Chapter 8:16H The progression of ever-more dishonest and dangerous forms of pseudo idealism to cope with the unbearable levels of upset

In terms of the progression of the human journey that is being charted in this chapter, the repercussion of upset reaching this crescendo on our strategies for coping with the human condition was that people could no longer cope with the honesty of religion—it became too confronting, guilt-inducing and unbearably depressing. The great benefit of religion—of the honesty imbued in the prophet or prophets (in the case of Hinduism) that the religion was founded around—actually became its liability, because by retaining a presence of a prophet’s soundness and truth, religions reminded humans of their own corrupted state and their alienation from truth, which in turn accentuated their sense of guilt; as the author Mary McCarthy once wrote, ‘Only people who are very good can afford to become religious; with all the others it makes them worse’ (Memories of a Catholic Girlhood, 1957; Lloyd Reinhardt’s rendition, The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 Jan. 1995; see <www.wtmsources.com/175>). It was at this point when the honesty of religion became too confronting that much less confronting and less guilt-emphasising forms of pseudo idealism had to be found, with the extremely dangerous and negative effect being the loss of the precious honesty originally imbued in religion.

When the truthful lives and thoughts of religions’ founding prophets became unbearably confronting and condemning, GUILT-FREE EXPRESSIONS OF IDEALISM TO SUPPORT AND DERIVE ‘FEEL GOOD’ RELIEF FROM became highly sought-after. These expressions took two forms: Less Guilt Emphasising Expressions of Religion, and Non-Religious Pseudo Idealistic Causes.