one at a time. It's part of a game they like to play with denizens of the planets they visit.

The rules are simple. They ask intelligent beings (though, obviously, nowhere near as intelligent as they are) questions about reality. 

Not super-tough questions. The aliens understand that few, if any, cultures on the worlds they visit possess knowledge about the cosmos that's anywhere near as complete as what they know. 

So their game is to quiz members of the most advanced species on this planet, Earth, about things we should know. The aliens are expert at gauging the overall planetary I.Q. of the worlds they visit.

What they like to do is test individuals on their knowledge base -- sort of like an educator with a Ph.D. quizzing pre-schoolers on what they should have learned about the world. 

Except, in this game a wrong answer has a nasty consequence: death. These aliens are like planetary ant farmers. Aside from simply being fun to them, their game ends up with a planet inhabited by the beings most knowledgeable about reality.

Which to them is an open book.

There's a few nooks and crannies of the cosmos they don't totally understand, but not many. So they play a fair game -- especially since they only ask questions of humans that people should know the answers to.

Called to play the game (naturally you don't have a choice), you're pleased to see that the first questions you're asked are easy to answer. 

Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. Photons move at the speed of light. Our planet is spherical, not flat. You're beginning to feel pretty confident about winning this game and staying alive.

Until you hear the final question: "Does the God you believe in actually exist?" 

The aliens know your religious beliefs. After all, they know virtually everything. It won't work to respond with "I don't believe in God." They know that you do. 

Your problem with this question, compared to the others, is that you had good reasons for answering the aliens' previous queries the way you did. Facts are facts. A religious belief though... that's very different. 

The aliens are waiting for your answer.

You're tongue-tied, but your mind is racing. After all, for as long as you can remember you've been sure that God exists. Your faith is super strong. You've had no doubt, none at all, that the God of your religion is the most real entity in the cosmos.

Yet here you are, faced with aliens who know the truth about God in the same way they know the truth about every other significant fact about reality. There's no way to argue with them. They know if the God you believe in exists. 

What's your answer? Yes or No. Choose the wrong answer and your life is over. (The only upside is that you've learned whether your God is real before you die; the downside is that you're dead.)

Of course, the aliens could ask a similar question of human atheists: "Does any God actually exist?" We'd find it easier to answer, though, since the evidence points to "No." Religious believers are the ones who will have a much tougher time with "Does the God you believe in actually exist?"

So how would you respond deeply religious person? Are you willing to stake your life on your belief, knowing that the aliens possess the factual answer? 

Five criteria for a "God theory" that religions fail

Science rocks. Religion sucks. 

I'm only a few chapters into a new book by evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne, "Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible." But it's pretty darn clear that those four words are a good summary of his thesis.

Which I totally agree with. 

Coyne has no patience for accommodationists who believe that science and religion are somehow complementary, offering up different ways of understanding the cosmos that, when combined, produce more knowledge than either science can alone.

In a summary of what the book is about, Coyne writes:

I also take up the notion of "other ways of knowing": the contention that science isn't the only way of ferreting out nature's truths. I'll argue that in fact science is the only way to find such truths -- if you construe "science" broadly.

...I will have achieved my aim if, by the end of the book, you demand that people produce good reasons for what they believe -- not only in religion, but in any area in which evidence can be brought to bear. I'll have achieved my aim when people devote as much effort to choosing a system of belief as they do to choosing their doctor.

I'll have achieved my aim if the public stops awarding special authority about the universe and the human condition to preachers, imams, and clerics simply because they are religious figures. And above all, I'll have achieved my aim if, when you hear someone described as a "person of faith," you see it as criticism rather than praise.

There's a great passage in the book that Coyne introduces in this fashion:

...Religions make explicit claims about reality -- about what exists and happens in the universe. These claims involve the existence of gods, the number of such gods (polytheism or monotheism), their character and behavior (usually loving and beneficent, but, in the case of Hindu and ancient Greek gods, sometimes mischievous or malevolent), how they interact with the world, whether or not there are souls or life after death, and, above all, how the deities wish us to behave -- their moral code.

