the Dao of Atheism :jeffers' petroglyph, pre-dakota, minnesota : the Shaman Atheist 56/81

56

A person who knows the way
has no need or desire to talk about it.

People who talk about it
really don't know the way.
The atheist who knows atheism does not talk,
and those who talk about it don't know it.

Quit talking about
quit searching
quit your logic
quit trying to win
quit trying to impress
get down to the very basics
of existence.
This is the mystic way to understanding.

Then there are no friends or enemies,
no benefits, no disgrace
no rewards, no losses.
This is human being
simply
being.

Is the dao god? I don't really know the dao, and i really don't know a god, so i'd say that i don't know. I do know that some translators and readers of the Dao de jing have said that the dao is god. If they know, then it must be so. Call me ignorant or inexperienced, or both.
As an atheist i see the dao as the combined natural law and energy of the universe -- metaphysics and matter all rolled up into one. Who's to say what the combined reality is?

Is daoism atheism? For those that want it to be, i'd say yes. For those that don't want it so equated, they will make their own argument. Daoism doesn't follow the Western anti-theist rationalisms, nor is it perceived to be antagonistic to any state like the atheisms of Socrates and Christianity, so it doesn't follow traditional Western atheism there. But it has no god/dess/es. Call it non-theism if you wish, it still has no-god, no goal, no threat, no reward or suffering when you die, no salvation from death, no nothing except a description of how to flow with the universe.

The dao is a text of mystical atheism.




back :: next
first :: middle :: last
cover :: endnotes

©1992 tpkunesh@atheisms.info