Nobody believes in God like an atheist: 'There is no God, and I am His prophet. - Alan Watts

The Book I am thinking about would not be religious in the usual sense, but it would have to discuss many things with which religions have been concerned — the universe and man’s place in it, the mysterious center of experience which we call “I myself,” the problems of life and love, pain and death, and the whole question of whether existence has meaning in any sense of the word. For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in at one end and let them out at the other, which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other. At the input end they even develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so that they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow. As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together in groups to fight with other groups. In time, the tubes grow such an abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizable as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering variety of forms. There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd.

Si întrucât fericirea
exista doar în corelatie cu nefericirea si placerea în corelatie cu durerea, omul inteligent nu
încearca sa le separe. Aceste relatii sunt inseparabile, mergând pâna acolo încât putem spune ca
fericirea este nefericire iar placerea este – întrucât o implica – durere. Pe masura ce realizeaza
aceste lucruri, omul învata sa abandoneze orice dorinta de a obtine fericire separata de suferinta
sau placere separata de durere.
Evident ca aceste lucruri sunt greu de realizat. Eu pot sa înteleg la nivel verbal si intelectual
ca râvnind dupa placere îmi potolesc setea bând apa sarata – deoarece cu cât obtin mai multa
placere cu atât vreau mai multa (Sa ne amintim de sensul mai vechi al cuvântului „dorin.a”, care
era „lipsa”!).

Western thought has changed so rapidly in this century that we are in a state of considerable confusion. Not only are there serious difficulties of communication between the intellectual and the general public, but the course of our thinking and of our very history has seriously undermined the common-sense assumptions which lie at the roots of our social conventions and institutions.