Alan Watts and his writings Way back I read a few books by Alan Watts. Not totally impressed,...

SW-User

There is, of course, no satisfactory way of arguing the merits of any one of the great world religions against the others. In all such debates the judge and the advocate are the same person, for a man judges his own religion the best simply because the standard he uses is that of his own religious upbringing. Almost all apologies for the superiority of one religion over others come down to this tediously circular argument.

(Alan Watts)

Bumbles · 51-55, M

Yes, since I was 12 and read “The way of Zen” and have listened to his lectures for years. Brilliant man as a scholar even separate from his eastern based philosophy.

SW-User

Strange. Maybe an example of Carl Jung's "Synchronicity".

In a recent exchange with another here which broached upon the Christian Communion/Mass, It so happened that the whole subject - from various angles - was being spoken of by Alan Watts in the latest book of his I am reading:- "Beyond Theology: The Art of Godmanship"

It was like moving from dour darkness and judgemental seriousness to insights of light, love and joy.

It is a fine book.

SW-User

Nature is always differentiated unity, not unified differences. The universe is not a huge collection of cosmic flotsam and jetsam that came from somewhere else altogether. Such notions are simply against the brain, and defy the pattern of all known physical processes. Theism regards the world as an immense orphanage in which we are only “sons by adoption and grace,” and then only if one is lucky enough to get the grace.

SW-User

Alan Watts, complete with beard and pipe.......

..... and don't forget the beads.

SW-User

Here is a brief excerpt from the book I am currently reading:-

....such persons (i.e the skeptical and secular minded) have a view of reality that is grimmer by far than even Jonathan Edwards’s conception of the Angry God. For the secularist imagines the universe beyond and outside man to be essentially dead, mechanical, and stupid. With him it is high dogma that nature cares nothing for human values, but is a system of confusion which produced us by mere chance, and therefore must be beaten down and made to submit to man’s will. Now, there is something in this view of the universe which is akin to states of consciousness found in psychosis. The vision of the world as a Malicious System which eggs you on with hopes, just to keep you alive, and then grinds you horribly to bits. In this state there is no luminosity in things. Faces, flowers, waters, and hills all look as though they were made of plastic or enameled tin — the whole scene a tick-tock toy shop, a nightmare of metal and patent leather, garish under reflected light alone. Other people aren’t really alive; they’re mocked-up mannequins, automatic responders pretending to be alive. Even oneself is a self-frustrating mechanism in which every gain in awareness is balanced by new knowledge of one’s ridiculous and humiliating limitations.

Those who, outside mental hospitals, like to see things this way persuade themselves and others that this attitude is somehow not only realistic but heroic. In philosophical arguments they can always one-up the religious or metaphysically inclined by a show of being down-to-earth and hard-boiled.

SW-User

The "world to come" is the world now.

We must not confuse the transfigured universe of eternity, the “life of the world to come,” with the monstrous notion of a physical universe containing the risen bodies of all our friends and relations permanently pickled in Spirit.

😀

SW-User

Idolatry is not the use of images, but confusing them with what they represent, and in this respect mental images and lofty abstractions can be more insidious than bronze idols.

Alan Watts

GuyWithOpinions · 31-35, M

Oh yeah i listen to allan watts all the time.

Bluebirdsonmyshoulder · 46-50, F

Yes I do. I resonate very much with him.