A professor once told me that behind so-called theories of aliens being responsible for pyramids and other ancient achievements, is a stubborn bigotry that the believers would never admit. That is, that these primitives, these (brown people, all of them) could never accomplish such great things without the help of aliens, outsiders, creatures smarter than themselves who came bringing great technology, and who were promptly worshiped by the idiot natives.
Think about that.
Your professor is correct, Patrick: why how could some ignorant non-European build so enormous, breath-taking structures? Well it had to be with help from extraterrestrial aliens. Before that there was the seriously accepted idea that the advanced ancient Egyptian culture and/or its ideas encircled the globe helping the multitudes of the less-capable build similar pyramids.
Erich von D√§niken’s “Chariot of the Gods,” was way too misleading. The author way over did it. In his original book his photos, for example, showed UFO “landing sites” that appeared larger than they actually were.
But, the Sanskrit epics do speak of space ships. And, Nazca Lines are amazing, but it doesn’t mean that the lines which form images understandable from 100 meters above the surface of the earth, could not have been constructed by ancient humans using human abilities, which don’t we simply don’t want to recognize today.
nazca lines are amazing… even the people or the engineers or architects of today could’nt accomplish what the “ancient humans” have done thousands of years ago, that is thousands of years ago so to speak.
Patrick and Anne, I’ve considered your theory against possible alien astronauts helping Egyptians construct the pyramids, and it seems plausible that they couldve done it themselves, but what would explain the paintings that unveiled unrecognizable flying objects hovering over Jesus and the Virgina Mary ? What would explain sights of UFO’s from different people living in different countries across the other side of the country with no connection to one another ?
Jennifer, first I want you to know I believe in extraterrestrial life, and even that it’s possible they’ve been here, perhaps even often. But the absence of an explanation for “sights of UFO‚Äôs from different people living in different countries across the other side of the country with no connection to one another” is not proof of it. Be careful when trying to argue your point that way. Interestingly, there are groups of millions of people on Earth who have never met each other who fully believe in the same entities for whom there is absolutely no proof at all. Human beings are funny like that.
I understand your skepticism.
But your professors explanation of WHY the Ancient Astronaut theory has come to life doesn’t have much back-up to it, either.
It could be true, though. Maybe some people out there find our race to be a bunch of ignorant beings who can’t do much for ourselves. Maybe that’s what sparks up the open-mindedness of some current believers, but if you think about it and read into it, it does make sense that some form of advanced life helped, or had some sort of involvement in the making of these grand pyramids.
Each block contained in a whole pyramid weighs at most 15 tons. Imagine building 480 ft tall pyramids consisting of 15 ton blocks ? That’s the amount of work put into it’s creation. It just seems other-worldly to believe that a group of Egyptians would put so much hard work, time and effort into something like that. Also, not only was it a strenuous job to complete, but they put major accuracy in the positioning of the pyramids so it could fall directly under the stars.
Seems like marvelous work if you ask me.
You know what, I think that there are lot of things on this Earth that can’t be explained. Now as far as extraterrestrials helping to build these ancient structures, I could not say. However; what I do find odd, is that despite the precision with which they were built, there is no ancient tools, or references in any ancient text as to how they built them. We know so many other things about ancient cultures, based on the archaeological evidence we find, yet when it comes to how they built such amazing structures; all we have are theory and speculation. So yes, I do believe that it is very possible, that some visitors from other worlds, could’ve had some involvement in their construction. Why else would they have been put here, yet not one shred of any kind of artifact, or ancient “instruction manual”, no ancient tools, or anything that would have given us some idea as to how they built these things the way they did. Another question, people should really ask themselves, is this. If ancient travelers put them here, why did they do it, and if they were here once, why did they leave, and will they return? And what would their intentions be once they arrived.
I have always been curious about who else is out there besides us. Some of the evidence is undeniable. Many years ago I went to Egypt and actually climbed up into the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. If you’ve ever seen it, you would have little doubt that it would be impossible for mere mortals to have built it.