These are empirical claims, and although some may be hard to test, they must, like all claims about reality, be defended with a combination of evidence and reason. If we find no credible evidence, no good reasons to believe, then those claims should be disregarded, just as most of us ignore claims about ESP, astrology, and alien abduction.

After all, beliefs important enough to affect you for eternity surely deserve the closest scrutiny. Christopher Hitchens was fond of saying that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." His inevitable corollary was that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." The philosopher L.R. Hamelin describes what happens when we apply science to the existence of God, stipulating five criteria for the "God theory."

Here's the Hamelin passage. I think it's wonderfully brilliant and persuasive. Deal with these criteria, God-believers. You can't, but your failure will demonstrate why it makes no sense to believe in God.

First, we hypothesize that God is real, with real properties. Second, we create a theory about what a real God and HIs properties means. A God doesn't just sit there; what does He do? Third, we make this theory testable: we must be able to determine whether it is true or false. Fourth, we must test the theory by observation or experiment. Finally, we ensure the theory is parsimonious: that is, if we took out God, the theory wouldn't explain as much.

Once we have followed all these steps, we have a scientific theory that includes God, which we can test against what we actually observe.

But constructing this kind of theory of God puts believers on the horns of a dilemma. Centuries of scientific investigation show that the best scientific theories, testable by observation, include nothing like a personal God. We find only a universe of blind, mechanical laws, including natural selection, with no foresight or ultimate purpose.

Alternatively, a believer could reject one or more of the criteria for a God theory, but doing that has profound implications.

If she admits that God is not real, she's already an atheist. If she says God doesn't do anything, who cares? If her theory cannot be tested at all, then there's no way of telling if it's true or false. If her theory can be tested only by private revelation, not by observations available to everyone, she unjustifiably claims private knowledge. And if her theory is observationally identical to a theory that does not include God, then she's again an atheist, for a God who makes no difference is no God at all.

The only remaining question is whether some people would find this analysis useful, and I know many people who, applying this analysis, have abandoned their religion.

"A God That Could Be Real" doesn't seem very real

After spending half an hour or so perusing articles about, and reviews of, a book called "A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet," I've pretty much concluded that...

This God doesn't strike me as potentially real enough to buy what Nancy Abrams wrote.

But I'll give her credit for this: creativity, thought-provoking'ness, poetic prose, and a semi-gallant attempt to explain a God that is compatible with modern science.

Since I don't understand how her God is any different from the collective imagination of humanity, I don't feel like I can explain Abrams' conception of a divinity that doesn't exist as an objective reality, yet supposedly is real enough to be prayed to.

So I'll just point to what I found interesting and intriguing, though not quite enough to buy the book. (I might change my mind, though.) 

I started out reading a Salon piece by Abrams, "You're praying to the wrong God: What organized religion gets wrong about prayer."

We have learned from the evangelicals in Luhrmann’s study that if we are motivated enough, it’s possible to train our minds to experience whatever we believe is real. What if we directed toward the real universe and the emerging God even a fraction of the effort that millions of religious people make every day to experience the presence of their image of God?

Then I checked out the book's Amazon listing, focusing on the reader reviews. Here's part of a negative one.

This is embarrassingly bad. I had hoped that this might deserve an in-depth critique, but such aspiration vanished in the first 40 pages. PZ Myers has sliced and diced this pretty effectively over at his blog (Pharyngula), so I'll be brief. I skipped a bit, so I apologize for any errors.

The author -- an atheist, or at least an apatheist -- suffers from an eating disorder, and is impressed by the fact that in a self-help group that she joins, the people who put their trust in a "higher power" seem to do well. Rather than wondering about the psychosocial aspects of this observation, she feels compelled to find out if there's any natural phenomenon which would fit that description. She hypothesizes that perhaps there is some entity that is "emergent" from human consciousness, and opines that such an entity might be "worthy" of the term "god".

