"Atheism in the name of God "

[3bob]

An excerpt from Alan Watts: (going back a ways)

 

"...Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system. It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it. This can be most easily begun by listening to the world with closed eyes, in the same way that one can listen to music without asking what it says or means. This is actually a turn-on a state of consciousness in which the past and future vanish (because they cannot be heard) and in which there is no audible difference yourself and what you are hearing. There is simply universe, an always present happening in which there is no perceptible difference between self and other, or, as in breathing, between what you do and what happens to you. Without losing command of civilized behavior, you have temporarily "regressed" to what Freud called the oceanic feeling of the baby the feeling that we all lost in learning to make distinctions, but that we should have retained as their necessary background, just as there must be empty white paper under this print if you are to read it.

When you listen to the world in this way, you have begun to practice what Hindus and Buddhists call meditation a re-entry to the real world, as distinct from the abstract world of words and ideas. If you find that you can't stop naming the various sounds and thinking in words, just listen to yourself doing that as another form of noise, a meaningless murmur like the sound of traffic. I won't argue for this experiment. Just try it and see what happens, because this is the basic act of faith of being unreservedly open and vulnerable to what is true and real.

 

Certainly this is what Jesus himself must have had in mind in that famous passage in the Sermon on the Mount upon which one will seldom hear anything from a pulpit: "Which of you by thinking can add a measure to his height? And why are you anxious about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field, how they grow. They neither labor nor spin; and yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his splendor was not arrayed like any one of them. So if God so clothes the wild grass which lives for today and tomorrow is burned, shall He not much more clothe you, faithless ones? . . . Don't be anxious for the future, for the future will take care of itself. Sufficient to the day are its troubles." Even the most devout Christians can’t take this. They feel that such advice was all very well for Jesus, being the Boss's son, but this is no wisdom for us practical and lesser-born mortals. You can, of course, take these words in their allegorical and spiritual sense, which is that you stop clinging in terror to a rigid system of ideas about what will happen to you after you die, or as to what, exactly, are the procedures of the court of heaven, whereby the world is supposedly governed. Curiously, both science and mysticism (which might be called religion as experienced rather than religion as written) are based on the experimental attitude of looking directly at what is, of attending to life itself instead of trying to glean it from a book. The scholastic theologians would not look through Galileo’s telescope, and Billy Graham will not experiment with a psychedelic chemical or practice yoga. Two eminent historians of science, Joseph Needham and Lynn White, have pointed out the surprising fact that in both Europe and Asia, science arises from mysticism, because both the mystic and the scientist are types of people who want to know directly, for themselves, rather than be told what to believe..."

[Aaron]

I liked this a lot. Thanks for sharing. Don't allow society to decide what is real for you, but rather make that decision for yourself based on your own experience. Lao Tzu talked about this in the Tao Te Ching.

 

Aaron

[3bob]

Righto, I thought some folks here could relate to the quote. I don't completely agree with everything said in it but imo Watts does make some good points.

[Chang]

Thank you for posting this 3bob. Alan Watts is always worth revisiting.

[Rara]

Yes, for me, atheism IS a religion in itself. Atheists will be angered by this statement because the whole movement is there in order to defy religious, but the fact that it is in itself a belief system with some form of common ground between parties, shows more similarities with religion that anything!

 

The truly wise are the ones that avoid labels...as the personal journey cannot fit into any category. It is a unique experience due to the individual!

 

If somebody tells me that there is a God (and they had proof), who am I to disagree? And who am I to agree?

[Marblehead]

Oh, you didn't anger this Atheist. I chuckled and thought, "Here we go again." We recently had a discussion of whether or not Atheism is a religion.

 

I am convinced that it is not. The little I have read and been told of Alan, I think he has his philosophies all mixed up. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

 

The words "Atheism" and "God" have absolutely nothing in common. In fact, they are contradictory word/concepts. The only exception would be a sentence similar to "Atheists believe that no gods exist." Atheists do not believe in anything supernatural.

[Rara]

Oh, you didn't anger this Atheist. I chuckled and thought, "Here we go again." We recently had a discussion of whether or not Atheism is a religion.

 

I am convinced that it is not. The little I have read and been told of Alan, I think he has his philosophies all mixed up. Nothing wrong with that, I suppose.