I wonder if there is a timeline of the purported archaeological evidence of alien visitation from the earliest to the latest. I would be curious to see the time intervals. When was the last time they were here?
wayne, i challenge anyone who thinks that the Egyptians built them by themselves to organize a group of 10,000 people and build another pyramid – anywhere for all i care – using the same tools and technology they did……..it can’t be done, or it would have been……..because if it was done that way, it would shut all of us “alien theorists” up
oh one more thing….it’s widely accepted from both skeptics and non skeptics of aliens that the Egyptians were ahead of their times. we know this from the stories, drawings, and other things we can reflect on to determine they were so much more advanced than other civilizations at the time……so why in the hell would these same advanced Egyptians not have ONE PERSON write down what the hell they did in detail to make the pyramids????? crap, we have 12 year olds writing in their daily diary how little bobby picked on her today at school! its hard to imagine they would have 10,000 or whatever people building these, numerous guards overseeing the project, numerous people involved in the egyptian family who ruled over the project, and not one person in those groups looked at the pharaoh and said “hey you should write down how we’re doing this, because in 1,000 years, no one will believe we could do it on our own.”
I was wondering if it ever accured to anyone to think that visiters didnt actually help “build” them, but instead, the Egyptains were actually the offspring of the visiters. The Pharoahs were GODS on Earth and had direct contact with the GODS, the visitors were believed to be GODS thus when they left their children they left behind then became GODS on Earth. Ancient man was believed to be stronger and smarter then we are now. Could it be that visiter cross breed with early man? Making a more intelligent being here on Earth. Over the centuries man kind would mate and reproduce delooting the blood of the visiters causing a “dumbing factor”. Perhaps thats why today we can still find traces of those “gifts” in people such as a man born with half a brain can he can still read a book, not just read it but read both pages at once left page with his left eye and right with his right and be able to resight for you the whole book. Maybe it only makes sense to me… just a little food for thought. =)
i am with you 100% on this one……it’s even been rumored that there is a bloodline that hasn’t been diluted, and that they are hidden out there knowing their power and abilities yet waiting the time to show them…….they have followers called Rosa Christians who believe that Jesus wasn’t a God who became a man, but a man who was a God because of his abilities.
here’s what i believe: aliens were here and some called them “gods.” they mated with humans, and produced offspring – US……want to find the missing link? there is no missing link. ….think about this: what if i told you a story a woman who became prego without having sex, and then had a child that was supposedly given to her by “God” and that child preformed so called miracles on earth. you’d say it was the story of jesus right? no, actually i was talking about Hercules who’s mother was an earth woman and dad was zeus….or i could have been talking about Noah – the same one who rode the ark which is all many people know about him…… (fyi: the bible doesn’t tell the whole story of Noah, who was born to a woman who never had sex and was supposedly knocked up by another “god”….also his great great grandfather was Enoc – the same Enoc who preached about aliens and is often talked about in ancient text having contact w/ such aliens)…..the point i’m trying to make here is that at there countless stories of women who miraculously became prego from gods and had incredible children. i’m willing to bet to that the ark of the covenant isn’t what we think it is, OR a child of jesus like dan brown said in his book, but something even bigger — the proof of an alien bloodline that jesus was a part of which if we ever found, would turn the earth upside down. even the vatican now says they believe it’s possible aliens existed, and if they were proven to be here today, they still would be able to say “well SOMEONE made them – and SOMEONE is God.”
There are a lot of believers in aliens. But I am not convinced that there are aliens. My question is how can they live in space? When we had our first man on the moon there was no life. I know that that is just the moon and there are plenty more stars and planets out there out there but there has been no proof of life living out there. I also know that on Mars they said something about there being frozen water so if that is there than there is a possibility that something could live out there. But how? How could they breathe out there? A lot of you are saying stuff about how mortals couldn’t have made the pyramids? But shouldn’t the main questions be about how the aliens can survive in space and learn about where the aliens came from. I think that is the only way to really know if there are aliens to see where they were originated.
