"In the Age of Durkheim, man unselfconsciously imposes the authority of concepts on itself through ritual..."
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Abstractions will not inspire awe.The ‘need’ for salvation implies that we have done something wrong.
All ‘sins’ are either genetically beneficial codifications, or actions that at one point in human history (proto-history) were permissible or usable.
They are part reaffirmation of what ‘works’ genetically, or they are guardian against natural tendencies which were once reinforced as permissible in an older society (or lack thereof).
In that the effects of natural selection have evidently worn-off, a more immediately communicable medium is necessary, thus ‘commandments’.
You don’t die if you disobey them, but you will live in hell forever: much more effective in a world of trans-genetic, free-thinking humans.
~Ernest Gellner
Plough, Sword and Book
U. of Chicago Press
1988
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