Xiao Ballast successfully asked Jiahena out for tea alone. He carefully chose a teahouse that was not noisy, had delicious cakes (Gahna liked to have a sweet tooth in the evenings so that she could read difficult books), offered non-tea drinks, and most importantly, were not too expensive (because Gahna did not allow her to pay her bills) and easy to find.

Gahena arrived a minute late, but she arrived ten minutes early, so when she arrived, she saw that she was already sitting in a seat that would not be noticed by pedestrians (Gahena values privacy) and waited for her to arrive.

Jiahena ordered the lemon tart, Xiao Ji ordered cheesecake, and each ordered a drink, and chatted slowly.

Their chats also include topics that girls generally like: shopping. The proportion is not large, and it is always irrelevant to popularity. For Jiahena, the most important value of brand-name goods is durability. She has a brand-name wallet, and she happily said to Xiao Zhen that she has used this wallet for many years, and there is not even a little paint damage. There's not a hint of showing off in it, just because I've bought a good thing.

So Xiao Zhen knew that the brand-name goods offensive was useless to Jiahena, and besides, she did not accept expensive gifts from the opposite sex, and the upper limit of gifts was only one box of cakes.

After knowing each other for more than two years, Xiao Zhen really wanted to push this relationship a little further, but he couldn't find an entry point. Gahna's friends are the same as her, and they can't be bought with expensive gifts. Although Xiao Zhen bribed them with cakes from the old shop, they didn't seem to have the desire of ordinary girls to manipulate their friends' romances, and completely let Jiahena develop it herself.

So friends can't take advantage of it. He can only get a "no objection", and it is impossible for them to help the trouble.

The worst thing is that after a long period of testing, Xiao Zhen found a very serious problem: Jiahena's life is too simple! Because there is no need to learn this kind of skill in that lifestyle, she will not read men's love signals at all. If it were those girls who fell in love several times a year, they should have found out that Xiao Zhen liked her, but she only regarded Xiao Zhen as a friend to talk to, or let Xiao Zhen be a little more self-satisfied, saying that she was a "bosom friend".

The content of Xiao Xuan's chat with Jia Hena is mainly about things that other girls don't want to hear at all. For example, tonight, Jiahena talked to him about what she learned from reading a few books by experts on the Aitaro culture of Duozhou recently, and reading reports from local sociologists.

"Because this shijie has been circling Duozhou for decades, almost all departments in the university in China, including the Department of Sociology, except for the Department of Chinese Literature, are studying in the way of Duozhou. Jahna said.

"Because the process of China's modernization is all borrowed from Duozhou. The Industrial Revolution began with them, and their powerful force shook Shijie in the last Great War, and they are the mainstream culture of Shijie now. It's the same in the law department, and the textbooks are full of theories from their country. 」

"It doesn't matter if the Industrial Revolution is there, physics and chemistry are common everywhere in the universe. However, in the Faculty of Humanities, only the Department of Chinese Literature and Traditional Thinking remains, which is worrying. The situation in sociology, in particular, is simply miserable. 」

"So, what's the impact?"

"Leave aside all kinds of proper nouns. Gahena smiled, her eyes shining with a touching light: "The book I read was written by an expert on the Eitalo culture of Duozhou, and he said that our religion is just entertainment. 」

"Why, we're very religious. Xiao Ballast immediately protested.

"At this time, it is necessary to pay attention to the cultural differences, he thinks that we are just entertaining by the standards of the true God. 」

"Ah, the true God is not a bargain. Xiao Zhen suddenly realized.

Thanks to the large number of missionaries who crossed the sea to preach here, the people of the country still have a good understanding of the True God Religion. Every nation knows the name of the One Lord God and His Son. In the Cult of the True God, one can only try to please God, but cannot ask God for anything in return, and God does not need to give any guarantees. If God feels that man's favor is not enough, or that he does not believe that man is sincere, he does not need to give man a chance to explain, and he can directly send disaster to man and take cruel revenge. One of their myths even has a story of a very devout believer being killed by God as a test of whether he truly believes in God. Later, the believer passed the test, the whole family died, and he was seriously ill and still believed in God, so he received several times the family property and family. This whole thing is seen as God's grace. But when they hear this, they think, "But the family members who were killed before will not come back." Can such a god be?"

"Yes, that's the difference. Gahena smiled and said, "We will negotiate with the ghosts and gods, and we will bargain when we ask Master to do the Dharma. This is very disrespectful in the eyes of the true God believers, how can we make a deal with God? 」

"What's even more exaggerated, we often have people who throw idols into the river because they don't work. Xiao Zhu said. It's not a behavior worth learning. The god doesn't want to worship anymore, and the correct way to do it is to find the big temple and return the statue. Send God back to the Great God.