Rose, you cant be that closed minded. These ETs theroretically could have been here for thousands even millions of years before man came to earth. the earth is only 4.7 billion years old. there are planets that are billions of years older than us. We as a human race have only been here for a mere blink of an eye. The odds of other life in general being out there are astronomical. the odds of intellegent life that surpass our own understanding are just as great beacause this galaxy(not to mention the universe as a whole) contains billions of stars billions. All of which have the potential of supporting planets and given the right kind of atmosphere and distance frm their star life can happen possibly for billions of years possibly long enough for the inhabitants to evolve into intelligence, intelligence which could come up with a theory on how to create a system to where they could survive in space something like life support and inertial dampeners (which we have inertial dampeners) we are a young race of humans but i belive not the first and in any case how could you see all this evidence in your face and still be skeptical i am just saying
It’s too bad that the Egyptians did not keep a written record of things like the Great Pyramid. On the other hand, maybe they did and we have not discovered it yet. I toured Egypt in 1987. or thereabouts. My companion was a beautiful lady who spoke perfect Arabic. We retained a personal tour guide. He was best friends with Anwar Saddat’s son. They went to school together in Paris. He was a virtual encyclopedia and provided us with so much information, my head hurt. I only wish I had recorded it. Much of what he told us seemed impossible… too much detail for a post here. Suffice it to say that they certainly had knowledge that is unknown to us today.
I still find it amazing how the ancients knew so much about the planets without the benefit of telescopes. I think that could be the key to their knowledge. I do remember the guide telling me that there really once were astrologers who were able to accurately predict events in the future. Today astrology is mostly a hoax, but even so, their descriptions of people born on certain days does have some validity. Too bad, the knowledge has been lost.
A study of the Mayans also reveals their knowledge of the planets. Sadly, the Spaniards destroyed almost all of their written records.
I have two daughters who have clairvoyant qualities. They are afraid of it but they have both written down things that would happen in the future. The youngest described the accidental death of her mother with pictures when she was only ten. How does that happen?
Oh well, we live in a strange world but I believe that everything can be explained. We just don’t know how to do that yet, but the knowledge should be there, if we can only learn how to obtain it.
I have not given up but trying to imagine infinity is enough to drive anyone to insanity. LOL
l am a muslim and i belive in alien becaus it was predected in our holy quran that allah has created life and spread it al over the universe. And you will be surprised to know that about 80% of quran predectio has been sceintificly proved.so there are aliens for sure.And it will also be proved sooner or later.
i mean really, some people think that there is a god hovering above the earth, watching and listening to everything humans do. to me that is crazy. But if you say you don’t believe in god, people think you r crazy, well, i guess i am crazy because i really do not believe that there is A god watching us, creating us. People amaze me. If there was a god creating people in his likeness, i do not believe they would be killing one another or molesting, raping or things of that nature. Human beings think too highly of themselves, they need to realize that we are all animals, but humans are the most cruelest of all animals.
Back in the 1800s, Social Darwinism was really popular. It has little to do with Charles Darwin, but more with Herbert Spencer. Charles Darwin focused on biology, while Spencer concentrated on societies. Simply put, Social Darwinism posits that the strongest survive and flourish, while the weak and unfit will not. Eventually, the weak will die off, given enough time. Alternatively, given enough time, the weak and unfit may evolve into a higher form of society.
Social Darwinism allowed its advocates to categorize all the world’s peoples into a hierarchy. Britain was described as “civilized” and placed at the apex of that hierarchy. A scale was devised that ranked non-Europeans at lower levels, labeling them as “less civilized,” “barbarians,” “savages,” or “primitive,” generally considered the lowest level. Social Darwinism provided the ideological justification for colonialism; indigenous peoples in colonial territories were to be trained or taught the “correct” way of living—the more “civilized” way. This ideology also contributed to the near extermination of various peoples in many places, such as the Tasmanians, who were literally wiped out. The colonists were merely seen as accelerating the natural course of events for the Tasmanians, who would die off anyway.
