VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 2, SECTION 12

VOLUME VI, CHAPTER 2, SECTION 12

One Move for Religion, and Holding a License, Renewing It

The last section set up the two legs of raising people, character and science. This section takes one most sensitive thing, a thing that has scorched anyone who touched it for thousands of years, and shows you how these two legs are used together to settle it, lightly. That thing is religion. For thousands of years this thing has defeated no end of able people, who either did not dare touch it, or touched it and set off a great calamity. This book means to touch it anyway, and to settle it with the lightest of hands. And after religion, it takes those words that sound a little frightening, holding a license, renewing it, and puts them back into the plain, everyday thing you knew cold at the age of six. The student ID.

Religion is hard because the people who touch it have historically had only two roads. One road is not daring to touch it, for fear of offending hundreds of millions of believers, for fear of being cursed for blasphemy, for fear of drawing the fire onto oneself, and so they go around it. The other road is to ban it outright, to call religion superstition and ban it, stamp it out. But this second road uses force, it is walling the flood, and a great deal of the religious strife and sectarian blood-feud of the last thousands of years was lit exactly this way. Ban it, and it stirs a bigger backlash, a deeper hatred.

You see that neither of these roads goes through. The one that goes around it leaves this enormous thing lying there untended, to run wild and to harm. The one that bans it outright is worse, for it makes a death-feud with hundreds of millions of believers, and the more it is banned the harder it kicks back, the more it is pressed down the hotter it burns. For thousands of years, no end of people broke their heads on these two roads, either not daring to touch it or, touching it, setting off a great calamity. The thing is hard exactly here. It is tied to the deepest string in the hearts of hundreds of millions of people, and touch it hard and it goes off, touch it soft and it does nothing. Here we take neither road. We use one move, and go around, and settle it.

This one move is a single line. You want to believe, that is fine, but you have to learn to understand it first. Having learned, you pass an exam, and get a license, and only then is your religious identity recognized. And you renew it every year. Weigh how clever this move is.

The first thing, it does not ban religion, does not oppose religion. Not half a word that religion may not be believed, that religion is superstition. What it says is, you want to believe, that is entirely fine, this is your freedom, but you have to learn to understand it first. And with that, the hat of being anti-religion, of suppressing belief, cannot be pinned on. This is asking you to believe with clear understanding, not forbidding you to believe. That sensitive wall is gone around.

The second thing, learn what? The first course is a religion course, and not only the one you yourself believe, but all the religions of the world, studied through. And this one course pulls, straight out, religion's deadliest mine, exclusivity and mutual slaughter. Where is the source of thousands of years of religious strife? It is in only the one I believe is true, and the rest are heresy and should be stamped out. But study all the religions of the world through, honestly, and finish the scripture of this house and the scripture of that one, and you see plainly, every house has a scripture, and the believers of every house think their one book is the one and only truth. Go that whole circle, and can you still bring yourself to say only mine is right, and the rest should be stamped out? You come, on your own, to learn to respect the other religions. And this is exactly the root of this book, that positions differ only in the division of labor, with no high and no low, no righteous and no evil. The various religions are only different positions too, you respect me and I respect you, and the calamity of mutual slaughter is pulled out by the root. This is the leg of character, used on religion.

The second course is a science course, laying bare the absurd and harmful parts inside a religion. There are good things inside a religion, urging people toward good, giving them comfort, teaching them love. These, keep them, they are good. But there are also absurd, even harmful things, such as those that forbid a person to see a doctor, that forbid a blood transfusion, that use some ritual that costs a life. The principle of the last section is used right here. Belief is belief, but you have to have the leg of science too, to tell things apart. The love and the comfort in your faith, keep them. The absurd things in your faith that will harm you and harm your children, science lays them bare for you, so you do not believe them blindly. This is the leg of science, used on religion.

Think about why so many people believe in a religion. Because it gives a person comfort. A person alive in this world has his hardships, his grievances, the thresholds he cannot get over, the times he fears death, and a religion gives him a hope, a thing to lean on, a peace of the heart. This comfort is a real thing, and a good thing, and no one should ban it or laugh at it. But the trouble is that mixed into this good thing there is, at times, some harmful grit, such as being ill and not going to a doctor but only praying to the gods for it, such as a child falling ill and not being taken to the hospital but only chanted over at home, and this harms people. What the leg of science means to do is not to pour out the whole bowl of soup. It is to pick out that bit of harmful grit. Keep the comfort. Pick out the blind faith that costs lives. This way, the one who believes both gets that peace of the heart, and does not, through blind faith, throw away his own life or his child's. And this is the true good for the believer.

The third thing, get a license, renew it every year. On what does one get the license? On passing the exams of these two courses. You studied all the religions of the world through and learned to respect others, and your leg of character has passed. You used science to tell apart the love and the absurdity in your faith, and your leg of science has passed. Good, then a license is issued to you, and your religious identity is recognized. Renew it each year, and each year it is checked over once more, whether this year you still understand, still respect others, still tell things apart.

