@Gwendolyn2018 Every work of literature, creates an alternate universe, a fictional universe. In which the laws of nature are made by the author, who has god like authority within that universe. So that is why it is unwise to treat literature as a source of literal truth. If you do, then you can believe that a man, told you to stone none virgins to death, with absolute god given authority. While the proof of that authority was that he miraculously led a people out of slavery with that gods aid. Even though the people probably never existed, and they probably never made that migration.

While in modern times many people believe that, (And I have heard the argument used many times by apologists. ) Fyodor Dostoyevsky, conclusively proved that civil humane society can not exist without sacred law, because he was able to construct a world in which a failing of humanity took place, and could be justified, within a novel.

Richard Dawkins made a big mistake when he proposed the idea that religions are an infection of the mind. Because he failed to see that all of human culture is in fact an infection of the mind. Including and especially the arts, which are the generators of culture. The reason for that, is that evolution can not pre-adapt creatures for new environments which they may move into.

So that all creatures are to some degree ill adapted, it just depends on how recent and how large the change of environment was. And few creatures made such a massive, or recent, change of environment as humans did, when we started to use language, and began to tell stories around the camp fire. So that we moved from a natural world to a cultural one, and we simply have no adaptions to cope with that. We are not by nature in any way equipped to cope with, or even understand the effects that culture has on us. Which is why it is wise, to treat all human culture, especially the narrative arts, with the greatest suspicion.

@Gwendolyn2018 That is very true. But I think that it is over simplified and that human nature and its relationship with culture and literature is far more complex than that. For at least four reasons.
Firstly. Because the lines between fiction and hard history or science are not always clear cut. Secondly. Because long attention given to ideas and ways of thinking, can and does alter our minds and reinforces our prejudices, even though we may not notice it and may be well aware that it is fiction. Thirdly because other peoples misunderstandings may be picked up second hand. And fourthly. Because it can ack as a distraction, taking peoples time up, and preventing enough study of, history and science etc. thereby creating ignorance.

To take an example. Leo Tolstoy's, War And Peace, is a book which I greatly love, and it makes real points of wisdom. But it does pose as in part history, and many people including many Russians take it as their main source of history about the period. Even if they do not do that, they still live in a culture where the attitudes to history expressed by it are the norm.

So that there can be little doubt, that the idea of Russia as firstly, an inevitable natural nation and common culture, is reinforced by Tolstoy. That it is a natural victim, always under threat, and that it is naturally threatened from western Europe, are all inevitable prejudices made stronger in a culture which knows and is familiar with Tolstoy's work. It is therefore without doubt, that Putin's present invasion of Ukraine, owes something to the prejudices, ideas and attitudes, some true and some not, which were formed in Russian culture by a work of literature.

@Gwendolyn2018 Yes of course it is ignorance that is the basic problem, but below even that problem is the even bigger problem, that we are all ignorant by our very natures. Since we are only given one life, and we have to spend half of that sleeping, eating and going to the toilet etc., we simply can not study everything. Which is why any source of disinformation, however well intended is a danger, even to those who try to be well informed. While to the many, who simply do not have the means to spend their whole life in study, they are even greater.

My personal definition of religion, as you have probably heard me say before, is that religion is a synonym for the "proof by authority" fallacy. And sadly when we respect culture as a source of authority, even secular culture, then we fall into the religion trap. Even though it is a religion without a theist god. The first step towards understanding for anyone, is to learn the fundamental truth, that your culture is just received folly, ( Even though it may contain many truths. ) and not a source of authority.

I am not saying that you can not both enjoy and learn from literature, I have done both, but there has to come a point when you understand, if you are to make any personal growth beyond a primitive level, that to believe in artistic truth, is to create a belief in a god. And that the art god will take you to places you will not want to go. It is no accident that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, were the biggest spenders on the arts in their day, they well understood that the backing of a god was very useful to any dictatorship, and what better or more compliant god could you have, as a dictator, than the worship of culture.