Now she provides no evidence for the existence of such an entity, nor does she attempt to explain what "emergence" might involve. She seems to view emergence as a mysterious process that requires no explanation -- a bit like the Gaia hypothesis, or some of Deepak Chopra's quantum nonsense.

Naturally I then had to read how PZ Myers "sliced and diced" A God That Could Be Real.

A song that could be silent. An ocean that could be dry. How about a book that could be nothing but deepities? That last one exists: it’s called A God That Could Be Real: Spirituality, Science, and the Future of Our Planet by Nancy Ellen Abrams, and it’s one of the more empty-headed collections of glib clap-trap I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s also really hard to describe, because the contents are so slippery.

...In other words, she recognizes that there is no good reason and no respectable evidence for believing in any of the existing religions, but she really, really wants to keep believing, so she’s going to go looking for a hook to hang the label “God” on. I could have spared her the effort of writing a whole book on this nonsense: get a sharpie and a piece of cardboard, write GOD on it, and then tape it on some random object that will then become the focus of your reverence. It’s easy, and just as useful.

I looked for a cogent review of the book, but couldn't find one. A Publisher's Weekly piece was more descriptive than review'y. 

Abrams, a lawyer and coauthor of books on cosmology (The New Universe and the Human Future), had long-standing disdain for organized religion and oversimplified approaches to faith and God. But a personal crisis with an eating disorder prompted her to deeply rethink her views about God and religion.

She came to understand God as something consistent with what is real in the universe. “God persists and always will because it’s a fundamental characteristic of the connection between ourselves and the universe,” Abrams writes.

She argues that God emerges in the world through the human mind and that humans have the responsibility to create a better world for themselves and future generations. She urges readers to pay close attention to climate change and the destruction of the planet.

Prayers are answered, she maintains, and yet no one is there to hear them. Much is possible for the planet and its people, she concludes, and she “want(s) to conserve this divine explosion of possibilities.” This book will appeal to scientifically minded readers and those intrigued by process theology.

A question about "God's creation" for religious believers

I have a question for religious people: most religions believe that God or some other divine being created the universe. Which, naturally, includes Earth.

I read a lot of science books. I'm not expert in the details of cosmology and evolution, but I'm familiar with the broad outlines of these fields. I know how much solid evidence supports certain basic facts.

Such as...

The universe started off in a big bang some 13.8 billion years ago. Stars and galaxies eventually came into being, along with our sun and the solar system. 

Chance, in the form of countless unpredictable chaotic deterministic events, led to the formation of Earth. The orbits of planets in our solar system have been much different in the past than they are now, and those orbits are continuing to change.

Earth was hit by a very large object fairly early on in its history, which caused the Moon to be formed. Other objects have impacted Earth over billions of years, leading to mass extinctions of the life forms existing at the time.

All life existing now on Earth has a common ancestor. Almost certainly this is a single-celled organism, such as a bacteria. The relatedness of humans to other species is evident in our DNA. Our ancestors include not only bacteria, but fish, birds, and mammals.

Before Homo sapiens came to be the only Homo species, quite a few other species closely related to us (such as Neanderthals) existed. Human DNA reveals that our Homo sapiens ancestors interbred with some of these species, leaving genetic traces that are evident in our cells today.

At one point the number of Homo sapiens dwindled from thousands down to a few hundred. If these early humans hadn't survived, our species wouldn't exist now. Neanderthals or some other Homo species would.

I could go on in this vein, but I've described enough to ask my question of religious believers.

Given all of this scientific knowledge about how the universe, Earth, and humans came to be, how is it possible for you to believe that God or some other divine being created all of this?

What plausible story do you have for creation that incorporates what I've broadly outlined above? What sort of God or other supernatural entity would utilize natural mechanisms for bringing about the supposed creation of everything that has existed, and does exist, in the cosmos?

It sure seems to me like religions either have to ignore scientific facts (which many do), or twist "divine will" into an exceedingly bizarre shape. Meaning, if divine will is equated with the evident laws of nature that have led to the world we have now, why bring God into an act of creation at all? 

I've never come across an answer to my question that even begins to make sense to me. Maybe some reader of this blog will be able to share one. I'm waiting...

