聽神談【人類「審判」幻覺的緣起】
如何判定一個人是否具備了「必備資格 」？而那些沒有具備資格的人，又會怎樣？
你們對於這些問題的探索，產生了「審判」的發明。
你們推論道，必定有某個「最後的裁決者」。既然是造物主設定了這些必備資格，所以造物主也會是決定「誰具備了資格、誰沒有具備」的那一位，就似乎很合邏輯。
有很長一段時間你們人類一直以為：要取悅神，有些事是你們必須去做的，因為不取悅神的話，就會產生可怕的後果。你們會得到這樣一個結論是可以理解的。環顧四周，你們有些人的生活過得非常好，有些人則否。原始的心智於是會問，這是為什麼？而原始的心智想出了一個原始的答案：
命運是朝獲得神明歡心的人微笑的。原來，神明是必須被滿足的，然後，神明會做出審判。
於是各種形式的犧牲和祭典環繞著這個信念滋長，全都是設計來安撫那難以相處的神明。
在這些最早期的日子裡，你們對於「不足」的感受是如此地強烈，以至你們甚至想像神祗們是在彼此競爭。有許多的神明得去取悅，但通常很難搞清楚要做什麼才能令每個都快樂滿意。
每個新的地球災變、每次冰風暴、每次暴風雨、每個旱災或饑荒或個人的不幸都被視為是「某個神明沒有被滿足」的證據——或有些時候，是因「神祗們彼此一直在爭戰」。
還有什麼能解釋這些所發生的事呢？
現在，這些自古產生的信念，經過數千年來已被精鍊和澄清了。今天大多數的人已不相信有那麼一長列必須被安撫之壞脾氣的神明們。今天大多數的人認為，只有一位必須安撫的壞脾氣的神。
雖然看來好像你們人類很久以前就已演化到超過創造出「我會逮到你」那種神的原始建構，但是這些想法卻繼續主宰著你們星球上的宗教理論。
在你們的社會裡，這種「復仇之神」模式的神明從未被揚棄。你們曾用個人與全球的災禍做為其有效的證據。甚至在最近幾年，例如當你們的愛滋流行病發作時，包括一些宗教領袖在內，很多人都宣稱，人生的不幸是神對人類個人或集體惡行的懲罰。
摘自《與神合一》第6章
How will it be determined whether a person has met the Requirement or not? And what will happen to those who have not?
Your answer to these questions produced the invention of Judgment.
Someone, you reasoned, must be the final arbiter. Since the Creator was the one who established the Requirement, it seemed only logical that the Creator would also be the one to decide who had met the Requirement and who had not.
For a very long time your species has held the thought that there was something you had to do in order to please God— and that failure to please God produced dire consequences.
That you came to such a conclusion was understandable. Looking around you, you saw that some people's lives went well, and some did not. Primitive mind asked, Why? And primitive mind came up with a primitive answer:
Fortune smiled upon those who were in favor with the gods. It was the gods who had to be satisfied, and then the gods would judge.
Sacrifices and rituals of all kinds grew up around this belief, all designed to mollify difficult deities.
In these earliest days, your sense of Insufficiency was so strong that you even imagined the gods to be in competition with each other. There were many gods to please, and it was often not easy to keep track of what had to be done to keep everybody happy.
Each new earthly disaster, each hailstorm, each hurricane, each drought, or famine, or personal misfortune was seen as evidence that one of the gods had not been satisfied—or, sometimes, that they had been warring with each other.
How else to explain what was going on?
Now, these beliefs arose in ancient times, and through the millennia they have been refined and clarified. Most humans today do not believe that there is a long list of ill-tempered gods who have to be mollified. Today most people believe that there is only one ill-tempered God who has to be mollified.
And although it may seem as if your species long ago evolved out of the primitive constructions that created an "I’m-going-to-get-you" kind of God, these ideas continue to dominate your planet's theologies.
This God As Avenger model of Diety has never lost favor in your societies. You've used both personal and planetary disasters as evidence of its validity. Even in very recent times, such as when your AIDS epidemic hit, there were many people—including some religious leaders—who proclaimed life's misfortunes to be God's punishments for the individual or collective misbehaviors of the human race.