However, it wasn’t always this way. In the 1700s, when Europeans first encountered the peoples of India, they were genuinely impressed by their way of life, culture, technology, science, and thought. But all that changed in the 1800s for various reasons, coinciding with the rise of the Industrial Revolution when technology became paramount in European thinking. The Victorian Brit might say, “Look at how we do things” and compare that to the “primitives” living nearly naked in what was perceived as an “uncivilized” manner.
Social Darwinism even ranked religions hierarchically, asserting that monotheistic Christianity (or Islam) was on a much higher scale than animistic or polytheistic religions of indigenous peoples elsewhere.
This kind of thinking persists today. It becomes apparent when discussions about “God” arise frequently in arguments and debates. A person who worships a god is often perceived as being in some way superior to someone who follows another tradition—like witchcraft—which is actually a nature religion. This tradition is labeled “pagan,” which simply means the form of religious practices of someone from a village as opposed to those from urban centers like Rome.
When a news broadcaster or public speaker describes an indigenous person from South America, they often imply that this person represents a culture or society from “our past.” In other words, they suggest that South American natives are evolving to become like us and are what we were in the past. None of this is true (if you don’t believe it, read any contemporary cultural anthropology text). Each culture and society is always evolving differently; no society anywhere is “primitive.” In fact, given all the problems that “modern” technology has wrought on the world, one must seriously consider how “advanced” we truly are.
When 19th-century Europeans encountered marvels from ancient societies—such as pyramids in Central America or large structures in central Africa—they assumed that indigenous populations could not have accomplished these feats alone; they must have had help from lost tribes of Israel or “obviously” more “advanced” ancient Egyptians. This perspective led to theories like Egyptocentrism regarding social evolution—a real theory proposed even into the 20th century.
Today, superficial writers like Erich von Däniken merely substitute extraterrestrials for those ancient Egyptians.
None of this negates the existence of extraterrestrial life or UFOs but highlights how humans perceive themselves.
You can watch ancient aliens at ninjavideo.net, plus a ton of other great stuff.
A professor once told me that behind so-called theories of aliens being responsible for pyramids and other ancient achievements, is a stubborn bigotry that the believers would never admit. That is, that these primitives, these (brown people, all of them) could never accomplish such great things without the help of aliens, outsiders, creatures smarter than themselves who came bringing great technology, and who were promptly worshiped by the idiot natives.
Think about that.
Your professor is correct, Patrick: why how could some ignorant non-European build so enormous, breath-taking structures? Well it had to be with help from extraterrestrial aliens. Before that there was the seriously accepted idea that the advanced ancient Egyptian culture and/or its ideas encircled the globe helping the multitudes of the less-capable build similar pyramids.
Erich von D√§niken’s “Chariot of the Gods,” was way too misleading. The author way over did it. In his original book his photos, for example, showed UFO “landing sites” that appeared larger than they actually were.
But, the Sanskrit epics do speak of space ships. And, Nazca Lines are amazing, but it doesn’t mean that the lines which form images understandable from 100 meters above the surface of the earth, could not have been constructed by ancient humans using human abilities, which don’t we simply don’t want to recognize today.
nazca lines are amazing… even the people or the engineers or architects of today could’nt accomplish what the “ancient humans” have done thousands of years ago, that is thousands of years ago so to speak.
Patrick and Anne, I’ve considered your theory against possible alien astronauts helping Egyptians construct the pyramids, and it seems plausible that they couldve done it themselves, but what would explain the paintings that unveiled unrecognizable flying objects hovering over Jesus and the Virgina Mary ? What would explain sights of UFO’s from different people living in different countries across the other side of the country with no connection to one another ?
World*
Jennifer, first I want you to know I believe in extraterrestrial life, and even that it’s possible they’ve been here, perhaps even often. But the absence of an explanation for “sights of UFO‚Äôs from different people living in different countries across the other side of the country with no connection to one another” is not proof of it. Be careful when trying to argue your point that way. Interestingly, there are groups of millions of people on Earth who have never met each other who fully believe in the same entities for whom there is absolutely no proof at all. Human beings are funny like that.
I understand your skepticism.
