1840 Indian Rebirth

Chapter 85 [Using religion to deal with religion]

"What teaching?" This sentence was asked on a rainy day, and Ma Shuo was discussing things with him in the chief's hall.

"Mormonism." Shi Chang said, "About half a month ago, a few Mormons came to the town and preached everywhere... I didn't pay attention at first, until they tried to preach to the soldiers and police."

Ma Shao asked: "How did you deal with it?"

"I drove the missionaries away, but one policeman seemed to be persuaded by him," Shi Chang said.

"You did a good job." Ma Whistle nodded, thought for a while and then said, "I see, you just came back, go rest and taste the harvested wheat."

"Yes."

Chief Shi left the chief's hall, and the horse whistle and rainy day glanced at each other.

Rainy day smiled: "Let me guess, your current mood should be closer to 'disgusting'."

Horse Whistle: "You guessed wrong."

I was taken aback on a rainy day.

The horse whistle exhaled: "It's not close to it, but it's fundamental."

He has always hated religion, especially missionaries - when he was in college in his previous life, he even almost got into trouble with a Christian who was preaching to his roommate at the police station.

Strictly speaking, he is not an atheist, but he feels that God and religion are two different things.

An impersonal god is acceptable, though meaningless; religion, on the other hand, is a primitive political organization at all.

Horse Whistle can tolerate milder or obscure religions, but Mormonism is really unacceptable to him.

Of course, he doesn't really know much about Mormonism. He only knows that this religion belongs to Christianity in a broad sense, and that's enough.

What's more, even in Christianity, Mormonism belongs to a relatively alternative genre, advocating polygamy as its most well-known label.

But how to deal with it?
Means such as driving or even killing can be managed for a while, but they are not long-term and economical.

Although Ma Shao rejected religion, he had to admit the tenacious vitality of religion.

Throughout the ages, there have been many people who wanted to suppress or even disintegrate religion, but none of them really succeeded.Even China, which has the most secular spirit, has lasted for thousands of years and has been edified by hundreds of millions of people, but it has only softened religion.

Only the long-term penetration of science education into the whole society can fundamentally disintegrate religion.

"I know you don't like religion." Rainy Day said with discretion, "But I have to say that the kind of pure belief you hold is difficult to popularize. At least in a short period of time, it simply cannot compete with various religions."

After a pause, he said again: "Only religion can deal with religion."

Horse Whistle looked at him: "You mean, we should create a new religion?"

"Well... almost." Rainy day obviously wanted to change the word to take care of Ma Shao's mood, but after thinking about it, he found that there was no better way to say it, because he clearly meant it.

The horse whistle did not speak.

It's not that he hasn't considered this option, but he still can't cross that hurdle.But for the issue of belief, he couldn't come up with any better solution.

As a result, on this issue, for a long time, his mentality can basically be described as "escape".

Yes, it is the evasive mentality, the ostrich mentality, and he can realize it himself.

Rainy day continued to persuade: "It is impossible for us to eliminate religion, and it is not easy to even weaken it. There will always be a group of people who choose to embrace it. Such a position will always exist, and it is still a huge position... this spiritual If we don’t occupy positions, others will.”

"Why don't we simply create a religion that we control, and occupy this position ourselves?"

"And I believe, Mashao, with your wisdom, you will definitely be able to create a better religion. Whether it is for ourselves or for the believers, this is a better result."

The horse whistle supported his forehead: "But, when I was giving lectures, I always—"

The rainy day interrupted him: "Yes, you have been trying to guide the people to embrace atheism, or to say 'God is not necessary to believe in'. But you ask yourself, how many people have really done it?"

The horse whistle was silent.

Rainy Day is right. Although he has served as a teacher for hundreds of people, there are so many students who have been guided by him to the road of arming their minds with scientific spirit. only five people.

Most of the thoughts gained by Sleeping Bear students in the classroom are at best a certain degree of dispelling superstitions.

This is the result of him directly serving as a teacher. With the expansion of the tribe in the future, there must be fewer and fewer opportunities for him to teach in person.

In the past, Ma Shao felt that he had no prestige, so he could not promote rational beliefs. Now that he has a certain prestige, the situation is nothing more than that.

"Unrealistic ideals are sometimes more terrifying than no ideals. You told me this, but you are making this mistake now." Rainy day said again.

"Well, you're right." Ma Shao sighed, "But I still can't accept it. I used to guide students away from religion, but now I want to create a religion."

Rainy Day said: "If you feel embarrassed, I can stand up for you. You still promote godless education and make it a law, and in those corners where the sun doesn't shine, I will take care of everything for you."

"You mentioned to me before that everything in the world and all orders have complements, vultures supplement the needs of tigers and wolves, and gangsters supplement the needs of the government... Now, let me be the complement of the spiritual world."

Looking at the rainy day, Ma Shao suddenly felt an inexplicable emotion and sigh.

After a while, he left the emotion of sighing and took a deep breath: "Religion always needs a holy book, so—let's write a sacred book together."

The two finally reached an agreement and decided to create a systematic religion and use religion against religion.

Before officially starting the creation, Ma Shao and Rainy Day first discussed and summarized the characteristics of the major religions, and compared the pros and cons of different characteristics.

The most important trade-off is undoubtedly about science and worldliness.

Religion cannot interfere with the secular world, at least not too much. This is the bottom line.

At the same time, as a physics teacher, Ma Shao didn't want to create a world view that seriously conflicts with the conclusions of physics.

In fact, in his creation myth, the birth process of the world is almost a modern science described in children's language.

The Great Spirit who surpasses everything created the singularity, and the singularity expanded into the universe like a balloon... He also implicitly hinted at advanced scientific theories such as wave-particle duality and the constant speed of light.

There are even hints of the Higgs boson, the "God particle," something that was only confirmed with the Large Collider in 2012.

These suggestive contents have been carefully considered by the horse whistle, and the proportion is just right, neither will it become science directly because it is too detailed, nor will it be considered just a myth because it is too vague.

I can't see anything yet, but with the advancement of science, I believe people will gradually feel many wonderful and shocking fits... I don't know how future generations of scientists will feel.

It is foreseeable that more and more people will inevitably believe that this is the holy scripture that truly reveals the mysteries of the universe.

In addition to a worldview, a canon needs stories and values.

The story is basically a novel written by two people. Although a lot of nouns in Indian legends are used, the content has nothing to do with it.

In fact, even if they wanted to be related, they couldn't do it. After all, Indians used to have no written language, and all kinds of stories were passed on by word of mouth, so it was very chaotic and there was no standard at all.

They collected materials from all over the world and adapted various stories about the revelation of the Great Spirit. As a future man, Ma Shao has a lot of stories in his mind.

For the stories in the scriptures, the first requirement is to be contagious, to have a strong emotional mobilization, and people can't help crying, bursting into anger or beaming with joy after reading it.

This is a very brain-consuming thing.

But with the cooperation of the horse whistle and the rainy day, it became quite simple.

Ma Shao is responsible for providing colorful stories, and Rainy Day is responsible for providing superb writing. The two work together to create a large number of exciting stories. Even they can't help but feel emotional after reading it.

Several times, they even forgot that they were creating a religious scripture, and were only interested in discussing the plot of the novel.

(End of this chapter)