Knowledge is a sin, an unforgivable one at that. Think about it for a minute, what was Eve’s sin? She ate of the fruit of knowledge. She learned something. For that unauthorized learning she was condemned to the pain of childbirth and made subservient to man.
It was such a big screw up that in some religions we all were saddled with it forever, others just kept the woman subservient to man part. Either way both Eve and Adam were condemned to die and kicked out of their happy place because they had gained knowledge.
Fast forward to today’s religions, for the most part none of them want you learning the dirty secrets of their pasts, if you do you are told to shut up, don’t talk about that, if you do talk about it you are just another angry apostate. Funny thing about being an apostate, it means you were once a believer, as a believer you had knowledge that your church was true, that much knowing is just fine! Go further though and discover more light and knowledge that the rousing spiritual experiences that gave you that confirmation of truth feel exactly the same as an MLM rally, well that’s too much knowledge again. Deny your previous assertion that you had a witness and call it false, that is the worst knowledge you can have.
You see, the worst thing you can ever know is that your were fooled. If you discover that knowledge there is no going back. One you’ve seen behind the curtain and you know Oz is just a man you can’t un-know it. You can repent of any other mistake in the book, you can feel real guilt and shame and beg for forgiveness for adultery and for stealing, even killing and for lying. But how do you feel guilt for discovering they were lying to you? How do you repent for catching Oz in the act of pulling the levers and pretending to be the wizard?
Maybe that is exactly why knowledge is a sin, the ultimate sin, for it causes heaven and hell to cease to exist. It makes the magic evaporate and the wonder disappear. That magic and wonder is so precious that people are willing to lie to preserve it. They are willing to justify horrible deeds and actions in examples of logical spaghetti that would impress even the FSM.1
The knowledge that the moral authority in your life really doesn’t have a leg to stand on is unforgivable by that authority. It really is. Because once you know it is a fraud, once you deny the truth you once knew as an illusion, you also dispel the illusion that the religious authority that had the ability to forgive you never really had that right at all. That institution ceases to have any hold over you, and thus any attempt by it to grant you forgiveness is pointless.
Is too much knowledge a sin? Sure is. Because the greatest sin you can commit in any religion is the sin of disbelief.
The Flying Spaghetti Monster, the Fridge’s biggest competition for followers 🙂 ↩
“The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn’t asked any questions.”
This is true. My husband was very upset with me when I told him why I didn’t believe anymore. A few things he told me: “Don’t think too much/ deep, ” and “Those things are irrelevant.” So why is some “truth” relevant and other truth not?
Now anytime I repeat some fact that I recently learned or happen to know through my studies, whether it’s religious or not, he gets upset (if it’s something he does not agree with or that I “contradict” him on). I.e. We were discussing gay marriage in general. Somehow AIDS was brought up. He said something about “the gay disease.” I told him it did not start with the gays, but it originated back to Africa and contact with certain monkeys (I remember learning this in science class in high school). He insisted it did start with the gays. I looked up the info and read it to him. He was pretty upset that I went that far to show him the error in his thinking. I get pretty embarrassed for him when he says such ignorant things, even if it’s just to me. He doesn’t seem to like the knowledge I share with him.
You have to remember for a lot of people knowledge can be a very scary thing especially if it flys in nthe face of what you hold as true.If your husband was raised in the church then this new info contradicts everything he has been taught since he was little.Learning for the first time that what you have believed for your whole life was a lie is very unnerving.Remember Master Obi won said”Many of the truths we cling to in this life dependend on our own point of view”.Admitting you were wrong or maybe your ideas were wrong for most people is very very hard.
Part of human psychology is an effect called cognitive dissonance. This is what causes your husband to be bothered by the information you have to share with him. In large enough doses it will literally drive the fight or flight reflex built into our genes.
what this means is, have patience, look for opportune moments to leave a tidbit here or there. Be ready to back off when his guard goes up though because is it hard to get through at that point.
Also use emotion in your explanation, we are emotional beings and the believer has become particularly tuned to emotional communication. Almost any emotion is good, anger, fear, love, they will all open him up more to what you are saying. Don’t just be logical when you get chances to share a little. explain why it hurts you that the church has lied, explain why the issues of the past they are hiding bother you with all the emotion they deserve.
Strictly from a buisness point of view admitting you have a defective,out of date and bad product with no possibility of fixing it because the manufactuer’s have no clue as to what to fix or even what it is ,or at least have a consences as to what they want to sell or promote ,would not inspire a lot of confidence or encourage the public to accept buy and continue to support your product so they have no other choice but to defend and promote it after all then they would be out of buisness.However oddly enough millions of people still subscribe to this flawed philosophy and are more than willing to accept a defective product and vigorously support it to the point of fanatacisim and even die for or kill to support it,yet if their iphone or any other product shows signs of being defective they scream like hell and demand satisfaction.Who says “God” doesn’t have a sense of humour.As a side note.Personally I feel very sorry for the “Bretheren”as they have no choice but to support the church and discourage true knowledge.They are the ones who are truely trapped.Which if they know the truth(and I suspect most if not all of them do)is imo is the real loss of personal freedom and the ability to choose and make your own decisions.