In the native religion of Ethero, if there is a "god" who dares to kill the family of the believer on a whim like in that myth, he will definitely be burned as an evil spirit immediately, and he will not be worshipped - because the native religion of Ethero is a polytheistic religion, and believers usually find another virtuous god to kill this evil spirit.

"That's right. Gahena said, "We 'worship the spirits,' but we are not sheep for the spirits. Our own lives are important, God helps us live, and He has no right to throw fire and brimstone at us, nor to kill our children and mothers. Our God is as respectable as a skilled physician who has saved countless lives, but we are not subject to His rule.

"There's another big difference: our beliefs are 'bottom-up', from the people, and ultimately the government is compliant. If the government wants to force a change in our faith, we will let him see the liliang of the people. 」

"Haha!" laughed. He remembered that every election, no matter what religion the candidate belonged to, he would go to the temple of his native religion and pray for victory. Even candidates for the True God Cult are no exception.

The religion of the Aethero belongs to the people, and the ruler can only follow the trend.

However, in Duozhou, except for the choice of the people when the True God Religion first emerged, it was often after the people at the top fought the "political struggle in the name of religion", and the victor had the real power to order the people to believe in the same "religion", that is, the same sect.

"Then, I read a book on religious vernacular studies written by a sociologist in my country, which gave a case of the government trying to change folk beliefs. That time it was the government that wanted to change the material of the utensils, and the people didn't want to change it, and the Zuihou government succumbed. Then he concluded, 'In spite of this, the religion of the Etharo is still top-down, and the rulers decide what the people believe. 』」

"It's a strange conclusion. Xiao Zhen raised his eyebrows.

"It's not over yet, I flipped through the whole book, and I found that it's like this all over, not just one place. He kept recording cases to the contrary, and then said, 'In spite of this, the religion of the Etharo still requires piety and cannot be questioned in the slightest. "The religion of the Ethero is exclusive. 』」

"It all sounds like a description of the True God Cult. The Etheric religion has absolutely nothing to do with "exclusivity", because the adherents of the two oldest and most widely established major religions (both polytheists) often overlap, and everyone is accustomed to it. Just like the relationship between the "schools" of the Ethero, the Etheros did not see anything wrong with having a few more factions. He asked, "What's the title of that book?"

"Etharo religious—" Gahna said, reciting a term coined by the author, "—a study of dualism. 」

"Dualism?" Xiao raised his eyebrows.

"Yes. 」

"I thought the biggest difference between our culture and the Duozhou culture was that they were dualistic, we were monistic. 」

"Can you elaborate on that?" asked Gahna. The ballast was out of her mind.

"Everything in Duozhou culture is opposed to each other, good and evil, soul and body, and only when there is opposition can it be complete. But we are monistic, and out of one came all things. Isn't the traditional Spring Festival couplets written?' 』」

"I hadn't noticed that before. It seems that I am also trapped in the framework of the Duozhou culture. Gahena sighed.

"That's what my eldest brother said, and I didn't think about it that much. Their mage is required to take a course on monism, as if it were related to Evangelsal's third law. 」

Gahena continued, "In short, the so-called scientific research should first have the object of observation, and then build a theory based on the object, right?"

"Hmm. 」

"But the sociology of our country has become - the island is the object of observation, and the theory is established according to the island, and then that theory is used to analyze our society, at most a little insignificant increase or subtraction, and the result is that the more you look at it, the more it looks like the island, and the difference is not visible at all. On the contrary, the experts of Duozhou can put aside the theories built for them and study us from scratch. Therefore, although the standards are different, they are still closer to the correct solution than the natives.

"I've also read our ritual primer here. It was a popular publication written by some people for children. Those who still have a traditional perspective give a lot of historical stories, which make it clear that religion belongs to the people, and that every government intervention fails—that books for children that are not recognized by the halls of scholarship have conclusions that are closer to the truth than papers under the banner of sociology.

"What I'm worried about is that the only discipline that can be blinded by the preconceived preconceptions of foreign theories and really face the culture of my own country is the Department of Chinese Literature, which is not taken seriously. Totalization leads to a disconnect between what we learn and the society in which we live. 」

"The phenomenon you're talking about is common in all kinds of fields. Xiao Zhu shook his head helplessly and said, "Last time, someone built a buttress-style house in our place that was not suitable for the local climate, but the cost of air conditioning and electricity was so high that it was frightening to death, so it had to be abandoned. It looks modern, but it just shouldn't be built here. 」

"I think my dissertation is going in this direction. It's a big subject, and I'm going to build a completely different structure than I've learned in the past, and most of the people I can refer to have come to this country have not been to this country a few times. Jahena leaned her elbows on the table and cupped her chin in her chin as she spoke.

Xiao Zhen likes her very much, and likes the lively and lovely light in her eyes when she thinks about difficult problems.