Category Archives: Spirituality

Dr. Tiller and Satya

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It’s getting longer than I like between posts so I think I should write an update.

First of all I was totally saddened and PISSED at the murder of Dr. Tiller. Anyone who has seen my Facebook page knows this well. What upsets me the most is the cavalier and even sometimes gleeful attitude of some pro-lifers. As if they are saying “well, we don’t condone murder, but he had it coming.” In response, I have pledged $10 a month to Planned Parenthood for the next year–probably longer. I am utterly convinced that it was the hateful rhetoric of groups like Operation Rescue that killed him–not just some loner with a gun. It take everything in me to remind myself that most pro-life people are good people concerned with protecting babies, even if they have been badly misinformed about the facts around abortion and filled with the fore-mentioned hateful rhetoric.

And that brings me to my next thought. One of the teachers at Yoga East has been talking about a yama each week, and recently she brought up Satya. This is usually translated as truthfulness. Here is what a quick Google search brought up on the topic.

Satya (Truthfulness)
Satya means “to speak the truth,” yet it is not always desirable to speak the truth on all occasions, for it could harm someone unnecessarily. We have to consider what we say, how we say it, and in what way it could affect others. If speaking the truth has negative consequences for another, then it is better to say nothing. Satya should never come into conflict with our efforts to behave with ahimsa. The Mahabharata, the great Indian epic, says: “Speak the truth which is pleasant. Do not speak unpleasant truths. Do not lie, even if the lies are pleasing to the ear. That is the eternal law, the dharma.” Please note that this does not mean speak lie. Keeping quiet and saying lies are two different things.

(from http://yoga.iloveindia.com/limbs-of-yoga/yama.html)
 

[I should note here that I don't believe in holy scripture, and do not give special pleading to yoga philosophy. But just sometimes these old writings have some great concepts and this is one of those cases where I think they really got it right.]

I couldn’t help but think of Satya in the context of the debate over abortion and the murder of Dr. Tiller. I’ll give the Operation Rescue folks the benefit of the doubt, in that they really think they are speaking the truth when they call abortion murder and Dr. Tiller a murderer. I used to be on their side in the issue, too.  Abortion is a hard issue to deal with and is not something than anyone considers a good thing. Necessary sometimes, but not good. I cannot believe that they are really speaking the truth. Words that inspire people to murder and violence are not truth. Words that smear and vilify women who have found themselves confronting this horrible and painful decision do not express truth. Words that call a doctor who saves women’s lives a murderer are not truth.

Truth, whether it is pleasant or unpleasast, bring light and understanding to the subject at hand, not rage and violence. When the “truth” we speak creates more heat than light, we should reconsider our words and our attitudes.

Things I’ve Learned about Atheism

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There is a Barns and Noble bookstore within a couple minutes drive of my office, so from time to time I hang out there during my lunch break. Last Wednesday I went in and sat by the section in Philosophy with the books of atheism and reflected on some of the things I have learned about atheism in my 7 years of considering myself an atheist. Things I didn’t realize when I started out of this path. Continue reading →

Who get to decide what ‘faith’ means?

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Faith and religion are different things to different people. I’ve come to the conclusion that dictionary definitions are pretty useless to define faith, god, religion. The dictionary definition is only, at best, a snapshot of different ways people use a word at a particular point in time. And at worst, it shows the biases of the editing committee, or whoever writes those definitions. Therefore the dictionary is a useful guide, but not an authority.

And words like faith and religion, which are highly emotionally charged, have many different (possibly even contradictory) meanings to different people. Continue reading →

Numinous

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I’ve just gotten back from my first yoga class in a couple of weeks. There has been so much going on on my usual yoga days that I’ve hardly had the chance to go.

Wow, I’d missed it. I was starting to get stiff again, and I was also missing that stress relief.

Yoga is my spiritual practice. The time when I can let go and not worry about petty distinctions like whether or not an atheist can be described as ”spiritual” or whether the numinous can ever be described in theistic terms. All metaphorically, of course.

