In terms of human historical experience, the image of gods is actually inseparable from human cognition. Human beings often give images and personalities to gods for their own reasons and in their own way.
In all belief systems, people will always seek a "personalized God", and when people first come into contact with the concept of God, this personalized God has already been deeply implanted in people's consciousness.
Many believers in monotheistic beliefs believe that the main god is abstract, and the ant world is no exception. The gods of many tribes on both sides of the river have no concrete images.
But most of the time, when people talk about gods, they are talking more about humans themselves rather than what gods really are, so gods are given the image that people want them to be.
A fundamental driver of religion is the evolved responses of people to environmental stimuli. People tend to view natural phenomena as an intermediary between gods and humans.
For example, lightning is a man with a gray beard (such as Zeus in Greek mythology) standing in a dark cloud and shooting from his fingers.
Our ancestors who lived in a gathering-hunting society may have thought that trees also had souls because the lines on them resembled human faces. Ancient paintings preserved in caves around the world provide the earliest evidence of human spirituality, demonstrating the interdependent relationship between our ancestors and nature. The Trois-Frères caves in southwestern France are beautifully painted, with animals floating in the air, but no scenes of hunting. In the middle of them is a mysterious creature: part man, part stag, and part owl. These obviously do not depict real animals, but represent another world beyond the physical realm.
In ancient society, with the development of human society, small gathering-hunting groups evolved into an agricultural society with a more dense population and division of labor, and the image of God in people's minds also changed.
With the establishment of agricultural society, people began to believe that humans could dominate nature. In their imagination, God was also the master of nature. With the emergence of writing in settled societies, some ancient civilizations such as Sumerian civilization, Egyptian civilization, and Greek civilization left more detailed records of their beliefs. People's use of words to describe the gods not only changed the image of gods in people's minds, but also made people clearly aware of their subconscious and secret desires: to shape the gods in their own image.
As people began to try to harness and manipulate the forces of nature, the gods also became powerful and moody, fighting with each other to control their divine realms just like humans.
At a certain point, the gods became too much like humans, and the ancient Greeks began to question their legitimacy. Do gods really look like humans, as depicted in ancient Greek statues? These questions also brought about a new point of view: maybe there is only one true God.
This rudimentary form of god belief was incompatible with polytheism because a single god was incompatible with the widespread habit of anthropomorphizing gods: How could a god be both an angel and a demon at the same time?
But people did slowly come to accept the idea that there was a more powerful god overriding a group of weaker gods. This also reflects the social class at that time: most of the power was concentrated in the hands of one person, and among the gods, there was also a certain god who held most of the power.
It was not until the first explicit expression of monotheistic belief in the Bible that true monotheism took hold. As the Lord declares: “I am the first and the last; there is no god but me.”
And when Jesus appears, he represents a God with human qualities that people still need. At the same time, he continued to preach, telling people how loving and tolerant God (the Holy Father) is. At first, not everyone accepted the idea that Jesus himself was God, until the principle that the Father, Jehovah, and the Son, Jesus, were of the same essence as father and son, was established.
In the seventh century AD, Christianity was born in the Arabian desert and competed with the personal God in the Christian concept. Although Christianity denies the "Trinity" statement and believes that God does not have a specific image, material carrier or form, there are still some chapters in the Quran that are "full of anthropomorphic descriptions of Allah." Some Christians have also raised this question, how could God create all things and yet be isolated from the world He created? Therefore, in most cases, Allah, like God and Jesus, appears in human form.
It can be seen that the development trajectory of religions in human history has often followed the trajectory of animism - polytheism - polytheism with a main god - monotheism.
No matter which religion it is, most of the time, the images of gods are human beings, or at least have personalities.
Even if it is not a human image, it can be extended to other images that humans can recognize: animals, plants, and rarely non-living images. A few fantasy images: creatures with demigod characteristics such as dragons, unicorns, and griffons can also find one or more corresponding prototypes from human beings' existing cognition.
After comparing the old world of the "legacy" of the big-headed ants with the ant myths on both sides of the river, the protagonist discovered something illogical.
It stands to reason that the old world is more developed than the civilizations on both sides of the river. However, in terms of religious development, the old world is still in the polytheistic stage with main gods. However, the two sides of the river, which are still at the technological level of only using fire, have developed monotheistic religions and believe in There is still no specific image of God. This is a very advanced stage of religion.
In addition, what concerns the protagonist very much is the image of the gods of the old world who are the "remnants" of the big-headed ants.
The tree god is a sheet-shaped object, the wind and water god is a plate-shaped object; the fire god is a swaying flame (this is easy to understand), but there is a circle underneath the flame; the rain god is a pancake-shaped object with many holes.
These images have nothing to do with living things and look very strange. It is rare that a religion uses a large amount of inanimate matter to bear the external image of gods. Even if the protagonist feels that there is a clue in it, he can't grasp that little bit of inspiration.
As for the main god, he is an image of four limbs, with a soft and smooth body surface. Many animals fit this image: frogs, lizards, naked mole rats, and even humans.
Judging from the protagonist's current experience, none of these creatures exist in this world. The most advanced life form in this world is insects.
Why does the ant use an image different from itself as the main god? Where did they get this image? Have they seen this kind of creature?
