Week in Review (September 2-6)
What Eastern Philosophy Knows, How Jesus Became God, 20 Things to Unlearn and What Happened to the Crash Test Dummies
I started this week with an article titled, Jesus and Buddha Walk into a Bar: Can you be Christian and Buddhist? Previously, I published an extensive article about Buddha in my philosophy series.
My post-Christian journey into discovering Eastern spirituality began many years ago at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Trappist, Kentucky, where I sometimes went to write. The Abbey was my introduction into silence, solitude, and contemplative spirituality. While browsing books in the Abbey library I discovered the writings of Thomas Merton.
Gethsemani was the home of Trappist monk, social activist and author Thomas Merton from 1941 until his death in 1968. He is buried at the Gethsemani Abbey. Merton was fond of Eastern Spirituality and through his writings, I began investigating the spirituality of the East.
I had the opportunity to spend time in Thailand, where 93% of the population follow Buddhism, and India, where 94% of the world’s Hindus live. Back in Nashville, I became close friends with a Buddhist scholar, as well as Imam Ossama Bahloul, Ph.D. Resident Scholar at the Islamic Center of Nashville. My personal exploration of Eastern Spirituality began with Mahayana Buddhism, Zen, Dzogchen, Advaita Vedanta, and Sufism.
After years of investigating Eastern spirituality and philosophy, here are a few observations I’ve made:
Eastern spirituality/philosophy is a useful deconstruction pathway that allows one to explore worldviews and spiritual frameworks beyond the traditional thinking and categories of Western religion. In my view, a spirituality informed solely by Western religion (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) is incomplete.
Too often Western philosophy essentially takes credit for understandings that have been present for ages in the East.. One example is Western philosophers thinking they discovered “process philosophy” or “monism”, which has been common knowledge for millennia in the East through teachings such as Pratītyasamutpāda.
Eastern spirituality/philosophy complements the current scientific understanding of the universe, as opposed to the material reductionism of the West.
Western religion struggles to conceive of ultimate reality/God outside the framework of theism: polytheism, monotheism, pantheism, panentheism, atheism, whereas Eastern spirituality/philosophy offers ways of understanding ultimate reality in transcendent but non-theistic ways.
That’s not to say that one should concede carte blanche everything to Eastern spirituality/philosophy. Humans do human things, including Eastern folk turning the Buddha’s insights and wisdom or Hindu philosophy into a religion. The same rules still apply - don’t accept anything by blind faith, don’t become beholden to any spiritual guru; use critical thinking, direct experience, intuition, and self-reflection as a guide.
Swami Sarvapriyananda is monk of more than 25 years in the Ramakrishna Order. He is the current minister and spiritual leader of the Vedanta Society of New York and one of three Hindu monastics in residence at Harvard Divinity School at Harvard University. Since “non-dualism” is staple of Eastern spirituality/philosophy, I figured I’d include a few YouTube videos by Swami if this sort of thing interests you:
This week I also published a master list of books and resources for those in the leaving-religion or religious deconstruction process. The article is titled, The Leaving-Religion Resource Guide: How to deconstruct religion, find existential health, be happy in life, and make the perfect cup of coffee. I forced myself to recommend only three books in each of the 15 categories.
There is downside to creating lists. For example, if you created a list like, “The Top 25 Films of All Time” or the “Top 25 Songs of All Time”, no one would be quite happy with the result, whatever method was used to determine them. I think The Disaster Artist is one of the greatest movies ever, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t even make it onto the top 1,000 list, and I’m sure all those Crash Test Dummies songs I loved so much won’t ever make it on any list. All that to say, I could have easily added an additional 5-10 notable and worthy books in each of the categories. By the way, the Crash Test Dummies are currently on tour.
So, since I’m a softy, I decided to add a short list here. Ten Deconstruction Books to Read After You’ve Read Everything on the Leaving-Religion Resource Guide:
Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
The Meaning of Human Existence by Edward O. Wilson
The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans
Become What You Are by Alan Watts
The Awakened Brain: The New Science of Spirituality and Our Quest for an Inspired Life by Lisa Miller
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee by Bart D. Ehrman
The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday
What Subscribers are Saying
Josie is referring to my recent article on Friedrich Nietzsche titled, The Perfect Murder: In Praise of the Most Notorious Criminal in Human History. Yes, I was dumb one to think I could somehow summarize the philosophical thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche in one post. I agonized over this piece, battled with a legion of neuroses, and questioned if I should just do a whole series on Nietzsche, yada-yada-yada. Anyway, I was super happy to see Josie’s comment about the piece, and my other “deconstructionology essays”. Thank you, Josie!
This Week in Pictures
NFL football is back and got off to a controversial game last night between the the Chiefs and Ravens. The Chiefs prevailed in wild ending as a Ravens TD waved off on final play. You be the judge.
Does anything more need to be said? The idea that God expects a woman to tolerate abuse in a marriage as an expression of religious devotion or obedience is absurd and toxic.
How I felt after my Friedrich Nietzsche article.
Five Interesting People
Here are five interesting people I’ve recently started following on Substack:
- - cognitive neuroscientist and author of The Romance of Reality
- - professor at California Institute of Integral Studies; write about process-relational philosophy
- - a cartoonist and writer for The New Yorker
- - inspiring creativity, writing and happiness
- - advocates and critiques secular humanism in the metamodern world
20 Destructive Things I Was Taught about God
God is up in the sky.
I am separated from God.
You find God at church.
God sees me as inherently bad.
God will make it better.
God’s kingdom is coming.
You know God through theology.
God is male.
God loves me because he has to.
I am never good enough for God.
God is Christian.
God sends most people to hell.
There is only one way to God.
Jesus saved me from God’s wrath.
The Bible is God’s only truth.
I am powerless without God.
God is my therapist.
All you need to know is trust and obey God.
I must deny myself to please God.
Don’t question God or his representatives.
In Summary
Western philosophy doesn’t realize that Eastern spirituality already figured things out.
The Crash Test Dummies sadly didn’t make any music list.
I added a few more books to my Leaving-Religion Resource List.
The religious deconstruction process involves a lot of unlearning.
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“Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.”
- Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Love your work, your service and how much we need you to regenerate a natural spirituality 🙏
Once again you have met me right where I am. Searching for the inner me I have been very wary of letting this walk become another rabbit hole led by a master bunny. I will be reading Thanks for your time