Universal books -- Claim The Earth -- Chapter 4: Under the Sun

The theory that introduced a window of opportunity for miracles, also introduced doubts about the Gods that performing the miracle. That was the beauty of the Yin and Yang of the Taoism. This is the kind of belief that things coming out of emptiness and going into emptiness all because of imagination of something's existence (我思故我在). Now you see this is not new under the Sun either, it is the simple Chinese philosophy of yin out of yang and yang out of yin (阴阳交替).

Instability often brings people flocking to religions for help. 苍天已死, 黄天当立; 石人一只眼, 挑动黄河天下反. Look which countries in today's world are increasingly clinging to religious beliefs now? Religious extremists usually spell trouble for the world, no matter which religion they come from. I really doubt the wisdom of picking up somebody else's faith, while trying to imitate somebody else, trying to be as knowledgeable as somebody else, trying to be as productive as somebody else, or trying to live at the same standard of living as somebody else.

Pursuit of productivity and expansion of knowledge usually happens gradually following a similar path. Smaller branches of knowledge developed, them they were studied, and then became rules and laws on the subject, and the expansion starts.  For example, when economics was initially developed, there was no difference between "Micro" vs. "Macro" economics. Later when Great Depression happened and people traveled more and more all over the world, and realized the world could not have been simply defined by perfect competition. Having 1/4 of the labor force on vacation or unemployed could not have been a phenomenon of pure consumer psychology, then there was the development of "Macro" economics, which introduced the control on economics from government. In the end, whoever came up with theory that can convince people in certain domains, became the preacher of the truth from God and other people believed in the guy or the gal and also believe what he or she preaches. After all, what good is it in a God if nobody believe in him or her. On the other hand, the things that have believers usually have certain ingredient of divinity and supernatural power, like some kids believing their parents were Gods or many subjects believing their kings or queens were Gods. Don't laugh at me, why are you always laughing at anything profound that I have to say as if I was joking?"

"I was laughing at how far away you have wondered about. What does king or queens or knowledge have anything to do with religion?" Wise Guy asked.

"In your laughter, lies the biggest difference between history of the East and the West" David said. "In the East we tend to think kings, queens and knowledge has very little to do with religion. But Western history seemed to believe that everything had something to do with religion. The struggle to separate or associate church and states has pretty much being the entire ball game in Western history besides some intermission and water breaks. Before Catholic church took control of Europe, some of the kings and queens made great achievements in the history sometimes attributed achievements as consequences of their own work. Other folks in Europe let them know they are merely like fans of a sports team, such as Pittsburgh Steelers crying "we are the champions", after Steelers won a championship. Those queens and kings were quickly taught that: first fans are not the champions because they were not even athletes, second, even the athletes knew they could not be undisputed champions without strokes of luck blessed from God. Attributing someone else's glory to themselves (贪天之功) was not allowed. But who can blame those innocent fans for going crazy for something they were so addicted to? After all, the world would be much less colorful if nobody is passionate about somebody else's work. As was mentioned by Hemingway in the past: gambling, religion, sports, politics, science, music, literature, what is not an "opium" of the people? But the entire prolonged Middle Age in Europe took away all other kinds of opium from most of the kings, queens and subjects and left them with only one kind of 'opium' religion. Kingdoms used to have no sovereignty, and kings and knights were merely keepers of sovereignty for Jesus Christ. Church and states were the same things. Since people only live to celebrate God doing nothing but throwing dice, knowledge and many other things, such as construction progressed very slowly. There is nothing new under the sun, but Middle Age in Europe probably had even fewer new things than usual.

Two friends walked in the street of Seattle downtown and as they turned a street corner, they walked into a cathedral. Hearing the song of California Dreaming, David smiled at his friend and said: "do we want to pretend to pray, like what was said in California Dreaming? You know the preacher likes the cold".

Wise Guy said: "I still remember the first letter that you wrote to me after arriving in US saying that the first apartment you have found as as an overseas student was through the help of a priest. You thanked him much for that. How much have changed". "A pastor actually" David said: "I am still not good with these religious things, but now at least I know there is a difference between a priest and a pastor, or at least I thought I do now. I am still not sure what a reverend is though. Whatever those religious titles are, I am feeling they are more and more irrelevant to our everyday lives, while many other people might feel differently".

"Are all these churches built by Christians" asked the Wise Guy pointing to a grand looking cathedral. "Yes and no. These buildings bearing a big golden cross and with figures of a women named Mary somewhere in the church, is most likely built by Catholics. These folks like to build big churches with expensive stones, colorful paintings and lavish decorations. They are not very keen on the idea of 'modesty' comparing to their later brethren in other Christian branches after Reformation. In the eyes of muslin and many other branches of Christians, those painting could sometime be considered almost as bad as worshiping idles. I believe Catholics means 'generic' or 'universal' kind of Christianity at the very beginning. For a long time in history, its main rivalry in Christian world was 'Orthodox'. But after renaissance and religious reformation and then industrial revolution, there are many other new branches of Christianity that newer kinds of Christians started calling themselves 'Christians' with their shepherds or church leaders being 'pastors' and branded the older style Christians as 'Catholics' or conservative Christians, with their leaders of the churches called 'priests'. Then, there are these other branches of Christianities bearing the names as 'Baptists', 'Presbyterian', 'Quakers', 'Evangelists', 'Mormons', 'Jehovah Witness', with different books to read and different kinds of people as believers. It is all very confusing and bewildering to somebody coming from the Far East. And that is not all the confusion there is. That is only confusions within the limit of Christianity along. Then there are other religions that may or may not belong to Christianity, Muslim, and Zionism which are all originated from the same origin based on the Bible Old Testament. In other parts of the world, there are famous religions such as Buddhism and other people wanted to brand Taoism and Confuciasm as religions too, but I had no idea those were religions.

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