WE live in a society that encourages sin, to the point of denying that sin even exists. We also live in a world of enveloping stupidity. How are these two phenomena related? Read Kristor’s brilliant explanation of how sin makes people stupid at The Orthosphere. Proceeding from the assertion that all sin entails lying, or a denial of reality, Kristor writes:
The maintenance of a small lie sooner or later entails the introduction of another, supporting lie, and this procedure replicates. It’s like a Ponzi scheme. Sooner or later the whole edifice falls over, for lack of support from the real world. Until it does, until the collapse arrives, the cost of doing business goes up and up with the cost of compensating and masking for more and more noise introduced by more and more lies.
The worst state of affairs, however, is not systemic collapse. Systemic collapse is bad, but at least it necessarily prompts a radical reorganization of the system in terms of a more accurate recognition of reality – also known as honesty, truth, righteousness. That can be a most salutary process. But there is always a danger that a sufficiently intelligent, complex and ramified system will evolve around the persistent problem at C so as to hobble along in spite of it. In that case, H will perform less efficiently than it might if there had never been a lie, but because C’s signal is obscured, H will have the impression that everything is just fine.
Of course, many intelligent people are outrageous sinners. Sooner or later, however, sin restricts the functioning of the mind. All of us have experienced this phenomenon.
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