My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Robert Anton WilsonRead
The web of life is a beautiful and meaningless dance. The web of life is a process with a moving goal. The web of life is a perfectly finished work of art right where I am sitting now.
Interpretation
Life is a complex interplay of experiences that may seem chaotic yet holds beauty and purpose in the moment.
Robert Anton Wilson's quote reflects on the nature of life as intricate and often perplexing, emphasizing that while life may appear to lack inherent meaning, it is filled with beauty and artistry in every experience. The notion of a 'moving goal' suggests that life is not about achieving a fixed endpoint but rather embracing the journey itself, recognizing that every moment holds its own significance and artistry.
In practice
In a motivational speech about embracing life’s unpredictability, one could use this quote to illustrate the beauty of the journey.
My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
There is no governor anywhere. You are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. If anybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled - by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists.
I see anarchism as the theoretical ideal to which we are all gradually evolving to a point where everybody can tell the truth to everybody else and nobody can get punished for it. That can only happen without hierarchy and without people having the authority to punish other people.
To work for libertarianism - to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual - used to be an idealistic choice taken for purely idealistic reasons. Now it is an act of intelligent and almost desperate self-defense.
The abandoned infant's cry is rage, not fear.
The only way to stave off boredom, in a complex domesticated primate like humankind, is to increase one's intelligence. This is not appealing to the average primate, who instead invents emotional games (soap opera and grand opera dramatics).
People are not interested in you. They are not interested in me. They are interested in themselves - morning, noon and after dinner.
The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter...we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.
The church must share in the secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and serving.
I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. Scout
Revenge is a common passion; it is the sin of the uninstructed. The savage deems it noble;but the religion of Christ, which is the sublime civilizer, emphatically condemns it. Why? Because religion ever seeks to ennoble man; and nothing so debases him as revenge.
God is subtle but he is not malicious.
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