The fundamental error of religion is to assume reality is Leibniz-optimal. That the past is optimized and that we are pre-destined to act in ways that optimize the future. Any apparent suboptimality in either is just your optimal current ignorance. All will be clear in the end.
Leibnizean optimality is my de-valenced term for what is usually called Leibnizean optimism (“all is for the best in this bes of all possible, worlds,” the inspiration for Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss).
It’s a sort of teleological principle of least action that constructs reality as pre-determined and optimal without disturbing the notion of free will. Via teleological sleight of hand that requires at least an implicit notion of the divine as a boundary condition to work.
I’m landing on the hypothesis that if you could actually meaningfully optimize over an infinite horizon (no tricks like discounting or infinity shenanigans), you’d find that reality is actually 100% spandrels.
If you’ll always have more tomorrow, you can afford to waste what you have today. In the limit, the spandrels dominate. Your only job is to survive to see tomorrow, which gets easier every day. This is why mediocritization looks highly wasteful, “fat” and unrefined.