John Gray on Genesis

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"Yet being divided from yourself goes with being self-aware. This is the truth in the Genesis myth: the Fall is not an event at the beginning of history, but the intrinsic condition of self-conscious beings." -- The Soul of the Marionette, p. 167

I recall suggesting to some Nathaniel Branden acolytes that original sin is a mythical statement of a truth about the human condition; ooh, they did not like hearing that at all! But one does not have to be religious to understand this, merely willing to examine without presupposition what the Genesis story is trying to tell us. Albert Camus, like Gray a non-believer, understood this very well.

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