  One of the most dangerous kinds of ignorance, on Holbach’s analysis, is an ignorance of nature and, in particular, of the causes of good and evil in it. Like Spinoza, Holbach argues that we tend to personify nature, projecting our interests and purposes onto matter that is, in fact, different from us (System of Nature, App. 17; cf, Spinoza’s Ethics I, App.). This produces, on Holbach’s account, the belief in God and other religious beliefs (such as the belief in heaven and hell and immortality) which in turn cause us to pursue self-preservation in misguided ways: