Let's say I want to control my group or tribe or nation. I could use charisma, or I could use force, or I could use religion. I may not have the needed charisma, which is a fickle thing anyway. I could use force, but killing is just wasting those economic assets known as humans. So, I would probably use religion, which seems to come natural to humans and could more easily build long-term security for me and my family.
To use religion, I would first create some magical story, history, hierarchy, rituals, etc. But, to provide that sense of permanence and grandeur, I would also need a proper structure, calling it a temple or church or something. The bigger and grander, the better! It is a useful crowd control tool.
I first stumbled across Erich von Daniken's best-selling Chariots of the Gods in the mid-1970's and found it to be mildly interesting. His theory was that extraterrestrial visitors ("ancient astronauts") had visited our planet, leaving mysteries behind. As it would require "proving a negative" that his theory was wrong, I remained curious about certain of the mysteries, such as the famous Nazca desert pictographs.
There is now a television show called "Ancient Aliens," which I normally avoid, taking strong issue with their argument that any unanswered rhetorical question automatically proves the theory, e.g., is it possible that UFOs landed in Washington, D.C., and stole 585 brains? There is no way to prove such a fanciful event did NOT occur.
So, producers of this new TV show have scoured the globe in search of every odd-looking hill to raise silly rhetorical questions, such as "did the government of China cover this huge pyramid that might hold secrets left by UFOs" My suspicion is that some control-freak two thousand years ago wanted to put his people into religious servitude and built the only thing he could build -- stacks of rocks. What did you expect control-freaks to build two thousand years ago -- Trump Tower??
To use religion, I would first create some magical story, history, hierarchy, rituals, etc. But, to provide that sense of permanence and grandeur, I would also need a proper structure, calling it a temple or church or something. The bigger and grander, the better! It is a useful crowd control tool.
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I first stumbled across Erich von Daniken's best-selling Chariots of the Gods in the mid-1970's and found it to be mildly interesting. His theory was that extraterrestrial visitors ("ancient astronauts") had visited our planet, leaving mysteries behind. As it would require "proving a negative" that his theory was wrong, I remained curious about certain of the mysteries, such as the famous Nazca desert pictographs.
There is now a television show called "Ancient Aliens," which I normally avoid, taking strong issue with their argument that any unanswered rhetorical question automatically proves the theory, e.g., is it possible that UFOs landed in Washington, D.C., and stole 585 brains? There is no way to prove such a fanciful event did NOT occur.
So, producers of this new TV show have scoured the globe in search of every odd-looking hill to raise silly rhetorical questions, such as "did the government of China cover this huge pyramid that might hold secrets left by UFOs" My suspicion is that some control-freak two thousand years ago wanted to put his people into religious servitude and built the only thing he could build -- stacks of rocks. What did you expect control-freaks to build two thousand years ago -- Trump Tower??
