All our efforts at a spiritual life are prompted by self-interest—Alan Watts
Yet again, the promise of Christianity to make one a better person through faith, to dispose self interest for the greater good of mankind, to nobly tame the natural man through the submission of will actually intensifies self interest. The intent does not produce the desired outcome—again. Christians are Christians at the promise of reward and the escape of death. Fear is the underlying motivation of all perceived good in the name of religion. God (the writers) would have you believe you are doing it to please God, but the farther one goes into fundamental belief the more arrogant and self serving that interest becomes.
“Psychotherapy and liberation are completed in the moment when shame and guilt collapse, when the organism is no longer compelled to defend itself for being an organism, and when the individual is ready to own his unconscious behavior”—Alan Watts Psychotherapy East & West (1961)
Be-lief comes from the Anglo-Saxon root lief, which means to “wish.” Belief is the fervent hope that certain things are true. A wish
Faith is contrary to evolutionary laws of altruism and self sacrifice for the good of others. Promoting the general welfare through be-lief has put obedience to pious men of words above natural good sense and love—Talk about living a conflicted life. The harder one tries the farther they get from the destination. Like the expanding universe, the more we measure our lives through faith, the farther away they delve into confusion and self interest—the self perpetuating life of grasping at straws.
TheCommonAtheist 