On 16 Jul 2014, at 04:23, 'Chris de Morsella' via Everything List wrote:
Some quoted passages from Alan Watts (author of The Wisdom of
Insecurity - 1951) regarding the distinction between belief and
faith that seemed pertinent to me to several of the discussion
threads going on here.
Chris
Quoting him:
We must here make a clear distinction between belief and faith,
because, in general practice, belief has come to mean a state of
mind which is almost the opposite of faith. Belief, as I use the
word here, is the insistence that the truth is what one would "lief"
or wish it to be. The believer will open his mind to the truth on
the condition that it fits in with his preconceived ideas and
wishes. Faith, on the other hand, is an unreserved opening of the
mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be. Faith has no
preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown. Belief clings, but
faith lets go. In this sense of the word, faith is the essential
virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-
deception.
[...]
The present phase of human thought and history ... almost compels us
to face reality with open minds, and you can only know God through
an open mind just as you can only see the sky through a clear
window. You will not see the sky if you have covered the glass with
blue paint.
But "religious" people who resist the scraping of the paint from the
glass, who regard the scientific attitude with fear and mistrust,
and confuse faith with clinging to certain ideas, are curiously
ignorant of laws of the spiritual life which they might find in
their own traditional records. A careful study of comparative
religion and spiritual philosophy reveals that abandonment of
belief, of any clinging to a future life for one's own, and of any
attempt to escape from finitude and mortality, is a regular and
normal stage in the way of the spirit. Indeed, this is actually such
a "first principle" of the spiritual life that it should have been
obvious from the beginning, and it seems, after all, surprising that
learned theologians should adopt anything but a cooperative attitude
towards the critical philosophy of science.
Nice quote. Note that "Conscience & Mécanisme" gives Alan Watts all
its due. That guy saves my life and perhaps my afterlife :)
Bruno
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