http://members.aol.com/chasklu/religion/private/watts.htm

So the point that I wish to make most strongly is that behind a vital religious life for the west, there has to be faith which is not expressed in things to which you cling: in ideas, opinions to which you cling in a kind of desperation. Faith is the act of letting go, and that must begin by letting go of God: let God go. But you see, this is not atheism in the ordinary sense. Atheism in the ordinary sense is fervently hoping that there isn.t a God. But I.m afraid, you see, that this movement is going to issue in what someone described as Christian secularism: the assumption that there is nothing at all to life except a pilgrimage between the maternity ward and the crematorium, and it is within that span that Christian concern must be exercised, because that.s all there is. Well, it is true that.s pretty much common sense these days. I very much doubt whether most religious people believe in their religion. Not really. It.s become unplausible. You know even Jehovah.s Witnesses are really polite when they come round to the door. If they really believed what they were talking about, they.d be screaming in the streets. If some Catholics believe what they.re talking about, they would be making an awful fuss. They would be having the most horrendous television programs that would make Batman look like nothing. They would have full-page ads in the papers about the terrible things that would happen if you didn.t, and more so if you did, and they would be very serious about it. But nobody is. Because it has become extremely plausible that this trip between the maternity ward and the crematorium is what there is to life. And we still have going into our common sense the nineteenth century myth, which succeeded the ceramic myth in western history: I call it the myth of the fully automatic model of the Universe. ... namely that it.s stupid; it.s blind force. Haekel.s gyration or fortuitous congress of atoms is of the same vintage as Freud.s libido, the blind surge of lust at the basis of human psychology. You see what was going on? Man was indulging in a put-down attitude to the world, and saying "enough of wishful thinking; belief in God and someone .up there. who cares is for little old ladies and weak spirits; we are tough these days; we face facts", and therefore, by making the Universe seem as banal as it could possibly be, one advertised one.s own hard-headedness. This was a kind of role playing.

But when you consider this attitude.you know, what is the poetic counterpart of it? Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy... God, what a put-down that was. But on the other hand if you think about that for a few minutes, I am absolutely amazed to discover myself on this rock ball rotating around a spherical fire. It.s a very odd situation. And the more I look at things I cannot get rid of the feeling that existence is quite weird.