See how clean this move is. It does not ban, does not wall off, does not strike, does not curse a single religion. All it does is raise a threshold. To believe, first learn to understand, first learn to respect, first tell love apart from absurdity. And the believer, far from feeling suppressed, is driven by this move to learn his own faith through, to learn it clean, until he no longer hates others and is no longer harmed by absurdity. Use the pen, not force. A knot that thousands of years of fighting could not untie is untied, lightly, with the plainest of words, classes, exams, a license, annual renewal. Hold this. Do not ban and do not oppose, but to believe, first learn to understand. The religion course studies all the world's religions and learns mutual respect, the leg of character, and it pulls out the calamity of exclusivity and mutual slaughter. The science course lays bare the absurd and harmful parts, the leg of science, and it tells love apart from absurdity. Pass the exams and get a license, and renew it every year. Use the pen and not force, and untie the thousand-year knot, lightly.

Now, up above, in speaking of getting a license and renewing it every year, your heart may have given a small jolt. Issuing certificates again? An annual review again? Does that not sound a little strict, a little troublesome, a little frightening? Today let me tell you a thing that takes that tension away entirely. Holding a license and keeping it renewed is no new gimmick at all. You have been doing it since the age of six, done it your whole life, and never once found it frightening.

Cast your mind back. At six, the first time you shouldered a schoolbag and went into a school, what did the school hand you? A student ID card. And that student ID card, what is it? Let me tell you, it is a license. It states, in black and white, one thing. This person's position, at present, is student. And on the strength of that card he enters this school, is settled, has his character raised, is taught his science. The moment he enrolled, he was holding a license.

You see, holding a license is a thing humanity has long done, and the plainest, least frightening one of all is the student ID. A child of six carries one. Does anyone find the issuing of student IDs a frightening piece of control? No one. Everyone knows it for the most ordinary thing there is. You are a student, so you are given a card that says so, and that is all.

Think how many such cards you have carried in your life. The student ID was the first. Later you grew up and got an identity card, proving you are a person of this country. You learned to drive and got a driver's license, proving you passed the test and may go out on the road. You married and got a marriage certificate, proving you had made a family. Not one of these cards is there to block you or to make trouble for you. Every one of them does one thing. It writes down, plainly, in black and white, what position you have reached, what skill you have, what responsibility you carry. A person who can drive has to have a driver's license, and this is as it should be, and no one feels bullied by it, because everyone understands that driving carries a responsibility for people's lives, and there has to be a card proving that you truly can drive, that you truly can carry that. Holding a license was always right there beside you, always this ordinary.

And renewing it every year? Just as ordinary. That student ID of yours, was it issued once for a lifetime? It was not. Each new school year, the old one is voided and a new one is issued, with a fresh stamp, a fresh photo, the new grade written on it. And is that not renewing it? From six to your teens, you changed a student ID at the start of every year, renewed it for a dozen years, and did you find it frightening? Troublesome? You did not. Everyone knows it is because you moved up a grade, your position changed, from the third grade to the fourth, and so a new one should be issued, and your new position written down clearly. This is the whole reasoning of annual renewal. A person's position changes year by year. This year the third grade, next year the fourth. What you learned, what you can do, what you should carry this year is not what it was last year. So once a year it is checked over and updated, and what position you have reached now, what you can do, what you should carry, is written down afresh. It is not to manage you, not to block you. It is because your position changed and has to be updated to match, exactly the same as changing the student ID every year, moving up the grades. No one feels that changing the student ID is control, because everyone understands it is the position that changed, and a new one should be issued.

Once you see this layer, look back at those licenses from before. A religious identity needing a license, renewed every year, is the same as the student ID, because your understanding this year may differ from last year, and it has to be checked over once. And the chapter on law, later, will say that operating AI, doing the important things that carry a great responsibility, also takes a license, and it is still the same as the student ID, proving that your position, your skill, your responsibility have been checked and written down clearly. You see, from that student ID at six, to the religious license, to the future license for the one who operates AI, to the licenses of every trade, they are one and the same thing, one line, running up from that student ID you got at six, renewed on up, examined on up. Holding a license, keeping it renewed, was never some frightening new system. It is a common knowledge everyone has carried in his pocket since the age of six, and done his whole life.

All that is done here is one thing. To point out this ordinary thing everyone does every day and never once looked at twice. Point it out, and put it to large use, and take this method of holding a license and renewing it that you knew cold at the age of six, and connect it to religion, and to AI, and to every important, responsibility-bearing position in this world. This is this book's way of thinking a thing through. It does not invent frightening new gimmicks. It sees, in that student ID in your own pocket that you never looked at twice, a whole set of ways to settle the important things and the important positions, clearly. Hold this. Holding a license, keeping it renewed, is not a frightening new gimmick. It is a common knowledge you have practiced since the age of six. The student ID is a license, and the moment you enrolled you were holding one, and changing the student ID every year is renewing it, because you moved up a grade, your position changed, and it needs updating. From that student ID, connecting on up to the religious license, the AI-operator's license, the licenses of every trade, it is all one line. This book only points out this ordinary thing everyone passes over, and puts it to large use.

And with that, the two legs of raising people, character and science, are both set up, and even the most sensitive thing, religion, and even that student ID everyone carries, have been placed into these two legs, into this one license. This chapter, the new order for culture, ends here. The next chapter leads you into the new order for the economy.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.