But your professors explanation of WHY the Ancient Astronaut theory has come to life doesn’t have much back-up to it, either.
It could be true, though. Maybe some people out there find our race to be a bunch of ignorant beings who can’t do much for ourselves. Maybe that’s what sparks up the open-mindedness of some current believers, but if you think about it and read into it, it does make sense that some form of advanced life helped, or had some sort of involvement in the making of these grand pyramids.
Each block contained in a whole pyramid weighs at most 15 tons. Imagine building 480 ft tall pyramids consisting of 15 ton blocks ? That’s the amount of work put into it’s creation. It just seems other-worldly to believe that a group of Egyptians would put so much hard work, time and effort into something like that. Also, not only was it a strenuous job to complete, but they put major accuracy in the positioning of the pyramids so it could fall directly under the stars.
Seems like marvelous work if you ask me.
You know what, I think that there are lot of things on this Earth that can’t be explained. Now as far as extraterrestrials helping to build these ancient structures, I could not say. However; what I do find odd, is that despite the precision with which they were built, there is no ancient tools, or references in any ancient text as to how they built them. We know so many other things about ancient cultures, based on the archaeological evidence we find, yet when it comes to how they built such amazing structures; all we have are theory and speculation. So yes, I do believe that it is very possible, that some visitors from other worlds, could’ve had some involvement in their construction. Why else would they have been put here, yet not one shred of any kind of artifact, or ancient “instruction manual”, no ancient tools, or anything that would have given us some idea as to how they built these things the way they did. Another question, people should really ask themselves, is this. If ancient travelers put them here, why did they do it, and if they were here once, why did they leave, and will they return? And what would their intentions be once they arrived.
I have always been curious about who else is out there besides us. Some of the evidence is undeniable. Many years ago I went to Egypt and actually climbed up into the King’s Chamber of the Great Pyramid. If you’ve ever seen it, you would have little doubt that it would be impossible for mere mortals to have built it.
I wonder if there is a timeline of the purported archaeological evidence of alien visitation from the earliest to the latest. I would be curious to see the time intervals. When was the last time they were here?
wayne, i challenge anyone who thinks that the Egyptians built them by themselves to organize a group of 10,000 people and build another pyramid – anywhere for all i care – using the same tools and technology they did……..it can’t be done, or it would have been……..because if it was done that way, it would shut all of us “alien theorists” up
oh one more thing….it’s widely accepted from both skeptics and non skeptics of aliens that the Egyptians were ahead of their times. we know this from the stories, drawings, and other things we can reflect on to determine they were so much more advanced than other civilizations at the time……so why in the hell would these same advanced Egyptians not have ONE PERSON write down what the hell they did in detail to make the pyramids????? crap, we have 12 year olds writing in their daily diary how little bobby picked on her today at school! its hard to imagine they would have 10,000 or whatever people building these, numerous guards overseeing the project, numerous people involved in the egyptian family who ruled over the project, and not one person in those groups looked at the pharaoh and said “hey you should write down how we’re doing this, because in 1,000 years, no one will believe we could do it on our own.”
wow!!!!!!!
I was wondering if it ever accured to anyone to think that visiters didnt actually help “build” them, but instead, the Egyptains were actually the offspring of the visiters. The Pharoahs were GODS on Earth and had direct contact with the GODS, the visitors were believed to be GODS thus when they left their children they left behind then became GODS on Earth. Ancient man was believed to be stronger and smarter then we are now. Could it be that visiter cross breed with early man? Making a more intelligent being here on Earth. Over the centuries man kind would mate and reproduce delooting the blood of the visiters causing a “dumbing factor”. Perhaps thats why today we can still find traces of those “gifts” in people such as a man born with half a brain can he can still read a book, not just read it but read both pages at once left page with his left eye and right with his right and be able to resight for you the whole book. Maybe it only makes sense to me… just a little food for thought. =)
i am with you 100% on this one……it’s even been rumored that there is a bloodline that hasn’t been diluted, and that they are hidden out there knowing their power and abilities yet waiting the time to show them…….they have followers called Rosa Christians who believe that Jesus wasn’t a God who became a man, but a man who was a God because of his abilities.
