ZeV’s Reviews > 21 Lessons for the 21st Century > Status Update

"We are therefore particularly bad at knowing the difference between fiction and reality. Overlooking this difference has been a matter of survival for us. If you nevertheless want to know the difference, the place to start is with suffering. Because as noted earlier, the realest thing in the world is suffering."

"In the age of Facebook and Instagram you can observe this myth-making process more clearly than ever before, because some of it has been outsourced from the mind to the computer. It is fascinating and terrifying to behold people spending countless hours constructing and embellishing a perfect self online, becoming attached to their own creation, and mistaking it for the truth about themselves."

"in order to understand ourselves, a crucial step is to acknowledge that the "self" is a fictional story that the intricate mechanisms of our mind constantly manufacture, update, and rewrite. ... just as the government builds a national myth with flags, icons, and parades, so my inner propaganda machine creates a personal myth with prized memories and cherished traumas that often bear little resemblance to the truth"

"Realizing this can help us become less obsessive about our opinions, about our feelings, and about our desires. We don't have free will, but we can be a bit more free from the tyranny of our will. Humans usually place so much importance on their desires that they try to control and shape the entire world according to these desires."

"If by "free will" you man the freedom to do what you desire, then yes, humans have free will. But if by "free will" you mean the freedom to choose what to desire, then no, humans have no free will."

"The problem with evil is that in real life it is not necessarily ugly. It can look very beautiful. Christianity knew this better than Hollywood, which is why traditional Christian art tended to depict Satan as a gorgeous hunk. That is also why it is so difficult to resist Satan's temptations. That is also why it is difficult to deal with fascism."

"it is common to argue that monotheism brought an end to this terrible practice (human sacrifice). In fact, monotheists practiced human sacrifice on a much larger scale than most polytheistic cults. ... At a time when the Spanish conquistadors put an end to human sacrifices to the Aztec and Inca gods, back home in Spain the Inquisition was burning heretics by the cartload."

"The sacrifice is not just a way to convince your lover that you are serious; it is also a way to convince yourself that you are really in love."

"If you suffer because of your belief in God or in the nation, that does not prove that your beliefs are true. Maybe you are just paying the price of your gullibility. However, most people don't like to admit that they are fools. Consequently, the more they sacrifice for a particular belief, the stronger their faith becomes."

"If you want to make people really believe in some fiction, entice them to make a sacrifice on its behalf. Once you suffer for a story, it is usually enough to convince you that the story is real. If you fast because God commanded you to do so, the tangible feeling of hunger makes God present more than any statue or icon."