Chapter 1967: Gods Are Not Fun (Please Give Me a Monthly Ticket!! Please Subscribe!!! Please Recommend)

Speaking of the Pantheon, this thing is no ordinary organization. It is also quite powerful in the universe and has even absorbed many gods from other civilizations to join it! But the main body is still the group of fellow villagers from the earth who make the decision, and even the group of fellow villagers from the earth absorbs the gods from other places to strengthen themselves.

This makes the Pantheon very powerful.

Of course, there is also a problem here, that is, as long as a civilization develops to a certain level, it will naturally not be so reverent to the gods... Just like the earth, in the past, it was very reverent to the gods. In modern times, strictly speaking, after the industrial revolution, it has no respect for the gods. The level of awe plummeted!

Of course, faith is faith and awe is awe, which cannot be confused.

Science is opposed to superstition, but not to faith. Faith is not superstition. Science and faith are complementary. Science relies on reason, and reason is a powerful magic weapon for human beings. But beyond reason, there is a vast realm - irrational human nature, good and evil, unknowable human nature. It is like a vast dark universe, and there is no room for rationality. , science has lit up a bright light, but it may never be able to illuminate that profound dark universe of human nature. It is not easy to realize this level. Many sages in history have taken another path. Kant's objective morality led to Nietzsche's theory of superman, which secularized the two metaphysical theoretical characteristics of "omniscience and omnipotence". "Omniscient and omnipotent God" entered the world, and then became the foundation of Nazi thought. …Hume, the pinnacle of natural empiricism at the same time, and the neoclassicism and neoliberalism born under his influence have become the biggest enemies of totalitarianism. Back to reality, most Chinese people have always misunderstood faith as superstition. Chinese people have not had real faith for a long time and can only rely on power. This has led to the prevalence of pragmatism and egoism for thousands of years, which is directly related to this. There are many people in China who worship Buddha and burn incense, but very few of them are true believers. Many superstitious people actually only worship "Buddha" or "God" as a powerful force in reality, hoping to get something in return.

This is a blasphemy against the faith.

Faith is a profound understanding of the unknowability of human nature and the insignificance of human beings, and it is also a way to escape. Faith is irrational. It "irrationally" builds an illusory barrier for the "good" part of human nature, and then "irrationally" makes this barrier indestructible in the hearts of believers, just like a light at the end of the dark universe of human nature. Another lamp that never goes out, this lamp lights up with the lamp of science to escort the boat of mankind. The "evil" of human nature often jumps out to extinguish the light, but always fails, just like ignorance often tries to extinguish the light of science, but always fails. If humans only think about the above issues with scientific thinking, they will only commit suicide, because faith gives meaning to life, and without faith, everything is meaningless and in vain.

Of course, technology will inevitably weaken faith. The simplest example is God's creation of human beings.

This is something that everyone who is familiar with Bible stories knows. In fact, not just God, but the initial question of belief in any god will answer one question, that is, how did humans come about?

People fear the Creator of the world and believe that human beings come from gods.

This is basically the beginning of a mythical story.

But with the advancement of technology, this statement has basically been overturned. Because human beings were not created by God, but are the result of natural evolution.

This will inevitably cause a conflict between faith and science.

Here is a very famous example. In 1859, as soon as Darwin's "The Origin of Species" came out, it immediately caused an uproar in the intellectual world. The view of creation that people have believed in for thousands of years has suffered a subversive impact. Conservative academics and religious figures vigorously criticized Darwin's "heresy", but they were unable to stop the spread of this revolution. When the storm finally made landfall in the United States on the other side of the ocean, it changed not only the academic process in the United States, but also the face of American higher education. When the theory of evolution arrived in the United States, it was immediately met with radically different reactions from the scientific and religious communities. Scholars now generally believe that American scientists accepted Darwin's theory of evolution in a very short period of time. Although the leading academic authority at the time, Louis Agassiz, rejected the theory of evolution as lacking foundation, this did not stop his colleagues and students from enthusiastically supporting Darwin's ideas. As early as 1869, the American Philosophical Association awarded Darwin an honorary membership, which was equivalent to "official recognition". This was many years before European academic institutions officially recognized Darwin. While scientific support for Darwin became more widespread, religious opposition grew.

Some critics of Darwin shortened the process of human evolution and described human evolution as coming from "mutations from various cute carrots"; others believed that Darwin proposed that human ancestors were apes, not God, This is a huge insult to humanity. Although these comments may seem ludicrous, they cannot simply be dismissed as stemming from ignorance. In fact, religious forces relentlessly attack the theory of evolution, less out of ignorance than out of fear.