Best statement about reality, in just thirteen words

Back in 2006, I called my post about it "The best one-sentence metaphysics ever written." I still feel that way. But if anyone has another contender for this honor, share it in a comment.

Dick's adage came to mind today when I gave some thought to another quotation by Gregory Bateson that I see mentioned fairly often in science books.

Information is a difference which makes a difference.

So let's ponder the notion of "God" a bit from the perspectives of what Dick and Bateson said. Or, if you like, of supernatural religiosity in general.

What difference does the divinity so many people believe in make in their lives? I'm not talking about their belief in God/divinity, but the reality that "when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

I talked about this in my original post about Dick's quote.

Out of the corner of my eye I can see a white hold-the-newspaper-down rock on the patio table where my laptop sits. Whether or not I believe in the rock, it’s there. My wife senses it too. So does everyone else who walks onto our deck. The rock is real, no doubt about it.

On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve thought once about God today. Certainly not this evening. I was focused on playing ball with our dog, eating dinner, and then watching a recording of the Oregon State—Boise State football game. 

God hasn’t been in evidence, unlike the rock. Ditto for Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Holy Spirit, Tao, Big Foot, Godzilla, King Kong, and every other entity that requires a thought to bring it into existence. Beliefs are sustained by thoughts. No thoughts, no beliefs. (Or so I believe; I could be wrong; but even if there is such a thing as a thoughtless belief, I’ll bet that it was born through thought).

Religious believers sustain their faith through (duh...) believing. Without concepts, thoughts, ideas, emotions, and such, God or some other form of divinity fails to exist.

So when religious people talk about God making a difference in their lives, that actually isn't true. Their believing brain is what makes the difference. No beliefs, no difference.

Sure, religious believers feel good when they worship; they are uplifted by their rituals; they get consolation from the words in holy books. And so on, and so on. All of these positive feelings arise from thoroughly worldly experiences.

Being in a church. Taking part in a ritualistic action. Reading books. Sensing a supposedly sacred object or person. 

These are part of the reality Dick speaks of which doesn't require belief to exist. These things don't go away when belief does (though the inner experience associated with them likely will change). God, though, does go away when believing in divinity disappears.

There's nothing wrong with believing. We all believe in things that aren't objectively true, because doing this makes us feel subjectively good. Believing is part of being human.

However, we should keep in mind that everything within our mind isn't part of objective reality. That's the beauty of Philip K. Dick's one-sentence metaphysics -- perhaps better termed ontology.

It reminds us that not believing in something is the best way to determine whether it is part of the reality outside our own head. 

For example, stand on a first-floor balcony and get yourself to believe that an invisible floor extends beyond the railing. Which is equivalent to not believing in falling through empty space. Then jump off the railing. See what happens.

If you fall to the ground, hopefully without breaking any bones, you've learned something about the reality that doesn't go away when you stop believing in it. 

You can do the same with God, of course.

Stop believing in God. I've done this, as have many others. What I've found is that nothing changes. Nothing went away, other than my belief in God. Because, I'm quite sure, there is no God outside of human belief.

It's stupid to say "God is everything"

Everything is God. God is all there is.

As soon as I got to those words in a piece I came across, "Why Your Version of God is the Right One...for YOU," I knew that I'd disagree with the rest of the article.
Download Why Your Version of God is the Right One…for YOU – Fractal Enlightenment

It's meaningless to say God is everything. That's the same as saying God is nothing. If there is no way to distinguish something called "God" from everything else in existence, then God doesn't exist.

Just call everything by a more accurate name. Here's one good idea: everything. Or existence. Or reality. 

There's no need to add an empty conceptual layer by callling everything, or all there is, by another name: God. 

The author of the piece, Nikki Sapp, says:

Everything is God. God is all there is. Just let that sink in for a second. There is no other material or fabric to make anything in this universe out of other than the fabric of God. Every person, every leaf on a tree, every planet, it’s all God. Nothing can exist independently of God since it would be impossible for something to exist that is not made from the only material there is to make anything out of.

