Chapter 85: Using religion to fight religion

"What to teach?" This question was asked on a rainy day. Ma Shao was discussing something with him in the chief's hall.

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

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

"I drove the missionary away, but one policeman seemed to be convinced by him," said the sergeant.

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

"yes."

The sergeant left the chief's hall, and Ma Shao and Yu Tian looked at each other.

Rainy Day smiled and said, "Let me guess. Your current mood should be closer to 'disgusting'."

Ma Shao: "You guessed wrong."

Rainy day stunned.

Ma Shao exhaled, "It's not close to, it's exactly the same."

He has always hated religion, especially missionaries. When he was in college in his previous life, he 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 completely different things.

An impersonal God is acceptable, although meaningless; religion is different; it is essentially a primitive political organization.

Ma Shao could tolerate relatively mild or obscure religions, but he really could not accept Mormonism.

Of course, he didn't really know much about Mormonism. He only knew that this religion belonged to the broad sense of Christianity, and that was enough.

Moreover, even within Christianity, Mormonism is a relatively alternative sect, and its most well-known label is that it advocates polygamy.

But how to deal with it?

Expelling or even killing people can only work temporarily, but it is not long-term and not economical.

Although Ma Shao rejects religion, he has to admit the tenacious vitality of religion.

Throughout history, there have been many people who have tried to suppress or even destroy religion, but none of them have really succeeded. Even China, the most secular country, has only managed to moderate religion after thousands of years of being influenced by the worldly life of hundreds of millions of people.

Only the long-term penetration of scientific education into the entire society can fundamentally disintegrate religion. This is a slow process and cannot be rushed.

"I know you don't like religion." Rainy Day said carefully, "But I have to say that the pure faith you hold is difficult to popularize. At least in the short term, it cannot compete with various religions at all."

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

Ma Shao looked at him and said, "You mean, we should create a new religion?"

"Well... almost." Xia Yutian obviously wanted to change his words to take care of Ma Shao's feelings, but after thinking about it, he found that there was no better way to say it, because this was clearly what he meant.

Ma Shao didn't say anything.

It's not that he didn't consider this option, but he couldn't get over it. But when it comes to the issue of faith, he couldn't come up with a better solution.

So much so that on this issue, for a long time, his mentality can basically be described as "escape."

Yes, it is the escapist mentality and the ostrich mentality, and he himself is aware of it.

Rainy Day continued to persuade: "We can't eliminate religion, and it's not easy to weaken it. There will always be a group of people who choose to embrace it. Such a position will always exist, and it is a huge position... If we don't occupy this spiritual position, others will occupy it."

"Why don't we just create a religion of our own and take over this territory ourselves?"

"And I believe, Ma Shao, with your wisdom, you will definitely be able to create a better religion. This will be a better result for both ourselves and the believers."

Ma Shao held his forehead with his hand: "But, when I was giving lectures, I was always——"

Rainy Day interrupted him: "Yes, you have been trying to guide your people to embrace atheism, or to say 'there is no need to believe in God'. But ask yourself, how many people have really done it?"

Ma Shao was silent.

What Xia Yutian said was right. Although he had been a teacher for hundreds of students, among so many students, only a few were truly guided by him to arm their minds with the scientific spirit. So far, there were perhaps only five people in the mathematics and physics advanced class.

The ideas that most Mianxiong students gain from the classroom are, at best, just a certain degree of dispelling superstitions.

This is the result of him directly serving as a teacher. In the future, as the size of the tribe expands, his opportunities to teach personally will certainly become fewer and fewer.

In the past, Ma Shao felt that he had no prestige and therefore could not promote rational beliefs. Now that he has a certain prestige, the situation is no different.

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

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

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

"You mentioned to me before that everything in the world, all order has a complementer. The shortcomings of tigers and wolves are supplemented by vultures, and the shortcomings of the government are supplemented by gangsters... Now, let me be the complement of the spiritual world."

Ma Shao looked at the rainy day and suddenly felt an inexplicable emotion and sighed.

After a while, he came out of this sighing mood and took a deep breath: "Religion always needs a holy book, so - let's write a holy book together."

The two finally reached an agreement and decided to create a systematic religion to fight religion with religion.

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

The most important trade-off is undoubtedly between science and the secular.

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

At the same time, as a physics teacher, Ma Shao does not want to create a worldview that seriously conflicts with the conclusions of physics.

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

The great spirit that transcends everything created the singularity, which expanded into the universe like a balloon... He also vaguely hinted at advanced scientific theories such as the wave-particle duality and the constancy of the speed of light.

There are even hints of the Higgs boson, or "God particle," which was only confirmed in 2012 using the Large Hadron Collider.

These suggestive contents have been carefully considered by Ma Shao and are just the right amount. They are neither too detailed to become science, nor too vague to make people feel that they are just myths.

We can't see anything for now, but as science advances, I believe people will gradually feel many wonderful and shocking connections… I wonder how scientists in future generations will feel.

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

In addition to a worldview, a scripture also requires stories and values.

The story is basically a novel written by two people, and although a lot of terms from Indian legends are used, the content has nothing to do with it.

In fact, even if they wanted to have a relationship, they couldn't do it. After all, Indians didn't have written language in the past, and all kinds of stories were passed down orally, so they were extremely chaotic and there was no standard at all.

They draw materials from all over the world and adapt various stories about the revelations of the Great Spirit. As a man from the future, Ma Shao has a particularly rich mind of stories.

The first requirement for the stories in the scriptures is that they are infectious and have intense emotional arousal, so that people can't help but shed tears, get angry, or smile with joy when reading them.

This is a very brain-racking task.

But with the cooperation of horse whistles and rainy days, it became quite simple.

Ma Shao was responsible for providing colorful stories, while Xia Yutian was responsible for providing superb writing. The two worked together to create a large number of exciting stories. Even they themselves could not help but feel their hearts beat fast and had difficulty controlling their emotions after reading them.

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