A huge majority of people still believe in religion. And a huge majority of those people also didn’t even read the book.

There were and currently are thousands, if not millions, of different religious beliefs worldwide, many of which had/have not even a single book. Religious hominids back in Paleolithic and Neolithic had no book. Even after writing emerged in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, most indigenous peoples had no book.

Oral tradition is one of the means through which beliefs can be carried forward across generations, but there’s also the underestimated agency (True Will) of the spirits/deities themselves over someone or some living being (e.g. domestic cats) who had never heard of said spirit before unexpectedly finding themselves before the presence of said spirit.

I myself had no book or “sacred book” leading me to my current beliefs and worshiping of Goddess, even though Her names (such as 𒊩𒆤𒇲 and לילית ) do appear as written records, records of which I don’t need to rely on for my esoteric (eso = within) practices.

What makes humans human that they can create and believe myths. That’s what made us thrive amongst other mammals.

Sorry for disrupting your anthropocentric worldviews, Homo sapiens are not that special among the fauna like we Homo sapiens love to wishfully pretend we are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritual/_behavior/_in/_animals

!technology@lemmy.world