here’s what i believe: aliens were here and some called them “gods.” they mated with humans, and produced offspring – US……want to find the missing link? there is no missing link. ….think about this: what if i told you a story a woman who became prego without having sex, and then had a child that was supposedly given to her by “God” and that child preformed so called miracles on earth. you’d say it was the story of jesus right? no, actually i was talking about Hercules who’s mother was an earth woman and dad was zeus….or i could have been talking about Noah – the same one who rode the ark which is all many people know about him…… (fyi: the bible doesn’t tell the whole story of Noah, who was born to a woman who never had sex and was supposedly knocked up by another “god”….also his great great grandfather was Enoc – the same Enoc who preached about aliens and is often talked about in ancient text having contact w/ such aliens)…..the point i’m trying to make here is that at there countless stories of women who miraculously became prego from gods and had incredible children. i’m willing to bet to that the ark of the covenant isn’t what we think it is, OR a child of jesus like dan brown said in his book, but something even bigger — the proof of an alien bloodline that jesus was a part of which if we ever found, would turn the earth upside down. even the vatican now says they believe it’s possible aliens existed, and if they were proven to be here today, they still would be able to say “well SOMEONE made them – and SOMEONE is God.”
There are a lot of believers in aliens. But I am not convinced that there are aliens. My question is how can they live in space? When we had our first man on the moon there was no life. I know that that is just the moon and there are plenty more stars and planets out there out there but there has been no proof of life living out there. I also know that on Mars they said something about there being frozen water so if that is there than there is a possibility that something could live out there. But how? How could they breathe out there? A lot of you are saying stuff about how mortals couldn’t have made the pyramids? But shouldn’t the main questions be about how the aliens can survive in space and learn about where the aliens came from. I think that is the only way to really know if there are aliens to see where they were originated.
Rose, you cant be that closed minded. These ETs theroretically could have been here for thousands even millions of years before man came to earth. the earth is only 4.7 billion years old. there are planets that are billions of years older than us. We as a human race have only been here for a mere blink of an eye. The odds of other life in general being out there are astronomical. the odds of intellegent life that surpass our own understanding are just as great beacause this galaxy(not to mention the universe as a whole) contains billions of stars billions. All of which have the potential of supporting planets and given the right kind of atmosphere and distance frm their star life can happen possibly for billions of years possibly long enough for the inhabitants to evolve into intelligence, intelligence which could come up with a theory on how to create a system to where they could survive in space something like life support and inertial dampeners (which we have inertial dampeners) we are a young race of humans but i belive not the first and in any case how could you see all this evidence in your face and still be skeptical i am just saying
It’s too bad that the Egyptians did not keep a written record of things like the Great Pyramid. On the other hand, maybe they did and we have not discovered it yet. I toured Egypt in 1987. or thereabouts. My companion was a beautiful lady who spoke perfect Arabic. We retained a personal tour guide. He was best friends with Anwar Saddat’s son. They went to school together in Paris. He was a virtual encyclopedia and provided us with so much information, my head hurt. I only wish I had recorded it. Much of what he told us seemed impossible… too much detail for a post here. Suffice it to say that they certainly had knowledge that is unknown to us today.
I still find it amazing how the ancients knew so much about the planets without the benefit of telescopes. I think that could be the key to their knowledge. I do remember the guide telling me that there really once were astrologers who were able to accurately predict events in the future. Today astrology is mostly a hoax, but even so, their descriptions of people born on certain days does have some validity. Too bad, the knowledge has been lost.
A study of the Mayans also reveals their knowledge of the planets. Sadly, the Spaniards destroyed almost all of their written records.
I have two daughters who have clairvoyant qualities. They are afraid of it but they have both written down things that would happen in the future. The youngest described the accidental death of her mother with pictures when she was only ten. How does that happen?
Oh well, we live in a strange world but I believe that everything can be explained. We just don’t know how to do that yet, but the knowledge should be there, if we can only learn how to obtain it.
