The people of Earth did not understand that humans were part of a worldwide organism, that something as tiny as a cluster of bacteria could mean the … - Sheri S. Tepper

Not many years before the Happening, one of your country's largest religious bodies officially declared that their book was holier than their God, thus simultaneously and corporately breaking several commandments of their own religion, particularly the first one. Of course they liked the book better! It was full of magic and contradictions that they could quote to reinforce their bigoted and hateful opinions, as I well know, for I chose many parts of it from among the scrolls and epistles that were lying around in caves here and there. They're correct that a god picked out the material; they just have the wrong god doing it.

By now, the Mahahmbi think we've always been around. They already believed they were God's favorites when they came here, so it wasn't hard to persuade them God created slaves for them."
Melanie snarled, "And if you believe you're God's favorite, killing a few women and children doesn't bother you…

Conflict acting on intelligence creates imagination. Faced with conflict, creatures are forced to imagine what will happen, where the next threat will come from. If there has never been conflict, imagination never develops. Wits arise in answer to danger, to pain, to tragedy. No one ever got smarter eating easy apples.