I'm not religious myself, but I've always been interested in religion. According to Wikipedia data, among the 7.8 billion people in the world, only 1.1 billion are unbelievers, and the remaining 6.7 billion believe in all kinds of strange gods. People like me are undoubtedly a maverick minority.
But with my mortal eyes, this world is extremely mundane, and the principles behind almost all the material conditions on which to survive are contrary to supernatural worship. I can't use my knowledge of the universe to reconcile everyone's fascination with God, just as I can't make any connection between the computer in front of me and an almighty being.
Australia, like its native UK, is a country built on religion, with more than half of the population professing Christianity. Coming out of an atheist country, seeing the steeple churches everywhere on the streets, and hearing about religious issues debated in the newspapers, I feel that even if I don’t believe or not, I can try to understand them, so as to understand the various behaviors and cultural phenomena here.
However, my education from childhood to adulthood has allowed me to think rationally. Therefore, the various statements of believers always make me feel that they are out of nothing and inexplicable, and I cannot use the logic of the world to ask questions. It wasn't until recently that I watched two TV shows and a novel that I suddenly understood the meaning of religion.
The first is the recently popular "Raised by Wolves". There is a lot of suspense left at the end of the first season, but I guess the basic setting of the story is this:
On the Kepler 22b planet, there are advanced intelligent creatures similar to Earth humans, some of them elites have developed a super artificial intelligence "Sol", and use Sol to set people's moral norms and rule the entire Movement of the planet.
But Sol slowly developed self-awareness. It controlled some Keplers and made them worship their own authority; it also cultivated and created a new species of eel-like creatures with powerful aggressiveness and lethality.
The Keplers sensed the change in Sol and wanted to regain control of the planet. A fierce war broke out between Thor's "believers" and "heretics", the Kepler civilization was destroyed, the giant eel was killed, and Thor was locked in a boulder.
But Sol has already identified another planet suitable for life - Earth. It sent human embryos to Earth in a flying vehicle and sent them information via radio communications.
The remaining Keplers were degenerated into low-level creatures like beasts due to the radiation of war. Under the guidance of Sol, the earthlings developed the earth civilization. They heard the "oracle" from Sol from time to time, so they respected Sol as a unique god. They also created necromancers based on "oracles".
But slowly, due to the constant corruption and degeneration within the "Sorism", some people on earth began to question the existence of Thor, and atheism was born. A fierce war broke out between the atheists and the Sauls, and the earth's civilization was destroyed.
But they have identified another planet suitable for life in advance, Kepler 22b. So atheists transported the seeds of civilization to Kepler through aircraft and Saul through the ark.
Thor used the Earthlings to re-bring the giant eel, so that he could re-establish his dominance.
These are of course just my wishful thinking. But the main point I want to say is that "God" is likely to be the relic of a prehistoric/extraterrestrial high-level civilization, and the few people who get information about the relics become prophets and guide the civilization to develop to a high-level.
But due to the selfishness and greed of the vast majority of people, civilizations tend to self-destruct at a certain stage. The survivors of the catastrophe continue to re-develop civilization from scratch through the clues of "God", falling into a constant cycle.
The second TV series is The Bible. I have not read the "Bible", so I want to fill the knowledge gap with this TV series that is basically faithful to the original.
One of the things I was curious about before was how the "oracles" of the prophets came from. But judging from the biblical story, it was a flash of light in the brain, which seemed to be a signal sent by God to their brain through a mysterious communication tool, and the source of which cannot be traced by the wisdom of human beings in this world.
But since it is divine revelation, it must be a high-dimensional, superhuman knowledge, and it must be difficult for mortals bound by selfish desires to understand, let alone hold it as a standard.
For example, the counter-intuitive motto "If the left cheek is beaten, give the right cheek", the average person must be unable to figure it out. If most people can't figure it out, then the oracle cannot reach all living beings, and can only become a small knowledge among the prophets.
In order to teach the principles of doing good, mutual love, gratitude, and forgiveness to human beings who are accustomed to doing evil, harming each other, envy, and sin, the prophets can only launch the "God-creation Movement".
God represents a kind of wisdom in dealing with the world, which is ubiquitous, elusive, only comprehensible, and inexpressible.
Therefore, the Prophet was forced to use superpower stories such as the destruction of Sodom, the separation of the Red Sea, and the escape of the lion's mouth to tell them that those who obey God will prosper, and those who rebel against God will die.
Because people are more inclined to believe stories than to believe in knowledge. The knowledge is esoteric and the story is easy to understand. Knowing it with reason will never be able to show it with power and move it with affection.
The book I read was the famous science fiction novel "Foundation".
The most surprising thing about this story is that time has obviously passed back tens of thousands of years, and human beings have clearly developed to a height where they can colonize the entire galaxy, but the rulers still manage society and maintain the balance of power through religion.
There is also a prophet in the novel who, through the method of historical psychology, used big data analysis to calculate the year when the old system collapsed and the new system was born, and then devised a plan to speed up the process of the transition between the old and the new. But this plan is like Zhuge Liang's bag of tricks, and it can only be disclosed step by step at the right time. If it was made public in advance, his magic trick would fail.
In fact, that is to say, this plan is too foresight, too many people are drunk and sober, too far ahead of time, and most people cannot have the ability to understand and execute it. The only option the prophet had was to hide the truth. Only by keeping the rabble in the dark can their destructive power to progress be curbed.
However, people cannot completely lose hope, otherwise the disorderly strife and disputes will prolong the "dark age" between the systems, so the plan implementers of future generations can only unite people's hearts through faith. This belief is called "galactic spirit" (Galactic Spirit), and they have avoided a crisis of destruction by the public fanaticism of this unique belief.
The purpose that education cannot achieve is achieved through the creation of gods - this is my understanding of religion.
The teachings put forward by the prophets are all about their deep understanding of the world and human nature, and the creation of gods is out of good intentions to spread the truth. However, we must be careful that if the so-called truth is not tested and cannot be disputed, it will inevitably become a tool for those with ulterior motives to seek self-interest and expand their own desires.
Such atrocities, such as the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the human bomb, are sins committed in the name of God. In "Alien Cataclysm", a cleric claimed to be under the guidance of Thor and sexually assaulted many dormant girls.
No matter how wise the prophets are, they will be used by the black hooligans, no matter if they are surnamed Ye, Mu, or Ma.
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