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The Hoax of Sin

David Price
4 min readMar 4, 2023

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Lucy Campbell

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as ‘moral indignation,’ which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

― Erich Fromm

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Nietzsche thought the morality of the Judeo-Christian tradition was a hoax. He was of the opinion that the idea of sin was a ruse invented by wretched and deranged people to achieve a magical hold over other people by playing the “ravishing music” of guilt in their souls. Once our unconscious subscribes to the notion that we are guilty sinners, to quote Nietzsche, “The sufferer takes the hint, he has understood, and from now on he is like a hen about whom a circle has been drawn. Now he will never escape from that confining circle; the patient has been transformed into a ‘sinner.’” Becoming entranced, enchanted, bewitched and put under a hypnotic spell come to mind. A related image: the locked doors of the jail cell being opened and the prisoners, who have been conditioned to their captivity, not stepping into their freedom.

— Paul Levy

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We who want to be citizens of the world cannot understand schemes that always end up trampling and enslaving the poorest. How can we understand so-called globalization that does not seek to create world citizens, but only consumers? It does not seek to create a global

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David Price
David Price

Written by David Price

I write about creativity, loving, language learning and psycho/spirituality. I’m a longtime painter and reader.

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