Chapter 179 God and Man

"absurd."

Just as Mephistopheles finished speaking, a priest stood up.

"Since you acknowledge God's material gifts to mankind, you should not deny your faith. If you rely on God to obtain your current life, but you don't want to believe in God, how can there be such a good thing?"

The crowd of onlookers nodded one after another. If you get something, you should give something. This is very reasonable. However, in the face of the other party's accusations, Mephisto seemed unhurried.

"Your Excellency, I think you may have misunderstood what I meant."

"Except for humans, beasts can reproduce. Their children are born because of their parents, and they exist because of their parents when they are young. Therefore, they respect their parents, but this is not belief; gods also have offspring, and their offspring are due to their parents. When they are born, they respect their parents, and this has nothing to do with belief.”

"I recognize sacrifices, but not faith, because the two are separate and cannot be confused. Gratitude to the helper, awe of the power, and recognition of their spirit and behavior are two completely different things, 伱What do you think?”

When Mephistopheles finished speaking, there was a brief silence on the high platform.

The onlookers thought that this unbeliever would say something ridiculous and be easily refuted by them, but after carefully listening to the other party's explanation, they felt that it seemed to make some sense.

Indeed, gods are of great help to humans. Without gods, humans would probably be like ordinary beasts, running around and living in no fixed place to avoid monsters with extraordinary power. But gratitude and faith are indeed not the same. If one saves the other, the saved one will not become a believer of the former.

"Mephisto, you are just distorting the meaning of the gods."

After a while, a tall young man broke the calm on the high platform. He is the priest of Poseidon, God of the Sea. Unfortunately, due to the prohibition of the God King, humans today cannot approach the ocean at all, so the Poseidon Temple has never had any sense of existence.

"You think humans can use sacrifices to repay God's gifts without having to believe in gods. But mortal sacrifices are of no use to gods. What they value is the piety of the sacrificer."

"Gods use the number of sacrifices offered by mortals to measure the level of piety, and piety is what God values. If everyone doesn't believe in God, what's the point of offering sacrifices to God?"

"So you admit what I said before, that there is mutual value between humans and gods, but the 'value' provided by humans is not tribute, but devout faith?"

"But if you put it this way, I'm afraid this method of judgment is not very reasonable."

With a smile on his face, Mephistopheles pointed at himself.

"My existence is proof. Since the beginning, I have not believed in any gods, but I still paid enough sacrifices, so my residence is not damaged by wind and rain, and my fire stove is always burning. Then I suggest that the gods use a new way of judgment, otherwise unbelievers like me can enjoy the blessings of the gods, which would be somewhat detrimental to the justice of the gods."

The Poseidon Priest was speechless. He wanted to say something, but in the end he didn't say a word.

This is a trap. No matter what God needs is faith or sacrifice, it proves that God wants something from people. Since we have something to ask for, we must put gods and humans on the same level in some aspects.

Although he could also say something like, 'Then we should believe in God in exchange for gifts,' but the Poseidon Priest knew that if he really said that, it would be a complete failure.

If God really has a need for human beings, then the blessings from the gods should be regarded as a 'transaction' rather than a 'gift'. If everyone believed in God with the intention of “exchanging faith for rewards,” then this so-called faith would definitely not be called piety.

Faith that starts with profit will naturally end with profit. Now, the Poseidon Priest only feels that today's trial should not exist.

Faith should never be discussed.

"What about the Creator, Mephisto, do you believe in the Creator?"

Suddenly, someone in the audience spoke out. Perhaps realizing that when faith is treated as a 'trading item', faith has lost its sanctity, that person decisively chose to avoid the topic and instead brought up the existence of Prometheus.

The Creator created bronze humans, taught humans knowledge, and opened up the wilderness for humans. All these behaviors are without asking for anything in return. If Mephistopheles dared to slander the Creator, no one would tolerate his actions.

But obviously, all this was expected by Mephistopheles.

"Creator, of course I don't believe in him either."

Nodding, Mephisto said affirmatively.

But before the audience could get angry, he asked the questioner.

