Earthly Tenancy: Episode I [Where are the gods?]

Who exactly are the gods? Were they the first humans who happened to display unusual abilities that others interpreted as divine? Or were they simply more advanced beings who, in those early days, had the freedom to call themselves whatever they wished, passing those titles down through generations until they became accepted as tradition, much like many beliefs today? Or could it be that the idea of gods was crafted by clever elders who wanted to control the lives of people they considered vulnerable and easily swayed by the promise of unseen powers?

 

Can one say that the gods, if they exist at all, are complicit in the decay of the very world they created? Would it not amount to complete failure if they truly were in charge of their own creation? Look around and tell me if there is any kind of umpire overseeing the affairs of this world. What we see instead is that certain cunning individuals have taken it upon themselves to reshape this untested reality in their own image.

 

I have been doing a lot of thinking, and the questions in my head feel genuinely valid but such questions could easily be branded as blasphemies by people who would rather react with fear and emotions than allow logic and reasoning a fair trial in the court of common sense. For many, it would amount to heresy to suggest anything that challenges the belief that this world is still under the influence of the gods, which is rather unfortunate. The first questions to ask are these: where are the gods, and are they too afraid to show their faces in the world they created?

 

Allow me to walk you through the first part of the question, okay? Now imagine the earth as a piece of undeveloped land. The gods decide to develop it, much like real estate developers who transform empty plots into estates. Yet developers rarely live in the properties they build. They might visit occasionally if something needs attention, or they send assistants to deal with any issues on their behalf.

 

Earth, however, is different, even though it sounds the same in this context. Its inhabitants have never seen the gods, nor had any physical contact with the beings many believe created this world. It is like tenants who rent a flat through an agency, pay their bills, follow the contract, yet have no direct access to the actual owner. Everything is filtered through the same agency. In this case, the “agency” is made up of religious leaders who claim they were chosen, anointed, or appointed by the gods to manage the estate on their behalf.

 

So, the real question is this, why have the gods never visited their own estate, this world, and shown themselves to the people who have been waiting, hoping and searching for the truth behind this foggy reality that no one fully understands? Oh, they will return at the appointed time, or so the familiar rhetoric goes. It is the same line repeated whenever people dare to ask thought-provoking questions, the same story passed down through past civilisations who also waited, yet never encountered the gods. Perhaps the gods are no longer interested in their estate, this world, because someone else has taken charge. Let me ask you a question, who builds a dream home and then abandons it, allowing someone with no rightful claim to take over and rule it as their own? Does it make sense to anyone?

 

My mother is a poultry farmer and a businesswoman, and there is not a single day that passes without her visiting the birds, tending to them, or balancing the accounts. Even when she travels for church conventions or business, she assigns each of us specific tasks to keep everything running. The very first thing she does when she returns home is head straight to the poultry farm to make sure everything is in order. So, tell me, what kind of gods would create a world, never visit it, and then allow it to fall into disarray under the care of another who knows nothing of its foundations? Or who would begin a project, bring it to completion, and then hand it over to someone else with nothing more than a promise to return one day, without ever overseeing it?

 

Or are we really just tenants here, or even prisoners? And if that is the case, what are the terms and conditions of this supposed arrangement? What exactly did we do to deserve being sent here? Were we forced into this life, or did we somehow agree to it before arriving? And if we did choose this life, is it part of an endless cycle that we have no power to stop, no moment where we can simply say we are not coming back once we have done our time here? Or are the gods simply gatekeepers, standing between us and other worlds, and by keeping us here they maintain their own relevance in the eyes of whatever powers they serve?

 

There have been countless stories about how this world came into existence, yet none of them offers any definite proof about its true origins or what the first inhabitants even looked like. All we have are religious claims on one side and scientific guesses and theories on the other. But if this world really was created by the gods and they once lived here, why did they leave? Where did they go?

 

This is not an attempt to mock anyone’s beliefs. It is simply a search for understanding, born out of curiosity, because nothing in our past or present truly suggests that our world is being guided or supervised by any divine presence. Yes, the wonders of nature unfold in ways that can feel magical, as though she pulls surprises from her sleeves whenever she chooses, but that alone does not mean the earth is under the watch of gods who seem too afraid to visit the world they supposedly created or to reveal themselves to the people who now live here.