It was like any other morning. The women on their way to the river gossiped and chuckled about various things, especially their husbands and secret love affairs. They got to the river. Then as the foremost of them bent to dip her pail in the water, it happened. The loudest voice any of them had ever heard thundered:
“Hold it! I, the god of this river is come
None fetches water here again
Without appropriate sacrifice to me
Default at you own peril.”
The voice was everywhere. Three of the petrified women collapsed in a faint. The rest squealed horribly as they fled village-wards at the speed of terror. Men of the village were swift to investigate the menace. The bravest of them stepped into the river. He never got out alive. The other men saw him stiffen, then slump. None of them had ever seen that kind of death before. All the wise men were baffled. It must be the hand of the supernatural come to punish the village for the many sins of the people, they conjectured. The priests confirmed their suspicions. Cockerels, palm-oil, goats etc became the regular sacrifices to ensure continued and safe access to the river. A strong cult quickly developed around this new and terrible god.
O-pa-pi (swift killer) the god was christened.
Then, about three years later, a team of anthropologists visited the village. They heard of the genesis of the powerful cult of Opapi. They got suspicious and decided to investigate. Their greatest fears were confirmed. The anthropologists took some steps and to the bafflement of the villagers, the influence of Opapi stopped immediately.
The anthropologists never disclosed the secret. Opapi was a mad scientist nicknamed “Yawere”, who disappeared from Britain some years back. Among gadgets found in his lair was a generating set, a microphone and a speaker. The mad scientist had successfully played “god” for three years and seven months.
It has always been that way. Whoever has enough technological know-how to confound his fellow men has always earned their awe. Awe, the feeling of respect mixed with fear and wonder, in sufficient dose becomes worship. Awe is the outer garment of the gods.
Sometime around 1973 or thereabouts, a tribe was discovered in an East African country. It had a local god complete with rituals, priests and all. The god turned out to be the airmail plane that flew over their skies regularly at seven in the morning. The tribe had never seen or heard of the aeroplane. Such a flying and thundering thing, to them, could only have been a heavenly being a god.
No, the above tribe was not stupid. Only ignorant. Acquisition of technology turns knowledgeable beings into miracle workers. When these miracle workers make contact with sufficiently primitive races, the latter equate the former to gods,
Again, consider this. A fierce battle was raging between the Israelites and one of their neighbouring tribes, say the Amalekites. The Israelites were finding things tough. Then suddenly, a thunderous noise came from the skies and seconds later, five British bombers roared into view. Bullets rained on the Amalekites. The Amalekites fled in terror before the Israelites. The Amalekites had not the slightest clue to the “fire/hailstones” from the skies.
Later in the Israelite camp, Joshua, the Israelite leader who succeeded Moses, conducted a special thanksgiving service to Yahweh (the god of the Jews) ”for sending his angels in chariots of thunder with balls of fire to fight for his chosen people.”
There are some things odd about this account, I agree. One is the anachronistic presence of British jet bombers in Old Testament times. But that’s no problem. All that is required is a little imagination. Imagine that at the time in question there was such a jet bomber–producing race unknown to the Jews. The relatively primitive Jews would have unquestioningly equated the pilots or even the bombers themselves to “angels of Yahweh”.
You may not believe it, but such things had happened before.
Today, ask the average Third World man on the street, “Who is it who can cause rain to fall, or determine the sex of an unborn baby or bring into existence a variety of crop that never existed before?” The reply will be prompt: “God, only God”. But he is mistaken. Technology today, through a process called “seeding the cloud” uses silver iodide pellets to cause rainfall; technology has identified X and Y chromosomes that determine the sex of a baby, and scientists can use the knowledge of the level of alkalinity or acidity in the female organ to cause a boy or girl to be born. God never created the Tigon. Scientists did through cross-breeding a lion and a tiger.
Who can change a grown man to a woman? Only God? Wrong. Scientists do it using their knowledge of sex hormones!
There are quite interesting deductions from the above. To a race that believes these feats are the exclusive preserve of God. Whoever can perform these feats qualifies to be its God.
Try it this way. Enter a church in the thick of a revival and shout: “Praise He who determines the sex of a baby! Who can change a man to a woman!” the response will invariably be “Ogoo f’Olodumare! Onise ara.” (Praise be to God, the wonder performer). But of course, all the while, you know that your “He” is a collective pronoun for scientists. However, when years later, our hypothetical race becomes so advanced that the feats for which they praised God becomes so commonplace and easily done by them, you may shout yourself hoarse like you did before and nobody will take you serious. For God to draw their praises now, he must perform more “senior feats”. But when years later, this same race becomes technologically advanced enough again to perform these senior feats, the feats again cease to be miracles to them. In other words, they have outgrown the former god. They need a higher god, so to say. It goes on and on. What does all this show? It shows that a race of beings sufficiently superior in technology can safely play “God” to other sufficiently primitive races. All the beings may need to complete the impressions is invisibility.
If western astronauts travel to a planet today, and there discover a race so primitive that it still relies on clubs and stones as tools of warfare; all the astronauts need do is remain invisible while dazzling the primitive fellows with modern technology loud speakers, electric lights, fire crackers, remote control preferably from the sky (heaven) and the astronauts will be mistaken for gods and goddesses. A bull-dozer will probably pass for a dragon eating away forests and land before it.
Experiments have shown that electromagnetism can be manipulated to cause invisibility. When electromagnetic flux is beamed on an object and the intensity is gradually increased, at a stage, the object disappears. Now, imagine that the United States decides to become invisible. All over America, repeater stations are built to boost electromagnetic flux. Then miniature (pocket-size) electromagnetic generators are invented such that American citizens can carry them on their persons, even outside the boundaries of America.
Know what that means?
*America remains in existence but is invisible to human eyes.
*An American citizen outside America (the range of invisibility) can, through his/her pocket generator, make himself/herself visible or invisible by choice.
* The problem of unwanted immigrants is solved for America. Only those considered worthy will be shown the way in.
* America can monitor other nations while it remains safe from scrutiny.
Then about a hundred years hence, the generation of men, especially in Third World countries, who knew America before it went invisible would have died out. The next generation will be left with stories merely of a “Land of Bliss”, “God’s own country” where most of the problems bedevilling Third World nations have been solved (or with a little exaggeration, are unknown). But only privileged persons can gain entrance into that realm again.
A chance meeting with an American (who probably disappears after a few minutes of conversation) becomes a special experience to be cherished for life.
Give this situation another hundred years, and religious institutions, with prayers, rituals and priests will spring up in supplication to America to solve devotees’ problems.
All the while, continued technological advancement makes America more and more Paradisical compared to the relatively primitive races of Third World nations.
A mere glimpse of America by a primitive devotee then assumes a heavenly experience all courtesy of advanced technology…