So what are religious people afraid of?

Generally speaking, they fear two things: the loss of faith and the destruction of moral restraint. Since the theory of evolution involves the evolution of the entire nature and human society, sacred and ideal goals seem to be suddenly expelled from the stage of people's lives. Darwinism completely denies the predestination of God's creation of all things, and therefore all values ​​and moral concepts based on it will also collapse. Therefore, from the 1860s, 1970s and early 1980s, religious forces tried their best to stifle the spread of evolution in American colleges and universities, even using threats and attacks when necessary. The synod warned the university board, which asked the president to refuse to hire teachers who subscribed to the theory of evolution. They used the pulpit and religious publications as a base to force colleges and teachers to comply with regulations and correct mistakes. A battle between old and new ideas will inevitably become a fight to defend the academy.

However, this confrontation did not turn into a head-to-head showdown. The strong influence of the church on the college has indeed caused many difficulties for the college, but the attitude of religious forces against the theory of evolution is not always consistent, and there is a large ambiguity between orthodoxy and heresy. The ambiguous attitude of the church is caused by many factors. There is no unified Christian church in the United States, and various sects have different degrees of acceptance of the theory of evolution; the degree of closeness between different colleges and churches also varies; in addition, the attitude of the church also depends on the determination and ability of scholars or principals to defend their academic reputation. In this unpredictable environment, scholars are often confused about the safe boundaries of academics and the scope of orthodox ideas, and always "accidentally" cross the boundaries. As a result, many moderate evolutionists are the first to fall victim. who. Let’s look first at the situation in the most conservative seminaries. In 1857, the conservative James Woodrow was hired as professor of natural sciences at Columbia Presbyterian Theological Seminary in South Carolina.

Professor Woodrow had always been committed to reconciling the contradictions between science and theology, but the emergence of the theory of evolution put his work in trouble. The board became suspicious of Woodrow's acceptance of evolutionary ideas and asked him to state his position publicly. Although Woodrow deftly used Scripture to reassure the board, the church seized on a minor "hole" in his argument and forced the board to fire him. The explanation given by the church is that although Woodrow's interpretation does not violate the Bible, it conflicts with the interpretation of the Presbyterian Church. Of course, the Woodrow incident only demonstrated the fear of new ideas in the most conservative seminaries of the day. In contrast, in the more liberal eastern colleges, the relationship between science and religion was much more harmonious, and the idea of ​​evolution was more easily accepted by the college. In 1880, there were several evolutionists on the faculty list of Yale University; at the same time, Harvard University, under the leadership of President Charles Eliot, was becoming a stronghold of evolutionism.

But in fact, even in these schools there is an area of ​​conflicting ideas. Although the field is equally blurred, the college's chaplains and deans have worked hard to maintain the boundaries. Once conflict arose, they declared: "So much for evolution."

But artificial control does not work. Once the theory of evolution is allowed to enter universities, it will be difficult to block and ban it thereafter. The Porter-Sumner incident at Yale University at the end of the 19th century is evidence of this.

Porter was the president of Yale University. In 1872, he hired the "deviant" Professor Sumner despite the opposition of religious forces. But in 1879, Porter asked Sumner to give up using the British thinker Spencer's "Sociological Investigations" as a textbook, causing a conflict between the two parties.

Spencer introduced the theory of evolution into the study of human society and created the so-called "Social Darwinism". Porter was not opposed to the teaching of evolution in the natural sciences, but opposed the teaching of evolution in the field of sociology. This position surprised Sumner, who believed that Porter was opposed to everything modern in the field of education. So Sumner and Porter began a writing battle, which ended in a deadlock. Knowing that Sumner had the support of the professors' association and public opinion, the board ultimately refused his resignation, and Sumner also made some concessions. But in the long run, Sumner actually won. He became a role model for other Yale professors, giving them the confidence and courage to pursue the truth. Religious forces continued to suppress evolutionists until at least the 1880s. Even some of the newly established, secular, research-centered schools were not spared. For example, both Cornell University and Hopkins University have refused to hire scholars whose religious ideas are not orthodox enough. Cornell's vice president was even fired by the board of directors for sympathizing with "heresies." However, all these incidents that undermined the harmony and stability within the college also aroused backlash from all parties.

