The religious fallacy consists of setting apart a being or beings (called gods) as central agents of causality and meaning. In a simpler manner, we can say that religion feeds us the "beautiful illusion" that we are all tools of a greater purpose, and that this is the defining component of our lives.
In order to rationalize this, religious proponents must deny the possibility of self-meaning, and must always pose a false dichotomy between inherent meaning and no meaning, just like they pose a false dichotomy between design and chance. They cannot think otherwise, because religion by definition seeks to dissociate man from his source of meaning.
Evolution, both figuratively and literally, is simply outside of their capacities of understanding. In their "transcendence" mentality, everything is blackwhite, either created or random : to admit natural law would be counter to their complete investment in the power of transcendence (supernatural gods and beings) as meaning-giver.
Concretely, Christianity seeks to eradicate meaning to replace it with a divine scheme. Every limit that gives our lives substance and excitement, they seek to erase. Man in the Garden of Eden, and in Heaven, is not a man - no carnal pleasures, no work, no ambition, no evolution, no thirst for knowledge, does not give birth or die. He is a machine dedicated to worship, devoid of free will (how ironic in doublethink, since they invoke free will as an excuse for evil !).
That is the ideal of the Christian - to become a retarded automaton for the Lord. Just look at their descriptions of Heaven. What inhuman, wretched creatures those Christians are !
It is not his vices that the myth of man's fall is designed to explain and condemn, it is not his errors that they hold as his guilt, but the essence of his nature as man. Whatever he was--that robot in the Garden of Eden, who existed without mind, without values, without labor, without love--he was not a man.
| Here's the follow-up discussion on this article: | View all related messages |
For a complete listing of article comments, questions, and other discussions related to Francois Tremblay's Rational Spirituality topic, please visit the Discussions page.