The beginning is astonishing.
“Is modern state power also a religion?”
Lin An was stunned for a moment and couldn't help but repeat this sentence in his mind.
The words written by Chu An were not complicated. Although the wording was a bit strange, Lin An could clearly understand what Chu An was expressing.
It's just that the connection between modern civilization and religion makes him feel a little absurd and inconsistent.
In his opinion, modern national political systems are advanced and represent the progress of mankind. Religion is barbaric and backward. It can be said to restrict people's thinking and use deception as a means to squeeze out the dross of mankind.
If he did not want to gather the power of faith, deep down in his heart, he would not want to establish the kingdom of God on earth.
But in Chu An's view, the two are the same thing.
Taking a deep breath, Lin An continued to look down with solemn eyes. He wanted to see why Chu An said that.
...
"No matter how advanced the modern state system pretends to be, in essence, state power is still no different from the source of divine power."
"The only difference is that modern state power comes from the rights to violence, life, and freedom that citizens voluntarily surrender. Religious power comes from intimidation, deception, and forcing believers to surrender their rights."
"Take the violent institutions of modern countries as an example. Their rights come from citizens [voluntarily] giving up their freedom to use violence, and are used uniformly by the state."
"Take being hurt and taking revenge as an example. People are born to fight back when attacked, or to kill anyone. This is the inherent "right" of human beings and every living individual."
“But by handing over power to the state, individuals lose their freedom to violence and are subject to legal restrictions.”
"After absorbing a large number of rights, the state's violent organs can use their rights uniformly, form an army, and carry out violence against other individuals or groups."
"In essence, this is no different from concentrating strength and resources. It is also no different from the Inquisition and the Divine War Legion."
"It's just that the former uses cultural concepts such as ideas, country, and national identity to force citizens to surrender voluntarily, while the latter uses threats such as entering hell after death, doomsday judgment, and the love of the Father to deceive believers into passively surrendering."
...
After a brief pause, Lin An was shocked after reading the first paragraph.
"State power comes from the power surrendered by citizens... and the source of religious power is no different."
Lin An couldn't help repeating it in a low voice, and opened his mouth slightly, unable to refute for a while.
The reason is simple. He had seen this sentence in his primary school politics textbook. It's just that he wasn't as straightforward as Chu An...
but...
Lin An frowned slightly, he still felt that there was a difference between the two.
The power of faith has substance. Strictly speaking, although the power of faith provided by believers will make the gods more powerful. But God is also powerful, and believers are not allowed to do everything.
If the national will is compared to the will of gods, then the will of gods is more subjective and more specific.
It is difficult for the will of the state to decide what to do alone, like the will of the gods.
Not only that, the former is matter, and the latter already belongs to the category of extraordinary power.
"Absorb faith in the form of some kind of country? It's hard to call what you absorb a faith? Even if you condense the will, it can't be called a god, right?"
Think by association.
Faintly, Lin An seemed to think of what Chu An wanted to do at the beginning, and why he didn't do it for so long.
"Did that guy Chu An originally want to design a new national constitution to absorb my faith instead of religion?"
"The resistance to absorbing faith in the name of the country will be much smaller than that of religion, and..."
While he was deep in thought, Lin An suddenly flashed in front of Lin An's eyes the batch of level four brought by Black Emperor and others.
He wanted to unify the world and build an empire, and he also referred to the civilization form behind the Black Emperor.
"I see... I have wondered before. The path of faith is so strong that basically every leader of civilization should try to take this path. But there are so few fifth-level people who actually take the path of faith. Logically speaking, it should be You won’t be willing to give in, right?”
"It's not that you didn't leave, but that you knew it was too difficult, so you didn't give in and chose "semi-religion"?"
Taking a breath, Lin An rubbed his brows tiredly.
Level 5 is really not that simple.
"If I don't go all three ways, then these things written by Chu An are quite instructive to me."
"But I have to gather my faith... Replacing religion with country is not effective for me... I can't take this road."
His heart sank, Lin An gave a wry smile, and he roughly guessed why Chu An didn't give this manual to him.
If nothing else, Chu An realized that this problem was unsolvable until the end of his research?
Sure enough, Lin An lowered his head and looked again. The first sentence of the following content was almost as he thought.
"It is true that the state is essentially the same as religion, but it cannot condense the true power of faith."
"This is the product of a compromise by the country's ruling class to avoid the split of "thinking" or to give birth to a collection of true god-like wills."
"It is extremely difficult for an individual to carry group consciousness. Although the power of group consciousness becomes more powerful after condensing the godhead, if the individual cannot maintain its own integrity, it will inevitably lose control and self-destruct."
"In human history, we can also see the changes that humans have gradually realized this and made changes."
"For example, in the primitive social system, [God's guidance]: The ruler's body is the true god. In the early feudal era, the emperor (the incarnation of the godhead), the ruler was possessed by the true god. Then in the middle period, the king's power was divinely authorized, and heaven and man responded. The ruler did not No longer God, but accepting the true God’s message.”
"These changes are all weakening the bond between the individual and the godhead, no longer condensing the will of the gods, and preventing the individual from suffering the splitting impact of the group's will."
"Modern countries are disintegrating the divine will to the limit to avoid destruction. Such as fascism, racism, imperialism and a series of highly cohesive structural tendencies."
"People use federalism, conference system, separation of powers, separation of military and government, elimination of personality worship and other means to avoid the cohesion of beliefs."
...
"Wow"
Lin An turned to the second page in silence, sighing in his heart.
From the lines written by Chu An, he seemed to be able to see the scene where the man carefully wrote down these thoughts and tried hard to explore the essence.
When he didn't know and never thought about how the future would go, Chu An was already silently behind him, working day and night to find a way to break the situation for him.
"From the beginning of human civilization to modern times..."
"Looking for answers from every step of human footsteps? I don't know how much information that guy has checked..."
A bitter smile appeared at the corner of Lin An's mouth. , I suddenly missed that guy a little bit.
"Chu An..."
Whisper the name.
Lin An's eyes were full of complexity, although sometimes he hated Chu An and often wondered whether that guy was plotting against him. But all the way up to now, Chu An has always been as he said, never harming himself.
Lin An quickly glanced at the content on the second page and didn't hold out much hope.
At first glance, it seems that Chu An is almost serious and rigorously analyzes the evolution of beliefs and culture in each era.
This thing may be of great research value, but it is not of much help to his current situation.
The third page..
Page ten..
Page 20..
...
"Chu An, there's nothing you can do..."
After watching for an unknown amount of time, Lin An sighed softly.
He was almost halfway through the notes in his hand, but he still didn't find the answer he wanted.
However, just when Lin An just planned to finish reading it quickly and was about to "give up".
There was a crash, and on the twenty-first page, a line of text marked in red suddenly came into view.
..
"To sum up, although we cannot find a perfect way to condense faith from human history. Any way of faith will inevitably require violent cleansing and enduring chaos."
"But that doesn't mean we have no way to go."
..
"In human history, every emergence of ideologicalism is a civilizational change, and every thought is a light of salvation in the aftermath of apocalyptic disasters."
"These ideas can guide human civilization to continue to this day and remain immortal. Then they must contain the correct path to the essence!"
"I think I found the answer!"
...
"Lin An."
"When you see this sentence..."
...
...
"I shouldn't be dead yet."
-------------------
The moonlight outside the window shone in Lin An's suddenly shrinking pupils.
Looking at page 21, it seems like the sentence written in red pen across time and space.
Lin An:! ! ?
