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[Snooze You Lose]

First off LET ME EXPLAIN what cargo cult is. Basically around world war 2, some americans flew over an island, they saw there were some people on the island, (later they found out that those people were undeveloped society) and decided to drop some goods. After some time they saw that people on that island started build things associated with airplanes that dropped those goods, and doing all sorts of rituals, just to get that airplane to drop some more things. Couldn't this be with almost all religions, for example some aliens landed on our planet and did something OR dropped something, and the snowball effect just kicked in

(Sorry for any grammar mistakes, english is not my first language)

[jimwalton]

No, I don't think that's possible at all, but you need to explain further. In what ways does Christianity in particular remind you of what your analogy describes, and what is the evidence for your observations?

After your explanation, I'll be more than happy to discuss this with you.

[rr5209806]

Western anthropologists described the concept of a cargo cult as a belief system in a relatively undeveloped society in which adherents practice superstitious rituals hoping to bring modern goods supplied by a more technologically advanced society.

[jimwalton]

Thank you for that clarification. I got that much from the original post. My question more pertains to how that perception is like Christianity. One of the general characteristics of religion in the ancient world was that of the Great Symbiosis, where the people considered that the things that they did brought about particular actions from the deity. The deity needed them for food and various other accoutrements, and they needed the deity for fertile crops and general health. The Israelite religion was distinctively anti-great-symbiosis. They specifically and distinctively did not practice superstitious rituals with the hope of bringing about goods supplied by the deity. Instead, ancient Israelite religion was based on a covenant relationship, unique in the ancient world.

Christianity, following on the heels of Judaism, was even less sacramental and symbiotic than Judaism. In Christianity there is no temple, no sacrifices, no priests, and no symbiotic rituals. My question to the original poster, which I would be glad to discuss with you, is how you think Christianity is just a big cargo cult.