The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
Human beings appear to be happy just so long as they have a future to which they can look forward - whether it be a "good time" tomorrow or an everlasting life beyond the grave. If happiness always depends on something expected in the future, we are chasing a will-o'-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until the future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death. But it has been possible to make the insecurity of human life supportable by belief in unchanging things beyond the reach of calamity - in God, in man's immortal soul, and in the government of the universe by eternal laws of right.
Science may, slowly and uncertainly, give us a better future - for a few years. And then, for each of us, it will end. It will all end. However long postponed, everything composed must decompose. Despite some opinions to the contrary, this is still the general view of science. The modern scientist is not so naive as to deny God because he cannot be found with a telescope, or the soul because it is not revealed by the scalpel. He has merely noted that the idea of God is logically unnecessary. He even doubts that is has any meaning. It does not help him to explain anything which he cannot explain in some other, and simpler, way.
What science has said, in sum, is this: We do not, and in all probability cannot, know whether God exists. Nothing that we do know suggests that he does, and all the arguments which claim to prove his existence are found to be without logical meaning. There is nothing, indeed, to prove that there is no God, but the burden of proof rests with those who propose the idea. If, the scientists would say, you believe in God, you must do so on purely emotional grounds, without basis in logic or fact. Practically speaking, this may amount to atheism. Theoretically, it is simple agnosticism. For it is of the essence of scientific honesty that you do not pretend to know what you do not know, and of the essence of scientific method that you do not employ hypotheses which cannot be tested.
The immediate results of this honesty have been deeply unsettling and depressing. For man seems to be unable to live without myth, without the belief that the routine and drudgery, the pain and fear of this life have some meaning and goal in the future. These myths give the individual a certain sense of meaning by making him a part of a vast social effort, in which he loses something of his own emptiness and loneliness. Once there is the suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power has gone. It may be necessary for man to have a myth, but he cannot self-consciously prescribe one as he can mix a pill for headache. A myth can only "work" when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally "kid" himself.
This is an excerpt from a book by Alan Watts called The Wisdom of Insecurity. What a brilliant man he was.
Science may, slowly and uncertainly, give us a better future - for a few years. And then, for each of us, it will end. It will all end. However long postponed, everything composed must decompose. Despite some opinions to the contrary, this is still the general view of science. The modern scientist is not so naive as to deny God because he cannot be found with a telescope, or the soul because it is not revealed by the scalpel. He has merely noted that the idea of God is logically unnecessary. He even doubts that is has any meaning. It does not help him to explain anything which he cannot explain in some other, and simpler, way.
What science has said, in sum, is this: We do not, and in all probability cannot, know whether God exists. Nothing that we do know suggests that he does, and all the arguments which claim to prove his existence are found to be without logical meaning. There is nothing, indeed, to prove that there is no God, but the burden of proof rests with those who propose the idea. If, the scientists would say, you believe in God, you must do so on purely emotional grounds, without basis in logic or fact. Practically speaking, this may amount to atheism. Theoretically, it is simple agnosticism. For it is of the essence of scientific honesty that you do not pretend to know what you do not know, and of the essence of scientific method that you do not employ hypotheses which cannot be tested.
The immediate results of this honesty have been deeply unsettling and depressing. For man seems to be unable to live without myth, without the belief that the routine and drudgery, the pain and fear of this life have some meaning and goal in the future. These myths give the individual a certain sense of meaning by making him a part of a vast social effort, in which he loses something of his own emptiness and loneliness. Once there is the suspicion that a religion is a myth, its power has gone. It may be necessary for man to have a myth, but he cannot self-consciously prescribe one as he can mix a pill for headache. A myth can only "work" when it is thought to be truth, and man cannot for long knowingly and intentionally "kid" himself.
This is an excerpt from a book by Alan Watts called The Wisdom of Insecurity. What a brilliant man he was.
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