 

The words "Atheism" and "God" have absolutely nothing in common. In fact, they are contradictory word/concepts. The only exception would be a sentence similar to "Atheists believe that no gods exist." Atheists do not believe in anything supernatural.

 

Haha, ok, so you get this a lot.

 

Don't get me wrong, I too agree with your views on Alan Watts ... I call him a "Taoist Superbeast" because he is just so hyped...and I think a lot of that comes down to the way he lectures - quite forward and almost snobbish. So then he obtains a large following due to the confidence, but yes, some of the stuff is quite pseudo and generic a lot of the time.

 

Atheism and God may not have anything in common, but just from my observations, the label is yet conforming to an idea. Some sects of Buddhism don't have a God - but that doesn't make them Atheist. The Atheist idea is still a belief system in itself...the following of people that believe there is no God or karma etc.

[Rara]

So yes, in other words, I do not agree with the title in this thread. But I do see what is meant

[doc benway]

Nice post, 3bob.

I've learned a lot from Watts over the years.

 

Edit:

I'd like to emphasize the first part:

"Atheism in the name of God is an abandonment of all religious beliefs, including atheism, which in practice is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism. Atheism in the name of God is giving up the attempt to make sense of the world in terms of any fixed idea or intellectual system. It is becoming again as a child and laying oneself open to reality as it is actually and directly felt, experiencing it without trying to categorize, identify or name it."

 

To the extent that atheism "is the stubbornly held idea that the world is a mindless mechanism", I feel that atheism is equally misguided as the religions it seeks to supplant as a coherent and comprehensive world view.

 

Watts' excerpt brings to mind a favorite quote of mine:

"God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjold

 

And by personal deity, I would not separate the deity part from oneself, whether Hammarskjold intended so or not.

Edited August 26, 2013 by steve

[3bob]

I hear the title as a kind of koan,

 

belief or anti-belief only goes so far and or is only of so much use...

Edited August 26, 2013 by 3bob

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

I liked this a lot. Thanks for sharing. Don't allow society to decide what is real for you, but rather make that decision for yourself based on your own experience. Lao Tzu talked about this in the Tao Te Ching.

 

Aaron

 

 

But whenever i express my observations of my experiences, i am "wrong", and just wind up arguing! i have threads as evidence FFS!

[Marblehead]

Atheism and God may not have anything in common, but just from my observations, the label is yet conforming to an idea. Some sects of Buddhism don't have a God - but that doesn't make them Atheist. The Atheist idea is still a belief system in itself...the following of people that believe there is no God or karma etc.

Yep. There are Atheistic Buddhists. They hold to a philosophy, not a religion. Note how I phrased that sentence?

 

And then I would suggest that my Atheistic label is a result of my Materialistic beliefs. That is, only potential exists beyond the materialistic universe.

 

Your phrase, "... the following of people ..." is strange because Atheists don't follow. We are not herd animals. We will not run over the cliff with anyone.

 

I really shouldn't even use the words "I believe" because that's not what it's about. I either know or I don't know. I know I have never seen a god nor have I ever had any reason to think that there might be one or more.

 

I read a lot of Greek mythology when I was a teenager. Strange stuff that was. I wanted to believe but just couldn't.

[Marblehead]

belief or anti-belief only goes so far and or is only of so much use...

I wanted to speak to this but can't find the words. Maybe later.

[3bob]

hehe

 

an electro-magnetic field is invisible and can't be felt with the five (material type) senses, same with some other forms of energy yet they exist and as more than just potential...

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

well, all but the 7 colors of the rainbow anyway

[3bob]

I love rainbows but that pot of gold is hard to get to...

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

maybe the pot of gold is a euphemism for homosexuality?

[3bob]

that term usage is after (edit) my time, although I'm now in this time, hehe

Edited August 27, 2013 by 3bob

[Marblehead]

hehe

 

an electro-magnetic field is invisible and can't be felt with the five (material type) senses, same with some other forms of energy yet they exist and as more than just potential...

Your words are valid. However, these (most of them) energies can be measured by other means. Heck, science still does not have reliable tools for measuring dark matter and dark energy and by their estimates these two are 96% of the totality of the universe.

 

Yes, radio signals (RF energy) carries information. With a proper receiver for the signal one can have access to this information.

 

Perhaps I don't have a proper receiver to pick up the signals that you and Steve are talking about?

[Marblehead]

I love rainbows but that pot of gold is hard to get to...

