# stories where something completely normal is misunderstood and feared/worshipped/etc. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 4, 2006, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376 "2006-01-04T09:27:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![thwartme](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@thwartme](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thwartme)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/21 "2006-01-04T17:07:42Z")
[A Canticle For Liebowitz](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0553379267/104-5889940-4372760?v=glance&n=283155) by Walter M. Miller, Jr. In a post-holocaust society, a religion closely mirroring Catholicism has sprung up, in which the sacred and ancient texts are actually blueprints and instruction manuals for technology. The Abbey of Liebowitz, trying for beatification of their patron, is excited about ancient and venerable writings such as “Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels–bring home for Emma.” The sequel, written some 40 years after the original, was quite disappointing. thwartme ---
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/22 "2006-01-04T17:18:29Z")
How about that one book that takes the fact that humans exist and postulates this whole elaborate fantasy about a garden and a snake? The one that presumes that death isn’t just the end of life, but merely the passage to some eternal otherworld where all your dreams come true? That everything that exists was somehow brought into being by some invisible dude who really, really hates anybody else taking credit for it? Or the sequel, where some dude with some good ideas gets followed around by folks, then somebody steals his body and they assume he was resurrected? And because of that, he must somehow be related to (or ‘exactly the same guy as’, the writer never made this part particularly clear) the big guy who made everything in the first book. I forgot the name of this book, but I think they made a movie about it. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/23 "2006-01-04T17:19:26Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > I can remember reading an illustrated novel about archeologists from the future investigating a house from our time (well, from the eighties, I suppose) and completely misinterpreting what they find. The interprete the television as an altar because everything in the room is pointed towards it, the lid of the toilet as a ceremonial collar and the toilet brush was also seen as religious equipment. Can’t for the live remember the title of the book. Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/24 "2006-01-04T17:26:15Z")
> [@PookahMacPhellimey](#): > > I can remember reading an illustrated novel about archeologists from the future investigating a house from our time (well, from the eighties, I suppose) and completely misinterpreting what they find. The interprete the television as an altar because everything in the room is pointed towards it, the lid of the toilet as a ceremonial collar and the toilet brush was also seen as religious equipment. Can’t for the live remember the title of the book. As **Scupper** rightly points out, that’s _Motel of the Mysteries_. I saw something else along those same lines once, a set of cartoons in a _Reader’s Digest_ collection. Each cartoon was of some everyday item from a typical 20th century setting, and was accompanied by a comically inaccurate analysis by some future archaeologist. Many of these items were interpreted as being ritualistic. For example, a parking meter was a “roadside deity”; a barbeque grill was a “domestic sacrificial altar”. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2006, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/25 "2006-01-04T19:25:40Z")
Many stories feature this as a plot device. For me, one that immediately comes to mind is the tribe of children that form a religion based on an abandoned B-52 and old magazine photographs (among other things) in **Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome**. > [@cthiax](#): > > Check out “By the Waters of Babylon” by Stephen Vincent Benét, who gives us a few clues about what we knew the Place of the Gods as before it was holy ruins. I read that story years ago. What I found interesting is that Benet’s story, which apparently describes what happens to society many years after a nuclear war, was written well before the first atomic blast in 1945. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/26 "2006-01-05T10:50:13Z")
> [@Phnord Prephect](#): > > I forgot the name of this book, but I think they made a movie about it. It was an Ace double edition – _Master of Chaos_, and _The Thing with Three Souls_. [/blatantly stolen from Harlan Ellison, if he didn’t steal it from someone else.] ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/27 "2006-01-05T11:58:58Z")
> [@Kizarvexius](#): > > As **Scupper** rightly points out, that’s _Motel of the Mysteries_. I saw something else along those same lines once, a set of cartoons in a _Reader’s Digest_ collection. Each cartoon was of some everyday item from a typical 20th century setting, and was accompanied by a comically inaccurate analysis by some future archaeologist. Many of these items were interpreted as being ritualistic. For example, a parking meter was a “roadside deity”; a barbeque grill was a “domestic sacrificial altar”. I think an old _Cracked_ magazine did something similar, with alien archaeologists in the ruins of Earth. The one part I remember is their conclusion that tombstones were actually private handball courts for a race of lilliputian beings. (You could tell, because the owners had their names carved on 'em.) ---
**Author:** ![Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Harvey\_The\_Heavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harvey_The_Heavy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/28 "2006-01-05T13:43:37Z")
> [@Phnord Prephect](#): > > I forgot the name of this book, but I think they made a movie about it. There’s a Flying Spaghetti Monster _movie?!?!?!_ ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/29 "2006-01-05T15:10:07Z")
Harry Turtledove once wrote an alternate history story about some DEA agents working in a world where caffeine is considered a dangerous drug and menace to society. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/30 "2006-01-05T15:16:35Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Harry Turtledove once wrote an alternate history story about some DEA agents working in a world where caffeine is considered a dangerous drug and menace to society. Utah? ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/31 "2006-01-05T16:03:47Z")