If only religions were as contrite as the man behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz!” Once a faithful adherent e sees behind the curtain, she deserves the confession that the man operating the levers is a ‘humbug;’ and the confession needs to be by that operator.
Maybe the reason knowledge is the greatest sins because the religion must now either admit it is a fraud or shame/frighten/guilt the individual into returning. Neither is a good option if an institution is to be perpetuated and grown.
I have always been one to want to know the truth even if it hurts.However I can appreciate there are lots of people who don’t .To me knowing the truth is much more liberating than living in denial or believing half truths,knowledge is freedom and strength where blind belief is restrictive and immeasurably harmful.Thanks for posting
[…] them will find a way to hang on — a fair number of them will start asking hard questions and ultimately conclude that the CoJCoL-dS is the […]
[…] Knowledge Is A Sin […]
From Frank Zappa:
“The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn’t asked any questions.”
This is true. My husband was very upset with me when I told him why I didn’t believe anymore. A few things he told me: “Don’t think too much/ deep, ” and “Those things are irrelevant.” So why is some “truth” relevant and other truth not?
Now anytime I repeat some fact that I recently learned or happen to know through my studies, whether it’s religious or not, he gets upset (if it’s something he does not agree with or that I “contradict” him on). I.e. We were discussing gay marriage in general. Somehow AIDS was brought up. He said something about “the gay disease.” I told him it did not start with the gays, but it originated back to Africa and contact with certain monkeys (I remember learning this in science class in high school). He insisted it did start with the gays. I looked up the info and read it to him. He was pretty upset that I went that far to show him the error in his thinking. I get pretty embarrassed for him when he says such ignorant things, even if it’s just to me. He doesn’t seem to like the knowledge I share with him.
You have to remember for a lot of people knowledge can be a very scary thing especially if it flys in nthe face of what you hold as true.If your husband was raised in the church then this new info contradicts everything he has been taught since he was little.Learning for the first time that what you have believed for your whole life was a lie is very unnerving.Remember Master Obi won said”Many of the truths we cling to in this life dependend on our own point of view”.Admitting you were wrong or maybe your ideas were wrong for most people is very very hard.
Part of human psychology is an effect called cognitive dissonance. This is what causes your husband to be bothered by the information you have to share with him. In large enough doses it will literally drive the fight or flight reflex built into our genes.
what this means is, have patience, look for opportune moments to leave a tidbit here or there. Be ready to back off when his guard goes up though because is it hard to get through at that point.
Also use emotion in your explanation, we are emotional beings and the believer has become particularly tuned to emotional communication. Almost any emotion is good, anger, fear, love, they will all open him up more to what you are saying. Don’t just be logical when you get chances to share a little. explain why it hurts you that the church has lied, explain why the issues of the past they are hiding bother you with all the emotion they deserve.
Strictly from a buisness point of view admitting you have a defective,out of date and bad product with no possibility of fixing it because the manufactuer’s have no clue as to what to fix or even what it is ,or at least have a consences as to what they want to sell or promote ,would not inspire a lot of confidence or encourage the public to accept buy and continue to support your product so they have no other choice but to defend and promote it after all then they would be out of buisness.However oddly enough millions of people still subscribe to this flawed philosophy and are more than willing to accept a defective product and vigorously support it to the point of fanatacisim and even die for or kill to support it,yet if their iphone or any other product shows signs of being defective they scream like hell and demand satisfaction.Who says “God” doesn’t have a sense of humour.As a side note.Personally I feel very sorry for the “Bretheren”as they have no choice but to support the church and discourage true knowledge.They are the ones who are truely trapped.Which if they know the truth(and I suspect most if not all of them do)is imo is the real loss of personal freedom and the ability to choose and make your own decisions.
If only religions were as contrite as the man behind the curtain in “The Wizard of Oz!” Once a faithful adherent e sees behind the curtain, she deserves the confession that the man operating the levers is a ‘humbug;’ and the confession needs to be by that operator.
Maybe the reason knowledge is the greatest sins because the religion must now either admit it is a fraud or shame/frighten/guilt the individual into returning. Neither is a good option if an institution is to be perpetuated and grown.
Exactly…
I have always been one to want to know the truth even if it hurts.However I can appreciate there are lots of people who don’t .To me knowing the truth is much more liberating than living in denial or believing half truths,knowledge is freedom and strength where blind belief is restrictive and immeasurably harmful.Thanks for posting