One can never get to it 3bob. It is naught but an optical illusion. (Every step one takes toward it it moves away from the person the exact same distance until it disappears.)

[3bob]

not really since if you give away the gold its free.

[Marblehead]

not really since if you give away the gold its free.

But there is no pot of gold so there is nothing to give away.

 

Dreams are free but you have to pay when you go to the movies and see someone else's dreams.

[Rara]

Yep. There are Atheistic Buddhists. They hold to a philosophy, not a religion. Note how I phrased that sentence?

 

And then I would suggest that my Atheistic label is a result of my Materialistic beliefs. That is, only potential exists beyond the materialistic universe.

 

Your phrase, "... the following of people ..." is strange because Atheists don't follow. We are not herd animals. We will not run over the cliff with anyone.

 

I really shouldn't even use the words "I believe" because that's not what it's about. I either know or I don't know. I know I have never seen a god nor have I ever had any reason to think that there might be one or more.

 

I read a lot of Greek mythology when I was a teenager. Strange stuff that was. I wanted to believe but just couldn't.

Yeah but the "Atheistic Buddhists" still wear the robes and have their specific systems. Though I agree that they are more of a philospohical bunch, they still appear to the naked eye as a religious group.

 

Now I see what you're saying. To the naked eye, atheists do not appear as following a religion. There are no extremes when it comes to collectively doing anything, like a Christian goes to church every day - atheists have no said rituals. But my point is there are different types. Like religious people, some have an inherent blind anti-faith (as oppised to blind faith hehe) and happily call themselves atheist and will leave it there. No justification, other than saying ignorant things such as "if God were real, why are there people starving in the world" - just a quick example off the top if my head. You know what I mean. But these people will also be the first to label themselves, proudly, Atheist .... Like they hold the truth of the universe yet there are no signs of wisdom!

 

Of course, you are on your own journey and are more intellegent than that. But surely you agree on the front that all labels have connotations of belonging and conforming to a specific belief.

 

Even Taoists! I read somewhere that it was said that Zhuangzi didn't identify himself, or even realise for that matter, he was a Taoist. And I am pretty sure that further down the line, I will probably forget that I am.

[Rara]

 

 

But whenever i express my observations of my experiences, i am "wrong", and just wind up arguing! i have threads as evidence FFS!

I know exactly what you mean, and this is a shame. I had to learn to stop arguing and let people be. If people think you're wrong, so what? You know you are right and you are the only one living your life and that's all that matters.

[Marblehead]

Nice response.

Yeah but the "Atheistic Buddhists" still wear the robes and have their specific systems. Though I agree that they are more of a philospohical bunch, they still appear to the naked eye as a religious group.

Yes, you understood what I was saying and I will agree with this response.

 

Now I see what you're saying. To the naked eye, atheists do not appear as following a religion. There are no extremes when it comes to collectively doing anything, like a Christian goes to church every day - atheists have no said rituals. But my point is there are different types. Like religious people, some have an inherent blind anti-faith (as oppised to blind faith hehe) and happily call themselves atheist and will leave it there. No justification, other than saying ignorant things such as "if God were real, why are there people starving in the world" - just a quick example off the top if my head. You know what I mean. But these people will also be the first to label themselves, proudly, Atheist .... Like they hold the truth of the universe yet there are no signs of wisdom!

Yes, there are many types of Atheists. There are angry ones, there are snobbish ones and there are normal ones. I consider myself normal. Hehehe. But I will even go so far as to further label myself as a Nietzschian Atheist. I oftentimes label myself on this forum so that others will better understand from where I am coming. The only label I hold dearly to is: US Army, Retired. That has real benefits.

 

Of course, you are on your own journey and are more intellegent than that. But surely you agree on the front that all labels have connotations of belonging and conforming to a specific belief.

Yes, labels are used to put people into different baskets. And true, we each must travel our own journey. If we let others dictate our journey all we are doing is letting them live our life. I feel we each have to right to live our own life.

 

Even Taoists! I read somewhere that it was said that Zhuangzi didn't identify himself, or even realise for that matter, he was a Taoist. And I am pretty sure that further down the line, I will probably forget that I am.

Yeah, Chuang Tzu was a real cool dude. I can't be like he was but I do try to adopt some of his characteristic traits.

 

Have you joined us in the Chuang Tzu Study? I can't recall and I'm too lazy to go look.