I always wondered what men fought for before Gods were discovered. Or maybe I should say invented, for you can only discover things which exist and the very existence of God has been challenged since time immemorial. Personally, I too have been in serious doubt since I started thinking as a conscious adult and got myself devoid of this confusion only when I was in some serious trouble. You know in bad times, while fire fighting big calamities, you prefer to keep aside these confusions and visit the nearest place of worship available as part of a "Save Our Soul" mission. Once these calamities subside you again start thinking as a mature adult and start wondering once again.
Getting back to the topic of my wonder, I have thought as to whether humans behaved like lions and tigers and never fought among themselves before this concept of God and Religion came into being. Or did they fight over insignificant things like dogs in this "No God Invented Yet" era. Now dogs and especially those stray versions out there on the streets are unbelievably funny creations of God (for the sake of this sentence let's assume he does exist). These stupid dogs form groups and battle formations. They bark at each other from these formations and even attack each other at times. But for what ????? Nobody knows including these dogs. Probably all these dramatic military sequences make them feel important about themselves. Just imagine one of these canines getting reborn as a human with his/her past life memory intact. He /she (considering it was a bitch in the first place) would die of embarrassment upon coming to know how wrong these dogs are while imagining their "Roman Emperor" type status in the eyes of the humans and other species around. Sorry for interrupting the train of thought here, but isn't there a similarity between these canines and us in this "God Has Been Invented" era ?
Moving ahead, I'm assuming that human beings never behaved liked dogs. I mean in this NGIY era. NGIY era ?? "No God Invented Yet" era. Acronyms sessions apart, like I said we assume that human beings behaved like lions and tigers. They hunted and had clear rules for hunting as well as sharing the spoils of these hunts. And one day, a smart ass had a vision. Let's grow crops and feed on the harvest rather than spending time and effort on this tedious job of hunting. Great idea for sure. Humans went the vegetarian way partially and animals in the forests were safer now. The deers and antelopes had at least once species less to be worried about. Seems like happy happy ending like a feel good Hollywood emotional saga.
Not so really my friend. Hunting in rains would have been more adventurous like playing football in rains. Hunting can surely be done in winters and summers as well with very much similar output. But same couldn't be said about farming. Humans became more dependent on Mother Nature now. Early rains, more rains and anything other than right amount of rains at right time meant problems. While some of his hunter cousins still led the brave life and stayed weather risk agnostic, the farmer tribe had more to worry and also more time to worry. This led to inventions to troubleshoot the nature's uncertainties. Sun shines in the sky and it rains from there as well. Man for the first time looked towards heavens to solve his problems as he had a strong urge to believe that something or somebody which looks like him controls all things coming from the sky.
Gods were named. The GHBI era (you know the "God Has Been Invented" era) beckoned. Probably the first gods were the Sun & Rain gods.
When you pray, your prayers get answered with a 50 % (+/- 10%) accuracy. When your prayers are answered, it means God is listening to you and when not, God is testing you. The poor chap (if he does exist) has not been ordained with an option of "Not listening". So with something up in the sky that always listens, more problems were on the verge being troubleshot. Probably the Fire god, the Earth god and the Goddess of beauty also were located in the skies with very similar and adjacent co-ordinates as the ones earlier spotted there. I can imagine a guy with self proclaimed celestial GPS capabilities taking up this job of placing and locating every new found God and earning great respect in the society. He was the first priest known to humanity. Respect gets en-cashed into money pretty soon when you do such indecipherable jobs. After locating Gods, he started carrying messages from these Gods and started earning more revenue. More revenue ??? Why not !!! He has basically now diversified into communication vertical as well. Something like Navtex, the GPS major getting into Mobile communications and challenging the likes of Vodafone.
Revenue + Revenue = More Revenue. More Revenue + More Revenue = Power. The priest became powerful. With power comes the desire to conquer. Unfortunately, too much diversification is neither advisable nor humanly possible. Remember, this guy is still human despite his Navtex cum Vodafone enterprising solutions. So he finds it difficult to diversify into warfare and have a "Lockheed Martin" vertical added to his fledgling business empire. He becomes the Angle investor here and finances these expeditions while betting on the best warriors in the clan. When the warriors win battles and get back with the spoils, the Angle Investor earns a great ROI - Return On his Investment. He makes it clear to his clan members that it's his "strong connectivity" with God that has brought about this victory. The warrior becomes the king with the blessing of the priest. The start-up into which the priest had invested as an Angle Investor goes for many more rounds of funding from the other hard working clan members. Eventually, the start-up firm is all set for public listing.
The Empire is formed. Clan members become citizens and pay taxes. Wars for more lands get blessed by our very own yesteryear Angle Investor - now the Head Priest. Armies march with a confidence that they are fighting to appease the Gods and their war-cry is "God wills it". The soul of the hunter from the NGIY era is the only non - non-living thing that still wonders - Excuse me ! Who wills it ? Along with his soul, every non-living thing wonders the same. The trees, the mountains and the battlefields would remain confused forever and the question in their non-living minds lingers - Excuse me, Sir ! Who did you say wills it ?