I have not given up but trying to imagine infinity is enough to drive anyone to insanity. LOL
l am a muslim and i belive in alien becaus it was predected in our holy quran that allah has created life and spread it al over the universe. And you will be surprised to know that about 80% of quran predectio has been sceintificly proved.so there are aliens for sure.And it will also be proved sooner or later.
i mean really, some people think that there is a god hovering above the earth, watching and listening to everything humans do. to me that is crazy. But if you say you don’t believe in god, people think you r crazy, well, i guess i am crazy because i really do not believe that there is A god watching us, creating us. People amaze me. If there was a god creating people in his likeness, i do not believe they would be killing one another or molesting, raping or things of that nature. Human beings think too highly of themselves, they need to realize that we are all animals, but humans are the most cruelest of all animals.
Back in the 1800s, Social Darwinism was really popular. It has little to do with Charles Darwin, but more with Herbert Spencer. Charles Darwin focused on biology, while Spencer concentrated on societies. Simply put, Social Darwinism posits that the strongest survive and flourish, while the weak and unfit will not. Eventually, the weak will die off, given enough time. Alternatively, given enough time, the weak and unfit may evolve into a higher form of society.
Social Darwinism allowed its advocates to categorize all the world’s peoples into a hierarchy. Britain was described as “civilized” and placed at the apex of that hierarchy. A scale was devised that ranked non-Europeans at lower levels, labeling them as “less civilized,” “barbarians,” “savages,” or “primitive,” generally considered the lowest level. Social Darwinism provided the ideological justification for colonialism; indigenous peoples in colonial territories were to be trained or taught the “correct” way of living—the more “civilized” way. This ideology also contributed to the near extermination of various peoples in many places, such as the Tasmanians, who were literally wiped out. The colonists were merely seen as accelerating the natural course of events for the Tasmanians, who would die off anyway.
However, it wasn’t always this way. In the 1700s, when Europeans first encountered the peoples of India, they were genuinely impressed by their way of life, culture, technology, science, and thought. But all that changed in the 1800s for various reasons, coinciding with the rise of the Industrial Revolution when technology became paramount in European thinking. The Victorian Brit might say, “Look at how we do things” and compare that to the “primitives” living nearly naked in what was perceived as an “uncivilized” manner.
Social Darwinism even ranked religions hierarchically, asserting that monotheistic Christianity (or Islam) was on a much higher scale than animistic or polytheistic religions of indigenous peoples elsewhere.
This kind of thinking persists today. It becomes apparent when discussions about “God” arise frequently in arguments and debates. A person who worships a god is often perceived as being in some way superior to someone who follows another tradition—like witchcraft—which is actually a nature religion. This tradition is labeled “pagan,” which simply means the form of religious practices of someone from a village as opposed to those from urban centers like Rome.
When a news broadcaster or public speaker describes an indigenous person from South America, they often imply that this person represents a culture or society from “our past.” In other words, they suggest that South American natives are evolving to become like us and are what we were in the past. None of this is true (if you don’t believe it, read any contemporary cultural anthropology text). Each culture and society is always evolving differently; no society anywhere is “primitive.” In fact, given all the problems that “modern” technology has wrought on the world, one must seriously consider how “advanced” we truly are.
When 19th-century Europeans encountered marvels from ancient societies—such as pyramids in Central America or large structures in central Africa—they assumed that indigenous populations could not have accomplished these feats alone; they must have had help from lost tribes of Israel or “obviously” more “advanced” ancient Egyptians. This perspective led to theories like Egyptocentrism regarding social evolution—a real theory proposed even into the 20th century.
Today, superficial writers like Erich von Däniken merely substitute extraterrestrials for those ancient Egyptians.
None of this negates the existence of extraterrestrial life or UFOs but highlights how humans perceive themselves.
Finally! I cannot believe someone has actually used the term “Social Darwinism” correctly — though I’m not surprised at all that it was you, Ann.
Ann, you’re an animal.
http://www.zoochosis.com