As you point out, the afterlife noble lie is dominated by other noble lies. And I think a lot of the attraction of it is precicely that it’s so unlikely. I’ve seen people who claim to believe in an afterlife, and who get very nervous when confronted with cryogenic ideas and such—because when they look at cryogenics, they can see all the ways it can fail.
But their afterlife noble lie is so unlikely, so removed from the everyday, that people somehow feel it can’t fail. That it’s beyond issues of probability and likelyhood.
Why does an omnipotent, omniscient god remain in people’s minds, while the bearded superman on mount olympos with an eye for the ladies is just a footnote of history? It seems that past a certain point, the bigger the Lie, the more likely it is to be believed.
As you point out, the afterlife noble lie is dominated by other noble lies. And I think a lot of the attraction of it is precicely that it’s so unlikely. I’ve seen people who claim to believe in an afterlife, and who get very nervous when confronted with cryogenic ideas and such—because when they look at cryogenics, they can see all the ways it can fail.
But their afterlife noble lie is so unlikely, so removed from the everyday, that people somehow feel it can’t fail. That it’s beyond issues of probability and likelyhood.
Why does an omnipotent, omniscient god remain in people’s minds, while the bearded superman on mount olympos with an eye for the ladies is just a footnote of history? It seems that past a certain point, the bigger the Lie, the more likely it is to be believed.