Alan Watts on why it's difficult to reconcile Western religion with democracy

[drokhole]

I came across the following quote the other day, and it opened my mind to a broader perspective on the Church/State dichotomy in our country (that also touches on the apparent antithetical principles of the Religious Right/Tea Party). I also think it reflects enormously on the kind of unilateral/dictatorial shit these Republican Governors have been trying to pull these past few months, and why their authoritarian actions play well with so many on the Right.

As I've said in a previous thread, I do a great disservice to Alan Watts with this out-of-context quote (this one being an excerpt from his seminar "Jesus - His Religion, or the Religion About Him?," included in a collection of his talks in the book Myth and Religion), and encourage anyone who finds it interesting to check some of his stuff out for themselves (his topics are wide-ranging). Anyway, here's this particular insight:


"All Western religions have adopted the form of celestial monarchies and therefore have discouraged democracy in the kingdom of heaven. As a consequence of the teaching of the German and Flemish mystics in the fifteenth century, there began to be such movements as the Anabaptists, the Brothers of the Free Spirit, the Levelers, and the Quakers. These spiritual movements came to this country and helped to found a republic and not a monarchy.

How could you say that a republic is the best form of government if you think that the universe is a monarchy? Obviously if God is on top in a monarchy, monarchy is the best form of government. Ever so many citizens of this republic think that they ought to believe that the universe is a monarchy, and therefore they are always at odds with the republic. It is principally from white, racist Christians that we have the threat of fascism in this country, because they have a religion that is militant, which is not the religion of Jesus. His religion was the realization of divine sonship, but the religion about Jesus pedestalizes him, and says that only this man, of all the sons of woman, was divine. It speaks of itself as the church militant. Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war."



And, to end with one more timely and out-of-context quote from Watts:

"Western civilization is in a state of chaos. It has lost effective knowledge of man's true nature and destiny. Neither philosophy nor religion as they are known today do much to give man the consciousness that the deepest center, or "ground," of his being is to be found in that eternal reality which is in the West called God."

[kohodog]

1. Was it Allen Watts who said:

(paraphrase from many years ago)

It's one thing to believe in a Gorgon or a Griffith, animals that don't exist but look as if they do, and another to believe in a Hippopotamus, an animal that does exist but looks as if it doesn't.

[drokhole]

2. "In other words, when you see this strange world with its weird forms like hippopotami...

...don't take them for granted. Stones and trees and water and clouds and stars are as weird as any hippopotamus, or any imagination of fabulous beasts as gorgons and griffins."


Spot on! Great memory, and thanks for the quote! (and I believe, in the first part, he was quoting GK Chesterton)