God Is Not 3 Guys

Dr. Thomas yelled, “Stand back!” as the patient’s chest jumped from a charge to jolt the heart muscle to its regular pace. This is a scene in Beyond Knowing by Janis Amatuzio, a forensic pathologist who challenges the assumption that modern science proves the non-existence of spiritual reality. As part of the staff anxiously watching the patient’s body filled with tubes and monitors, Amatuzio had no medical explanation for her next observation. Something happened that I still cannot explain. I saw, or more accurately felt, a shimmer of light in the corner of the room above the foot of the angiography table. I quickly looked to see if the pump team was using a lighting device that perhaps reflected off the wall, but they were not. I looked again, somewhat puzzled, and suddenly had the profound sense of a deep, overwhelming, calm presence, in stark contrast to the frantic activity in the room. It was unmistakable! I was amazed. Staring intensely at the ceiling, she wondered why no one e...

February 21, 2009 Among the presentations coming up for me is one exploring common ground between enlightened Christians and enlightened atheists. Helping me to do this are atheists who respect religion while criticizing its negatives, the same negatives observed by thoughtful Christians. The blogger ddjango offers a good example of spiritual atheism or secular spirituality. He invited me to write a guest post, but I'm afraid my post On Enlightenment on ddjango’s site became excessively abstract. Wondering whether it would speak to most people, I asked a friend to read it and tell me what she thought. Her answer is gratifying: AHHHH, Jeanette!! You give me such comfort!!! I loved reading your guest blog...and, in my opinion, the entry is a great deal like your book in that the reader must be a committed reader. He/she must be dedicated to learning, looking for answers and/or support for confusing thoughts that exist in himself/herself. Definitely NOT looking for an eas...

I swim in contrasting spiritual cultures—with those who are attached to religion and with those who are hostile or indifferent to religion. I reconcile them by keeping in mind an important distinction. Religion and spirituality are not the same thing, but they are often conflated. I think distinguishing between them could ease communication between two communities that chafe against each other. Spiritual experiences that happen to everyone are called religious, and this conflation of the two deprives those who want to avoid religion of appreciating their essentially spiritual nature. In a discussion with atheists, I asked whether they didn’t prefer kindness to cruelty. Yes, they said, but that’s not spiritual. Not spiritual! It reminds me of a government declaring, “We don’t torture,” and, when given an example of their torturing, simply changing the definition of torture. In my July 31 blog post, I cited a feature on artist Meinrad Craighead in the National Catholic Reporter , which s...

Carl Jung observed that traditional Christianity presents an imbalanced view of good and evil, because the menacing dark side of reality—evil—is glaringly absent in Christian God-images. By contrast, images in other religions acknowledge mysterious dark forces both positive and negative. For instance, the Hindu Goddess Kali represents darkness, violence, and annihilation, while also representing Ultimate Reality and Source of all. In Christian teaching, evil comes from a non-divine Source, but this denies that God is the Source of all. This one-sided view of reality also leads to denial of the shadow—that part of ourselves that we don’t want to look at . If Ultimate Reality brings only perfect sweetness and light, we want to avoid unpleasant realities. We strive for perfection and deny what we don’t like in ourselves. Nothing scares and repels us more than our own shadow, the disorderly, not nice feelings, desires, and drives that complicate our lives. And so we deny and repress them t...