Otvos is just another narrow-minded adherent following some other man's road to nowhere. In this, he is no different from any one of billions of unenlightened souls, including you and me.
Like me and you, he confuses plastic phenomena such as "religion", "science" and "atheism" with the inherent nature that exists behind his eyes. "Atheistic" illusions are to be valued as much and as little as "religious" and "scientific" illusions and we would do well to properly regard Otvos, as all "atheists," with a deeply felt caring and concern for his well-being, for his illusions are also our own, no more and no less. His concepts and his terminology may utilize different symbolism but his reality is the same.
Bet on it.
Buddha's non-plastic view of reality encompasses, assimilates and makes perfectly logical sense, in fact makes observably scientific sense, out of the man-made terms and concepts known as "religion," "science" and "atheism."
Buddha's path is right here and now for all of us to realize but requires us to get beyond our learned blindness and stop following some other man's road to nowhere.
"Atheists" often express their pain and suffering through petulant, angry ridicule. In doing so, "atheists" are merely expressing revulsion of their own non-substantiality. The atheist lashes out vainly in the attempt to exorcise the chimeras of his reflected fear. "Religion" to this narrow level of conscience consists solely of supernatural beings, totems, symbols, myths and fairy tales, and it is the desire of the atheist to destroy these self-induced outre conceptions like children throwing tantrums and toys at the very God who gifted them, at the bemused and indulgent parent who knows better, at themselves.
Otvos, like the rest of us who are condemned to imperfect awareness by evolutionary processes beyond our comprehension, can't get past his pathos, his vanity, his unsatisfied hunger and his pain to the reality which exists behind his eyes.
As has been pointed out, all things appear and disappear because of a series of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything exists only in relation to everything else. By the same reasoning, enlightenment cannot exist apart from ignorance, nor ignorance apart from enlightenment. Since things do not differ in their essential nature, there can be no duality.
People habitually think of themselves as being connected with birth and death, but in reality there are no such conceptions. When people are able to realize this truth, they have realized the non-duality of birth and death.
