Chapter 19 Chapter Four Rejection of Religion

When the "Mayflower" of Western civilization set sail from Athens, passed through Rome, Constantinople, London and Amsterdam, and finally arrived in Philadelphia, what happened to the oldest civilizations in the world? Most of them left without saying goodbye. The decline of civilization is almost universal and regular. The first to decline was the so-called "ancient civilization" in the Western historian circles.Olmec disappeared inexplicably in the tropical jungles of Central America and disappeared; Harappa evaporated in the Indus Valley for unknown reasons; Sumer, Akkad, Babylon and Assyria were buried in yellow sand and Among the mounds, there is nothing left; Crete was swept away by the subsequent conquerors, the Mycenaeans, and nothing remained.As for Egypt, the fertile soil is still the same, and the river is still the same river, but the nation is no longer that nation, and the civilization is no longer that civilization.As the luckiest family, ancient Egypt only left the afterglow of the westerly wind, and the mausoleum that was not the Han family - the pyramid, and the mummies lying inside.

What appeared on the ruins was the second generation, the so-called "classical civilization" in the western historian circles.Their destinies are various: some stopped abruptly, such as Maya; some were reduced to ashes, such as Persia; some persisted tenaciously until they were destroyed, such as Byzantium; Rebirth, a comeback, and modernity through the Renaissance, such as Greece and Rome. America, which is far away across the ocean, is another scene.They were all in the Stone Age, and they first learned to grow corn, eat chili, drink cocoa, worship the sun god, build pyramids, and build feathered snake temples. to sacrifice the living.

What kind of civilization is this? They are of unknown origin.Archaeological discoveries show that the Olmec civilization rose in the swamp almost overnight, with consequences and no antecedents.The people of Teotihuacan are even more strange. Their "holy city" is said to be built according to the model of the solar system, but the builder himself mysteriously disappeared, leaving only an empty city. The path of civilization has never been the same, and there are no definite rules. Chinese civilization is even more unique. Unlike India, China has ancient civilizations before and classical civilizations later.China is also not like Greece, with the Cretan civilization in the front and the ancient Roman civilization in the back.China is certainly much less like Mesopotamia, where Akkadians, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Mongols, Turks and Westerners "take turns" for governance".It has always been the same nation that created Chinese civilization, but it has been developing and growing, and new blood is constantly being added.But just like all the Yangtze Rivers, although there are tributaries flowing in along the way, they cannot change the nature of the mainstream.

This mainstream was first called Xia, then Huaxia, and now the Chinese nation. We have created only one civilization, that is, the Chinese civilization.This civilization has continued from Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties to modern times, without interruption for 3,700 years.There are no gaps and voids, no fall and decay.That's right, Shang, regarded by Westerners as an "ancient civilization", may be a heresy or a heterogeneous species.But this is just that a nation had a little "rebellious psychology" in his adolescence, and once ran away from home and went wild outside.Soon, he will return to the "four generations under one roof" big family.In the family tree, he still has a place.

China is not a "survivor of an ancient civilization". She already has tenacious vitality. Similarly, it is feasible and necessary to use other civilizations as a frame of reference. Like India.

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