In one of Stephen King’s books from the _Dark Tower_ series (I think it’s in _The Wastelands_), there’s a old city where people lynch one of their own every time they hear the “god drums.” The drums are from a Led Zeppelin song, with everything but the drum track turned way down. A computer plays the song every so often over the city’s loudspeakers. There are more examples from those books, but that’s the only one I can think of at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/32 "2006-01-05T16:26:18Z")
It’s been a while so my memory of it may be off, but in Woody Allen’s _Sleeper_, he encounters a future new-age cult that worships TV commercials. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/33 "2006-01-05T20:35:12Z")
Snoo-snoo! The Futurama episode ‘Amazon Women in the Mood’ has a bunch of Amazons worshipping a computer they assume to be a female god. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/34 "2006-01-05T21:22:07Z")
> [@kushiel](#): > > Snoo-snoo! > > The Futurama episode ‘Amazon Women in the Mood’ has a bunch of Amazons worshipping a computer they assume to be a female god. Which turned out to be a fem-bot impersonating a fem-puter, after having lived on a planet ruled by a man-puter. ---
**Author:** ![Hostile\_Dialect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e495f1/32.png) [@Hostile\_Dialect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hostile_Dialect)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/35 "2006-01-05T21:50:26Z")
> [@Little Nemo](#): > > Harry Turtledove once wrote an alternate history story about some DEA agents working in a world where caffeine is considered a dangerous drug and menace to society. Early in 2005, back when I fancied myself an amateur screenwriter, I spent a little time on a script about this, except that it was from the viewpoint of users. I gave it up when I joined the military, and haven’t picked it up since. I’m glad somebody else came up with the idea. I loved Turtledove’s Worldwar series but couldn’t get into his Civil War stuff. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/36 "2006-01-05T22:01:53Z")
Either it doesn’t fit the criteria, or you’ve all missed the obvious: _The Man Who Would be King_. Sean Connery is taken to be the reincarnation of Alexander the Great, because of a lucky deflection of an arrow, and his Masonic medallion. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/37 "2006-01-05T22:16:30Z")
Douglas Adams’ “Hitch-hiker” series had two variations on this theme: 1. From **the Restaurant at the End of the Universe** : Time-travellers Arthur Dent & Ford Prefect find themselves stuck on a spaceark filled with people who believe they have escaped a global catastrophe that destroyed their world. Actually, these sparkark people are the annoying, lowbrow middlemen functionaries whom the rest of their world decided they could get along without - marketing ‘specialists’, joggers, papershufflers and the like. Thus the smarter folks from this world _claimed_ a global catastrophe was imminent, herded all the folks they didn’ like onto the spaceark and sent them off to another galaxy. Anyway, this spaceark full of social rejects crashlands on prehistoric Earth at a point in time in which the indiginous human species (Neanderthals) are dying out. Thus, the whole of human (homo sapien) culture is based upon the remnants of bureaucratic functionary nerds whom the highbrow people wanted to rid themselves of. 2. From **Mostly Harmless** : Another spaceark is travelling close to a parrallel world Earth (since ‘our’ Earth was demolished…well never mind that part) and is damaged by a meteor storm. The giant computer containing the collective race memory of the spaceark inhabitants is tossed into space, and the spaceark crashlands on an unknown ‘planet X’ orbiting our sun farther away than Pluto. The survivors of the crash are blank slates, with no culture, history or social mores. They have no choice but to pattern themselves after transmissions from the nearest inhabited planet - Earth. The race therefore base their way of life on old television shows. Thus, their spaceships are lined with plush carpeting and their food is takeout from “McDonalds.” A hapless reporter (the alternate reality version of Trillian) visits their world, makes a video documentary about it, but returns to Earth realizing that she probaby could have _faked_ an alien world that looked more convincing. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/38 "2006-01-05T22:31:27Z")
> [@dotchan](#): > > Later on, they get run out of town by the very same people, probably because Paul manages to convince them that he isn’t a god. Silas to Paul: “When someone asks if you’re a god, say YES!” ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/39 "2006-01-05T22:55:39Z")
There’s a story by Harry Harrison, don’t know the title, in which a scientist invents a camera that can travel in time. He sets it up at Stonehenge and has it jump back in time farther and farther to try and figure out why Stonehenge was built. It turns out Stonehenge was built because of this mystical object that kept appearning and disappearing. ---
**Author:** ![sciguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@sciguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciguy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376/40 "2006-01-05T23:07:25Z")
> [@Beadalin](#): > > In one of Stephen King’s books from the _Dark Tower_ series (I think it’s in _The Wastelands_), there’s a old city where people lynch one of their own every time they hear the “god drums.” The drums are from a Led Zeppelin song, with everything but the drum track turned way down. A computer plays the song every so often over the city’s loudspeakers. Nitpick: It was ZZ Top (I think “Velcro Fly”, but I could be wrong). I vaguely remember another example from the Dark Tower series about a tribe of muties worshipping a gas pump. The head priest used the pump nozzle as a phallus and gave praise to “the high god Amoco” or something. It wasn’t a major part, just something that Roland was talking about or remembering as some point. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/stories-where-something-completely-normal-is-misunderstood-and-feared-worshipped-etc/338376.md?page=3)