I have no idea what Sapp is talking about. But whatever it is, I'm sure it appeals to many New Age types who aren't bothered by empty ideas.

Let's substitute two of my suggested words for Sapp's "God." Nothing can exist independently of reality. Hard to argue with. Ditto for Nothing can exist independently of everything.

The bullshit arises when an extra extraneous word, "God," is introduced as a synonym for reality and everything.

Sapp's God has no attributes, because for her there is no difference between God and everything in existence. This allows her to argue that, since everybody looks upon the world in a unique way, there are 7 billion ways of looking upon God -- one for each person on Earth.

There is no “right” way or “wrong” way to experience God. Even if a person chooses to exist in a reality where God does not exist, such as an atheist, this is not wrong either. They are just choosing to experience God in a “non-God” way. Another person may choose to experience God in a way that their God punishes them for sinning and blesses them for resisting temptation, this is also not wrong.

,,,Since there are over 7 billion people living on the planet, there is 7 billion different ways to experience God. And even though there are groups of people that may experience or see their God in a similar fashion, no one person will experience God in the EXACT same way as the next person, because God is a completely personal experience.

Well, it is more accurate to say, Every person has personal experiences. Again, there's no need to bring a notion of God into it.

Strangely, Sapp contradicts what she said above just a few paragraphs further on. After telling us that there is no right or wrong way to experience God, she reverses course by describing some wrong ways.

It doesn’t really matter which spiritual teacher we choose but almost all say the same thing. God is within us. God is not separate from us. This isn’t something that we just can know and that’s it, but it is a level of consciousness that we must reach.

This is why so many of us can intellectually know this, but we still seem to get caught up in the trivialities of everyday life. We still get angry when someone cuts us off on the road, we still worry about getting our bills paid on time, and we still get slightly perturbed when someone tries to push their version of God on to us.

If we TRULY were existing at the level of consciousness that we KNEW we were God, things like traffic jams and bills and hearing other people’s views on religion probably wouldn’t have the power to upset us in the slightest way.

Hmmmm. If God is a completely personal experience, I should be able to experience God by getting pissed off by bad drivers, having to pay bills, and reading ridiculous stuff like Sapp's views about God.

How does Sapp know what truly knowing God is like? Didn't she just say that each of us was free to have our own unique way of knowing God, since God is everything?

Religions are ridiculous. New Age crap like this piece -- also ridiculous.

Halfway through "Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart," I love this book

With Christmas just a couple of weeks away, it's time to start thinking about what to get your atheist friend who, of course, doesn't believe in Christ (but still enjoys giving and receiving presents).

Here's a book idea: Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart: Rewriting the Ten Commandments for the Twenty-first Century, by Lex Bayer and John Figdor. 

Yeah, it's a bit spendy, even in the Kindle version.

That didn't stop me from getting a copy, though, because I was fortunate to get a free one from a publicist who thought churchless me would enjoy the book and write a review of it.

I am indeed liking the book. A lot. Here's a down payment on a full review.

I've read about half of it -- the introduction and Part 1: A Framework for Facts. Part II: A Framework for Ethics awaits my next morning pre-meditation reading sessions. Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart is one of the best-written explanations for why atheism makes sense I've ever come across. 

And believe me, my bookshelves are filled with a lot of other books in this genre.

The notion of writing some "ten commandments" for atheists is genius. Bayer and Figdor correctly say that while atheists are notorious for not believing in something most people do believe in, God, many people think that atheists are amoral, with an anything-goes who-gives-a-shit view of ethics.

This isn't true, of course. As the book's title says, an atheist mind usually goes along with a humanist heart. Which brings to mind an anecdote from my college days.

In 1968 I spent the second semester of my sophomore year at San Jose State College with a small group of students and professors in Zadar, Yugoslavia. I was a long-haired existentialist hippie at the time (well, I still am, just a old one now).

I remember being invited to talk to some local students with a good grasp of English. They asked me some questions about how I looked upon the world, and indeed the cosmos. After I'd held forth for a while, the group's leader said, "So it sounds like you are a humanist, yes?"

