Making Light:  Open thread 141 ::: June 01, 2010, 02:20 PM

Janet @113 (&Lee @118):

  "If you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're
  dead, they might try sortin' it all out while they're alive."

If memory serves, this is an argument advanced by characters in
Delany's The Einstein Intersection for why people in the rational
future (the book's setting) consider the ancient (to them) religions
to be immoral.

At the time I read it, I thought the argument was that final nail
so plainly needed for Xtianity's coffin.  Soon enough, though, I
discovered that people who believed in life after death were strangely
unconvinced by the argument.  Even worse, I found myself at a friend's
funeral starting to believe in life after death.  I was shocked.

I got better, but it taught me something about how well we can fool
ourselves when we have a mind to.