This part stood out to me. I remember in my philosophy class in college the professor was opining on what the "forbidden fruit" in the garden of Eden actually did. His points were that if it was really knowledge of "good and evil" that the Bible states, then how could God morally judge someone who didn't know right from wrong? And if it was not that, then it couldn't be bad, since God Himself states that the fruit made mankind "more like one of us".
In short the fruit did not give a moral compass to those without it, but instead set it adrift. We can now decide our own reality for ourselves thanks to the fruit, but we aren't God, and have no true authority to impose such dreamed-up realities upon others (or even, ultimately, ourselves). So the lie that atheists tell themselves, that they are somehow in their judgment above reality, comes straight from the effects of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Atheism, without need for ritual or structure, lays bare the fruit's effects that other philosophies and religions attempt to obscure.
Mine opined that it was kind of like a parent turning on an oven and telling a toddler to not touch the oven. Then the parent runs outside and watches through the window and jumps out and says, “Aha!” when the kid gets burned. That always stuck with me.
“This part stood out to me. I remember in my philosophy class in college the professor was opining on what the “forbidden fruit””