Denial is not an illusion. It’s real, and so are its consequences. However, all this is just semantics. The great task is not to describe reality but to see through our attempts to avoid it. As our ancestors became self-conscious, death was no longer an intermittent threat but something pondered at length over the camp fire. Religions emerged as a way to accept the unacceptable. We’ve never discarded our religions more nonchalantly than we do today, ostensibly because they’re ‘unscientific,’ but really because they make us squirm. Along with the bathwater, we throw out the human frailty that religions were meant to address in the first place. In the end, little has changed; we’re still trying to avoid the inevitable. We’re bound not just by our mortality but by our DNA, our genes, our consumer cravings and our habits of comfort. There is wiggle room, but no escape. We’re right to distrust the promises of religion, for nothing binds us more tightly than our belief in ultimate freedom. However, that’s no reason to discard its questions. Freedom must be constantly renewed. thenakedmonk/2013/08/18/bound-by-the-promise-of-freedom/
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 20:45:30 +0000
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