On 7/15/2014 7:23 PM, '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.
*And skepticism is the dogmatic embrace of a doctrine without evidence. Ignorance is
strength. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. And words mean whatever I want them too (The
Caterpillar).*
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
*A careful study of religion is the surest path to atheism.
Brent*
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