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 Man Made

Book Review of: Man Made

The Chronicles Of Our Extraterrestrial Gods

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Review of Man Made, by Dr. Rita Louise, PhD and Wayne Laliberté, MS (Softcover, 2012)

(You can print this review in landscape mode, if you want a hardcopy)

Reviewer:

This book provides a thought-provoking comparison of the major "origins" myths. I don't agree with all of the authors' conclusions, but if we were debating the judge would have to give them points if not a few rounds. It's that thought-provoking part that makes this an enjoyable, fascinating read.

Just to give you an idea of the thoughts it provoked in me, let's look at the Genesis angle the authors explored.

Prior to reading this, I had been aware that various religious writers "borrowed" the origins stories of earlier writers as part of creating their own. What I had not realized was these stories were so heavily plagiarized; that is my conclusion, not that of the authors. The similarities, point by point, in these stories is greater than I had realized previously. I see that as evidence not that these people were reporting on the same underlying truth, but that they had communicated and shared the same myths.

The authors leave out some explanations as to why so many of these myths are nearly identical. Their explanation is based on the idea that there's a common truth. My view is that there is a common lie. The reason I believe there's a common lie is I look at how these myths have been used to control people. I believe the myths were created, plagiarized, or adapted by the ruling elite of the respective societies for that purpose. I don't see in the historical records where the existing myths were used for some other purpose.

Today, we're moving away from the creation myths for control purposes because they contradict overwhelming evidence (at least if taken literally). Now instead of fearing a wrathful (or loving) god who really is just an inch away from killing us or torturing us for all eternity, the elites need us to fear some bogeyman that they will "protect" us from by eliminating our civil liberties and saddling us with unbearable debt.

But it's still mythology used to control people.

The authors' attempt to reconcile the creation myths with the evidence is commendable, but it goes off track and I don't think they end up making a credible case with their approach. They say it's a matter of how you interpret what was said, and then they draw parallels to knowledge we have now due to the most recent advances in physics and astronomy.

One problem with that idea is the origins story writers did not, as far as the evidence shows, have particle accelerators or radio telescopes to give them this information.

It is possible that they had that information from extraterrestrial visitors, but possibility and plausibility are two very different things. Have you noticed there haven't been rampant "UFO sightings" since camera-bearing phones became ubiquitous? Any civilization that would have come to earthy 10,000 years ago to share the same sort of advanced physics information we only recently obtained would certainly be well-known to us today (assuming they hadn't become extinct).

The authors' approach on this issue is face-saving for folks who want to hold on to their creation myths. I suppose it keeps them engaged, rather than offending them. But it seems to ignore the fact that Genesis was written by desert tribes who lacked scientific knowledge. So to interpret Genesis as if they did possess this knowledge is a bit of a stretch.

The most likely explanation for the Genesis narrative is its writers "borrowed" this story from another culture and put their own bling on it. Let us not forget that when we look at ancient cultures, the archeological evidence shows us they were not in isolation. While the common person may have lacked the means to travel back and forth great distances between continents, that was not the case for agents of the elite funded by the elite.

Let us not forget also that most of us in the western world can read only a translation of Genesis. We completely lack the cultural cues for understanding the meaning, as most likely did those doing the translating. Translation of anything beyond the simplest ideas (e.g., me Tarzan) is subjective, because it's not a matter of merely transliterating words.

Now, this addresses a tiny slice of what the authors discussed. This slice happens to be the one I had contention over. The rest of the book was, to me, less contentious. I found the discussion of the great flood myth to be particularly enlightening and based on sound analysis.

The writing style was good, in that it was conversational and straightforward. This, however, was undermined by a plethora of spelling errors, grammatical errors, and word misuse. The book needs a good copyediting.

This book consists of 15 chapters spanning 202 pages, a Foreword (misspelled in the book), an Introduction, and an 8-page bibliography. If you look at the sources the authors tapped, you can't help but be impressed. This book isn't a "shoot from the hip" essay, but is instead a serious research work that makes you really think about origins myths.

 


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