The Numinous. I love that word. It’s the sensation that I get when I contemplate that I’m a bunch of protein and fat and muscle and matter–but with thoughts, feelings, and consciousness. And a conscience, for that matter. It’s all so humbling and empowering at the same time it just blows my mind. An all-natural spiritual wonder.

Atheists and Religious Believers Talk Past Each Other

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I hear this from time to time. The believer says there is a God. The atheist says there is no God because there is no scientific evidence for God.

Here is my observation: For the most part the believers do not care about logical or scientific evidence.  They are going to believe anyway, and if they are presented with evidence they can’t rationalize they will just admit they don’t understand all that scientific or philosophical stuff. Continue reading →

What Meditation Means to Me

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When I meditate, this is what I do. I listen.

That’s probably too obscure, so I’ll explain what I mean. Think about a situation when you are listening to another person talk.  If you don’t stop talking yourself, and stop thinking about what you want to say next, you can’t really be listening to what they are saying. When I first started meditating a few years ago, I noticed how noisy my mind was. When I stopped to observe what was going on in my head, I found it was like a never-ending cacophony. One thought after another, without end. No wonder I was so distracted so much of the time.

Now I am a firm believer in reason, and I was concerned about the idea that it is ever good to stop thinking, even for a little while. Stop thinking? That is how you get drawn in to irrationality and woo-woo. Never check your brain at the door!

But meditation is not “checking your mind at the door.” Stopping thinking is more like stopping talking for a while so that you can hear what is going on around you. So you can really listen. And I find that when I have stopped the incessent internal conversation, and really listened to what is going on, both inside and outside myself, I am prepared to be even more rational than ever.  

With all the noise in my life, I really do enjoy the silence.

The Freedom of Atheism

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I came to my own conclusions. And they are mine, not what someone else told me I must believe.

I was raised as a Christian in the Church of the Nazarene. My family regularly went to church three days a week, and rarely skipped a service. I remember loving church from a young age and when I was old enough I listened intently to the sermons both on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. I took what I heard there very seriously and was determined to be the best Christian I could be.

I continued with this attitude all the way to college age, where I decided, to the delight of my parents and my church, to attend Trevecca Nazarene University. Around that time I was already struggling with serious doubts, if not about the truth of Christianity, then about the strength of my own faith. As I was reaching my early twenty’s, a lot of things were starting to bother me–and I spent a lot of my spare time thinking and mulling it over. One could say I was obsessive about it. After all, I took it very seriously and believed it was really a matter of life and death that what I believed was true. Even after I first stopped believing I would not admit it to myself–I would write in my journal as list of “I believe” statements as if trying to convince myself that I really did believe. If I had doubts then the problem was with me and my weak and sinful mind, not with the truth of these statements.

This is in great contrast to how I think now as an admitted atheist. I don’t have a total handle on “the Truth” but that doesn’t bother me. I believe fervently that the universe is entirely natural and contains no supernatural or magical entities whatsoever. This does not mean I can’t recognise that I don’t have the means to prove this is true. But I don’t hold it dogmatically since as I see or hear convincing evidence or argument to the contrary I will change my belief.  What is true is true whether I believe it or not–though I am as certain as I possibly can be that a fiery fate does not await me after I die if I get my facts wrong (Hell just has that human revenge-fantasy ring to it. Heaven also seems to be so much wishful thinking.) I can follow any line of thought I wish and not worry about ‘falling away’ or committing blasphemy inside of my head.  I am happier now. My mind is free.

Spirituality for the Naturalist

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I think words can, and do, change from their original meanings. In fact, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online, the word “spirit” was derived from the Latin words for “breath” and “to breath.” Since a person’s spirit was considered to be his or her life, and an easy way to tell if someone is alive is by whether or not they are breathing, it makes perfect sense. The definition of “spirit” as in “the ghost in the machine” was forged in a time when it was assumed that the difference between living and non-living things was that living things contain some sort of supernatural “life force” (see “vitalism“) and non-living things did not. Continue reading →