"I think that if you believe in a god, you should guide your own thoughts with his thoughts. If you really recognize the thoughts of the Creator, then you should not believe in him."

"He does not erect temples, build temples, or collect sacrifices. I have to say that the Creator is indeed worthy of human beings to believe in, but he does not want us to believe in him. Then can I draw a conclusion: Wherever human beings need to believe in It is not worthy of human beings’ belief; on the contrary, it does not require belief, so it is the god that human beings should believe in?”

"If this is the case, then we should not offer our faith to any gods. This is also the standard established by the Creator himself for us, isn't it?"

The questioner was speechless, and the expressions of the onlookers softened, and many people fell into deep thought. They were somewhat happy to hear this unbeliever praise the Creator, but what the other person said seemed to be true.

If we must rank the gods, then in the hearts of bronze humans, Prometheus is undoubtedly superior, and even the God King cannot be even half as good as him. But as Mephistopheles said, the Creator built temples for the gods, but not for himself. Does this prove that truly great gods do not need the faith of mortals?

At this moment, the atmosphere in the venue was already a bit serious. The previous briskness disappeared, and the humans below the high platform all thought about Mephisto's words, while above the high platform, a strange atmosphere spread among the priests.

If you really want to say that you don't believe in God, in fact, they priests are the ones who really don't believe in God, but they also understand that they don't have to believe in God, but if the entire bronze human race doesn't believe in God, it will be a big trouble.

The Creator had warned them that the gods might not be able to tell whether a certain person was pious without coming in person, but they could feel the overall changes in human beliefs, so Prometheus warned them many times that they must not Let the common people know about the sacrifices.

And now, if Mephisto's words are really accepted by people, then the gods will definitely discover the problems among humans.

What will happen then, only God knows. After all, truth is truth and reality is reality. What you say makes sense, but it doesn't mean that gods will really tolerate humans continuing to remain as usual after giving up their faith. As the priests who are closest to gods, they do not think that gods are benevolent and kind like ordinary humans.

But he couldn't say these words directly, so Devers stood up decisively. He could not tolerate the other party to continue like this.

"What about the God-King? Mephistopheles, even the Creator created humans under the orders of the God-King. Are you unwilling to give your faith to one of your own creators?"

Devers didn't think this question would stump the other party. He just hoped that Mephistopheles could recall the power of God.

They can create you or they can destroy you. But apparently, his idea failed again.

Opposite him, Mephistopheles shook his head slightly. He no longer looked at the priests on the high platform, but looked around and looked at every human being under the platform.

"God King, you are right. He indeed instructed the Creator to create human beings. But if you have to sacrifice your faith because of this, I'm afraid it's not very convincing."

"As I said before, it is well known that gods can have children and reproduce, but gods will not believe in another god, so the children of gods may respect their parents, but this has absolutely nothing to do with belief."

"This was also my initial point of view - we can offer sacrifices to the gods to show respect for the greatness of the gods, but faith is not necessary. The power of the gods awes me, but they are far from being able to make me surrender spiritually. "

"and--"

"enough!"

This time, before he finished speaking, Mephisto's words were interrupted by Devers' cold voice. His face was very solemn, even to the point where everyone could see it.

He has realized that the guy in front of him may be difficult to convince with words. But he really wouldn't want to do anything else if possible.

Force cannot change thoughts. And faith lies in thought.

"Mephisto, your thinking is indeed sharp, and your words are indeed full of inflammatory, but these are not the reasons for you to be so arrogant."

"Admit your mistake now. As long as you take back what you just said, we can forgive your previous behavior."

Staring at the young man, Devers tried to make him understand his determination. And he was very sure that the other party saw what he meant.

But to his disappointment, the other party just responded with a faint smile.

"I stand by my opinion, Your Excellency."

Looking at Devers, Mephistopheles opened his hands and said calmly.

"Get him."

With a cold expression, when Devers said these words, everyone around him was stunned for a moment. But the next moment, under his intense gaze, the two assistants following him walked towards Mephistopheles.

As a priest who serves the God King, Devers knows that no matter what happens to Mephisto from today on, he has already lost.

Now, he can only choose to make his loss smaller.