Rather embarassingly, I didn't really know what a humanist was. But I recall saying "yes," since humanist sounded like something I certainly could be. After all, I didn't believe in God, but I did believe in humanity.

Most people have about as good a grasp of what "humanism" means as I did back then.

So this book fills a void by systematically laying out an approach for deciding what is important to those for whom religion isn't. These folks are called atheists and agnostics. I agree with the authors that these terms essentially are synonymous.

Atheists do not believe in a God or gods. Agnostics say they don't know whether a God or gods exist, and many go further to say that the existence of a deity or deities is unknowable. On first glance, it may seem as if these are two distinct categories, but it is actually possible for one person to be both an atheist and an agnostic. In fact, it's extremely common.

The reason relates to an oft-repeated adage on this blog: nothing is 100% certain (basic message of my blog post, "Keep open a crack in your belief system"). The authors go on to say that even about something so seemingly certain as your age, how old you are:

...you would probably have to admit that, yes, there was a tiny chance that you were wrong, a chance that's so small that it wasn't worth mentioning.

That is how most atheists feel about God.

Most agnostics have views that are impossible to distinguish from most atheists, but they choose to emphasize the doubt, while the atheists choose to emphasize their confidence. That is why it is possible and common for an atheist to also be an agnostic and an agnostic to also be an atheist. Each has simply chosen to emphasize a different aspect of his or her belief.

The commonality between the beliefs of atheists and agnostics is much greater than the differences. Both groups recognize that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and both agree that there isn't extraordinary evidence for the existence of God. 

The difference is that the atheist moves from the recognition that extraordinary evidence for the existence of God hasn't been presented to the confident (but not certain) belief that God probably doesn't exist.

Exactly. 

How, though, can the atheist be so confident in his or her belief that God likely doesn't exist? There's considerable truth in the religious retort, "Science and religion are both belief systems," which God-believers assume puts both on the same rung of the epistemological ladder. 

Bayer and Figdor spend the first part of their book showing why this assumption is wrong.

Yet, they say, we do need assumptions. Not source beliefs that are taken as givens ("God exists"), but provisional, alterable, evaluatable assumptions.

The approach of treating starting beliefs as assumptions removes the predicament of not knowing how to pick and choose between unjustifiable beliefs. If these beliefs are going to be rudimentary enough to form the basis of any belief system, no other system can be used to pick them because such a system would then become a core belief itself.

By adopting the notion of starting assumptions, there's no need to be forced to choose source beliefs. Rather, different combinations of these beliefs can be evaluated in light of the results they yield. 

As you will see, the heuristic of this book is that we need to be willing to reassess our lives with empirical checks. We need to continually test our assumptions rather than presuppose them. We must look at everything with fresh eyes and not adopt the biases of others.

There's a lot to unpack in that passage. The authors are Stanford guys. They don't talk down to the reader. In line with their theory of knowledge, they keep things as simple as possible, but no simpler than is necessary to cover all of the factual bases.

One reason for the principle of simplicity (a.k.a. Ockham's Razor) is that when probabilities are multiplied, the resulting "certainty number" gets smaller. For example, if the probability of the next person coming through a door being a female is 50%, the probability of her being a black female is lower.

Likewise, they say, if the probability of God existing is low, then the probability of the Christian God (or any other specific God) existing is lower. As is the probability of God having certain specific attributes such as omnipotence, omnipresence, or omnibenevolence.

So Bayer and Figdor build up their assumptions -- Ten Non-commandments -- in a simple yet rigorous fashion.

Here's the first six, which comprise the part of their book that I've read. I'll share the other four in another post after I've finished Atheist Mind, Humanist Heart.

1.  The world is real, and our desire to understand the world is the basis for belief.

2.  We can perceive the world only through our human senses.

3.  We use rational thought and language as tools for understanding the world.

4.  All truth is proportional to the evidence.

5.  There is no God.

6.  We all strive to live a happy life. We pursue things that make us happy and avoid things that do not.