Chapter 238: The Power of Atheism
It is the human heart that is easiest to change in the world, and the most difficult thing to change is also the human heart. Even atheism is difficult for inherently ignorant believers to be effective, but most of the clergy are not in this category.
Those who can become clergy must be intelligent and perceptive, and they have only come to believe in the true God because of the circumstances in which they live and the long-term indoctrination of the church. In the parish of the church, they have been indoctrinated with the idea of gods, but they don't have much choice.
Most of the clergy were educated by the Church from an early age and had no exposure to other ideas from the outside world. When the Book of Divine Charisma was published, these people learned about true history for the first time. Perhaps they don't realize it themselves, but the ideas of curiosity and skepticism are deeply ingrained in their hearts by the Book of Divine Grace.
When this group of people has access to Atheism, they will try to read it for whatever reason and for whatever reason. And once you read "Atheism", the rational person will naturally suddenly realize it and establish a new ideological concept.
Unbelievers mostly refer to those who do not know God, those who know about the existence of gods and think that Godless people are actually anti-God. Many clergy who read Atheism have become less religious, or more than have become pagans who know God and think that they are godless.
Due to the restrictions of church rules, it is impossible for one to quit the church even if one becomes a heathen, or even to appear abnormal. As a result, a large number of clergy who had changed their minds as a result of Atheism lurked in all the churches, and Atheism did not take it seriously until it became uncontrollable much later, and some of them contributed to it.
Atheism was really taken seriously because the gods themselves discovered the anomaly of this matter.
"Atheism" is rapidly changing the minds of many people, but due to the oppressive rule of the Holy See, no one shows it on the surface. So in fact, it is difficult for the church to perceive these changes, and naturally it does not seem to pay much attention to them.
Directly affected are the many civilizations in the Temple of the Gods. The gods were outraged by the sudden disappearance of many sources of faith and the drastic reduction in the amount of faith, and they ordered the church to investigate the root cause of the decline in faith.
However, faith is affected by many factors, such as the promulgation of a policy that does not conform to public opinion, which in many cases will cause this crisis of faith. At this time, the Church, under the influence of many factors, only discovered that "atheism" was spreading widely among the infidels, so it did not suspect it.
As the various reasons found have not changed the situation of a significant decrease in faith, the anger of the gods has burned higher and higher. The Church began to punish and punish those who did not conform to the norms, which further accelerated the people's fall into the arms of "atheism" and caused the degree of faith to plummet again.
It was in the midst of this vicious circle that a chance exchange between the cooperating churches of the same deity led them to realize that the real danger is often not superficial, but hidden in the hearts of the people.
When the great harm of "atheism" to the belief in the gods was exposed, the church began to conduct a thorough investigation of the strict defense. But the human heart is nothing else, and even gods can't see through it. The results of the church are better than nothing, and they do not change the big picture.
And by the time the church reacted, it was already too late. Atheism was enshrined as a sacred text among the mages of the underworld, and even in normal societies under the rule of the Church, it spread widely and took root in people's minds.
Many secret societies were formed to discuss the idea of "atheism" and to help each other in the cover. This kind of community structure is rigorous, and even if you catch one of the members, you can't follow the vine. They have created a great deal of obstacles for the Church to thoroughly investigate Atheism, and have achieved very little success.
Even when Atheism was discovered and suppressed by many civilized gods, the decline in belief in the gods has not decreased, but has continued to worsen.
Only then did the gods and the church realize the real crisis posed by atheism. The book "Atheism" shakes not only the faith of the gods and the church, but also their foundations. "Atheism" contains a large number of black history and historical facts that the gods do not want to be known by mortals, and little by little pulls the gods from the image of omnipotence in the minds of believers. Combined with the comments of the author "Ruilin", those inspired by "Atheism" will only move further and further away from the gods, and will never return to the so-called gods.
With the mass dissemination of Atheism, many books on the same system of theories circulated in the shadows and underground worlds began to appear. Now the gods and the church have to deal with not only the book "Atheism", but also a large number of other books and theories under the same theoretical system. Since the technical level of the "mystery book" is much higher than that of the charismatic realm, and the church has not been able to crack this kind of thing so far, it is completely impossible to prevent the mass spread of "Atheism".
The church has encircled and suppressed the underground world established by the mage several times, and has achieved some results, but the speed of their encirclement and suppression has not kept up with the formation of the new underground world. Because of the large amount of introductory knowledge of magic in "Atheism", many people with conditions have begun to come into contact with the mysterious power of magic.
These people have completely abandoned their belief in the gods, and they will find ways to join the underground mage world. Due to the proliferation of new mages and the knowledge of magic theory in Atheism, the original mages have also improved rapidly, so many new underground and worlds have emerged.
Mages have been fighting the Church for thousands of years, and while they have always been in a vulnerable position, the various hidden testing techniques, combined with the recent advances in new technologies due to Atheism, have made it difficult for the Church to discover the underworld. Even if you rely on the inside line to discover some mage underworlds, it won't help, because new underworlds are built faster.
Originally, the ruling system of the Church of God was like being pierced by "Atheism" with countless holes, and the Holy See could only exhaustively encircle and intercept it, but with little effect.
When both the gods and the Holy See realized the seriousness of the matter, the Second Council of the Gods was officially brought about by several powerful gods. With the exception of a few primordial gods who didn't care about their beliefs at all, almost all of the civilization's gods participated in this meeting.
The last meeting of the gods was during the Nether period, and it was the last meeting that led to the gods uniting to besiege Netherel, the first god of magic, and changing the situation and development of the entire divine grace world. There was only one thing to be discussed: how to deal with the unprecedented crisis of faith in Atheism?
The meeting lasted for more than a year, and the exact process was unknown to ordinary people, not even the clergy of the church. When the Council of the Gods ended, the gods announced several major moves through the church.