What if Humans Could Look into the Past as if Watching a Movie

"The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be 

the hijacking of morality by religion."

-Arthur C. Clarke, Credo (essay)

The late Sir Arthur C. Clarke describes in Childhood's End (1953) some plausible consequences of  the ability to look into the past and view the true history of humankind, raw and untainted by millennia of editing by men to suite their needs.  (Yes, I mean men, not man.)

The book describes a fascinating scenario in which a benevolent and seemingly omnipotent race of aliens, referred to as the Overlords, invades Earth.  The Overlords impose a simple set of rules, which together with generous gifts of scientific knowledge and technology help create a near-utopia.  Wars and violence, poverty, suffering, and even cruelty to animals are a thing of the past.  One gift in particular from the Overlord ambassador had a profound effect on religion.

The instrument he handed over ... was nothing more than a television receiver with an elaborate set of controls for determining coordinates in time and space. ... One had merely to adjust the controls, and a window into the past was opened up.  Almost the whole of human history for the past five thousand years became available in an instant.

The consequence of this knowledge was simple.

The creeds that had been based upon miracles and revelations had collapsed utterly.

As is so often the case, knowledge and understanding had altered people's capacity to believe in non-sense.

Though it had always been obvious to any rational mind that all the world's religious writings could not be true, the shock was nevertheless profound.  Here was a revelation which no one could doubt or deny; here, seen by some unknown magic of Overlord science, were the true beginnings of all the world's great faiths.  Most of them were noble and inspiring--but that was not enough.  Within a few days, all mankind's multitudinous messiahs had lost their divinity.  Beneath the fierce and passionless light of truth, faiths that had sustained millions for twice a thousand years vanished like morning dew.  All the good and all the evil they had wrought were swept suddenly into the past, and could touch the minds of men no more.

I found this bit of Childhood's End, a great scifi classic, incredibly insightful.  It really makes you think... would religious leaders even want this knowledge?  Would they just bury their heads in the sand and carry on?  I think it would be much more difficult to abandon your beliefs, even with incontrovertible evidence that contradicts the tenants of your faith.  After all, there is a startling number of Americans who believe that Earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, despite overwhelming evidence that the formation of Earth was closer to 4.5 billion years ago.