My goal is to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone, but agnosticism about everything.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of questioning beliefs and being open-minded about all topics.
Robert Anton Wilson encourages a mindset of generalized agnosticism, which means not just being uncertain about the existence of God, but applying that same critical questioning to all beliefs and knowledge claims. This perspective fosters intellectual curiosity and a willingness to explore diverse viewpoints, rather than accepting dogmas without scrutiny.
In practice
During a debate about religion, you could use this quote to advocate for questioning all beliefs rather than accepting them blindly.
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).
If one can only see things according to one's own belief system, one is destined to become virtually deaf, dumb, and blind.
Half the world does not know how the other half lives.
Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of consciousness and the burning up of the ego.
Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you.
I got teased and taunted about my night-shaded skin, and my one prayer to God, the miracle worker, was that I would wake up lighter-skinned. The morning would come, and I would be so excited about seeing my new skin that I would refuse to look down at myself until I was in front of a mirror because I wanted to see my fair face first.
The winter moon becomes a companion, the heart of the priest, sunk in meditation upon religion and philosophy, there in the mountain hall, is engaged in a delicate interplay and exchange with the moon; and it is this of which the poet sings.
Philosophers are never quite sure what they are talking about - about what the issues really are - and so often it takes them rather a long time to recognize that someone with a somewhat different approach (or destination, or starting point) is making a contribution.
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