Previously, the president played the role of "rebel", but they were too easy to succumb to the board of directors or religious groups, so the burden of resistance now fell on the teachers. Some of them turned to the media, some to the courts, and some, like Sumner, turned to their peers. The dissatisfaction of the teachers was now gathering into a movement. In the struggle, the status of teachers was also improved. Since teachers were employed by the board of directors, they had to obey the decisions of the board of directors. However, the mistakes made by the board of directors in opposing evolution weakened their previous prestige. Their wavering attitude towards evolution was unreasonable to the professors. At the same time, one result of the crisis of evolution was that it united a group of like-minded scholars and teachers, and various academic groups were established, gradually becoming a new force that could compete with the board of directors and even replace the board of directors. In addition, the behavior of attacking evolution also caused great disgust among the public.

Professor Winchell of Vanderbilt University, who was known for his gentle piety, was labeled as "having rebellious ideas" and was fired, which became the fuse for the liberals to fight back against religious forces. Popular Science Monthly condemned the university's actions and compared Winchell to Galileo. The public's anger was difficult to contain because, in this new era of enlightenment, any suppression of reason meant regression; and in this era of social progress, regression was a serious crime. Before the evolution crisis, enlightened people had already criticized the church's control over the finances and management of colleges. Now, people regard the church as an enemy of scientific development and social progress.

So, they are not against religion, but against religion's intervention in the field of secular knowledge. In other words, evolutionists criticize theocracy. Specifically, there are two dimensions: one is from the perspective of scientific expertise, and the other involves scientific ethics.

Before Darwin, priests actually paid attention to scientific issues because they were inspired by the Protestant spirit and needed to use science to maintain the orthodoxy of doctrine. However, the irreconcilability of evolution and orthodox thought gradually made priests who opposed evolution lose their qualifications to engage in scientific research. Popular Science Monthly wrote that priests were just popular science writers and "completely did not understand the spirit of scientific research." This argument soon became a consensus, and with the introduction of the academic spirit and methods of German universities, American scientists finally monopolized the field of science. Under this circumstance, the ethical discussion of science also broke the traditional dogmatic moral values. People are no longer willing to use labels such as "atheism" or "theism", or the character of researchers to judge science, but believe that the evaluation of scientific research should only evaluate the scientific research itself.

However, this inevitably weakened the control of religion over the world again. It even shook the foundation of the gods' rule over the world! Since then, people's attitude towards gods has become more and more indifferent, because the birth of mankind has nothing to do with gods! Although faith still exists, faith is just faith, not worship of gods! This cannot be confused!

So generally speaking, the planets ruled by the gods of the Pantheon are generally not very prosperous in science, and can even be said to be primitive. After all, when the vast majority of people no longer fear the gods, the control of the gods will be greatly weakened.

Although this will cause those planets to be backward and primitive, the problem is that for the gods, this is exactly the best situation, which means that they will always be in a dominant position.

Therefore, the gods will not only not help believers acquire knowledge, but also, like the church, constantly suppress those advanced ideas and scientific sprouts.

This also caused that most of the planets controlled by the Pantheon are still in primitive society, and at most can only reach the feudal society. This means that although the Pantheon controls many planets and civilizations, its strength is not very great in the universe. This is why the gods want to form the Pantheon... If they don't stick together, they may be directly captured by some advanced civilizations as experimental subjects!

As a member of the Earth hometown group, although Asgard is not very enthusiastic about the affairs of the Pantheon, he is also one of them.

And Gol, the "God Killer", is actually a victim of this system. If a planet is too prosperous, it will inevitably produce many ideas, which affect the status of the gods on various planets, so when a planet begins to show signs, the gods will start... Of course, this is also related to the way each god acts.

Some gods are more open-minded, and they will deal with problems more gently.

But some gods... the god Lap belongs to the kind of gods who are more barbaric and unreasonable. The planet of Gol was a prosperous planet before the disaster. They had already moved from a slave society to a feudal society, but this god system did not like such progress. They hoped that the people under their rule would maintain a primitive lifestyle.

So a century-long drought came, interrupting the process of civilization.

As for how many people died... the gods didn't care. In their view, believers were leeks. No matter how much harm they did, they would grow another crop after a while!

So... don't think that gods are good things!

Gol's killing of the gods was not unjust! These guys are actually not good birds at all!

If it was just this, Thor would not get involved in such a mess... After all, Asgard is not the kind of god who needs believers. They live well on their own. In fact, Asgard's presence in the Pantheon has always been weak, and most of the time they don't bother to pay attention.

But this time it’s different, trouble has come to Asgard!