There is a very strong rumor that early Church Fathers modelled their congregational and regional organizational habits after those of the Romans and the Synagogue Jews. Jeshuah Von Nazareth himself had very little to say on the matter of who sat where and in what order the candles should be lit and the dinner forks should be laid out at the AGAPE dinners and community sings. So the founders of the feast had to seek guidance elsewhere. Nevermind that if ol' "Five Loaves and Two Fishes" had wanted them to set up shop on a street corner or in an imperial palace, he probably would have mentioned it loud enough for Matthew, Mark, Luke, Peter, Paul and Mary to remember it and put it in their biographies of him.

There is hardly a culture or a religion or a cult or a rock group that wasn't influenced by another previous group. A short Google search will prove that there isn't a whole lot that is original on this planet. My apologies to fans of ABBA and the Sex Pistols and those poor deluded fools who still think that The Matrix movies were pretty cool and the Tolkien books were a product of his fevered imagination.

It takes a lot of guts, gall and ignorance for any cultural, religious or musical group to stand up in full daylight and proclaim their's to be the ONE TRUE THING. A little research over the course of a short afternoon in a library or a coffee shoppe can put paid to that nonsense.

I've been alive just long enough and I've been curious just long enough and I've done just enough research to know for a pretty certain fact that MYSTERIES AIN'T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE.
Sometimes they are just lies. Sometimes they are just legends. Sometimes they are just facts that no one seems to want to realize are all that there is.

Lets take Stonehenge for a fer'instance. What do we know about it?
I mean, for certain.

1. It's a bunch of rocks that have been moved from their original location and assembled like big LEGOS

2. They've been there so long the landlord is thinking of selling them off to recoup some of the back rent

3. Nobody can find the on switch so we can turn it on and find out what it does

4. It's a bunch of rocks.

5. It's a bunch of rocks.

6. It's a bunch of rocks.

I mean, if you woke up one morning, found you were late for work, and ran out to get the Humber Super Snipe out of the garage and get on the road to earn your daily shilling and you were just about to put it in reverse and you found Stone Henge sitting in your driveway, what you would think? Honestly.

Who put that bunch of rocks in my way?!

Right?

So why do we all think that Stonehenge is such a big deal? Once upon a time our recent ancestors didn't put much thought into Stonehenge. They just thought it was a cool buncha rocks. On a decent afternoon, they'd wander out there, have a picnic, scratch their name in a rock, chip off a piece to take home and then never give it another thought. We think Stongeheng is such a big deal today because we have been told by would-be Druids and wannabe scientists that it is IMPORTANT. Pleh!

I think it if were really and truly important then someone would have gone to the trouble to have written a manual for it so that it would be used properly throughout time. I think that the people who used it suddenly found something more fun and more portable that served the same purpose and moved on, leaving the old heavy antique to rot in a field. Either that, or they all died for lack of phone sanitizers and the secrets died with them.