Besides the premise itself, one of the funny things about this book was how human civilization ended- it was smothered by a barrage of junk mail. (Seeing as we are gradually switching to a computer society, this scenario probably wouldn’t happen today, although maybe the world’s computers could be shut down by spam en masse). The setting of the discovery of the ancient civilization was the Toot 'N Come On Hotel in the “mysterious” land of Usa.
I don’t know if it’s true, because the only place I read of it is in Hunter Thompson’s The Curse of Lono, but early Hawaiians thought that Captain Cook was the god Lono, who was predicted to arrive at such-and-such a time in a giant white canoe. He was worshipped during his first visit, but his return a few months later to provision his ship seemed to strip away any illusion of divinity, so the natives killed him. The aggression was probably encouraged by the priests, who naturally were out of a job when their gods descended to earth.
What episode was that? 
It was the one with the Yangs (think Dances With Wolves) and the Coms (think evil Asiatics). They would read it “E Plem Eesta.”
There’s also Monty Python’s Life of Brian, which of course was loosely based on this other book someone mentioned.
I think it was called The Bus That Couldn’t Slow Down.
I often wonder how much our archaeologists have gotten wrong, how many children’s toys and wastebaskets we’ve called idols and religious urns.
I think I remember a bit of another one, that I leafed through, once…some kind of postapocalyptic society (maybe a matriarchy?) where, at one point, the tribe medicine woman was reciting a “healing spell” over a sick patient—which turned out to be a mangled version of the Hippocratic Oath.
“I will give no deadly med-sun…”
Was it a TOS episode?
Yes, it was. I can remember seeing it, IIRC, Spock recognized what the priest was reciting, and quietly let Kirk know. This gave Kirk the ability to win their trust and settle things by reciting the Preamble. (Didn’t they also hold the Declaration of Independence to be sacred too, or am I misremembering?) It’s been quite a while since I saw that episode last, it’s a rare one I do believe.
Season 2, episode 54. “The Omega Glory”
Oh my Og, I’ve been unmasked as a Trekkie Geek…
:smack:
In the Isaac Asimov short story (yes, I know it was later expanded into a novel, let’s ignore that) Nightfall has a religion based on a series of eclipses.