" (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925:p. 185, 8) in general, humans can be made to believe just about anything. Even today, historical zealots in religions like Christianity are as easily manipulated by the church. A modern day example could be the outdated Roman Catholic philosophies on birth control and safe sex which clearly affects millions. Birth control and the associated beliefs and sanctions by the Roman Catholic church may have been instituted as religious law so the spouses of priests a few hundred of years ago could not inherit the lands or fortunes when the priests died -- the church manipulated 'hopes and fears' of millions so they instead could inherit what rightfully belonged to the wives and children of dead priests. Alexander used an Oracle to usurp power from his followers. "Even if the oracle was obscure, ambiguous, or unintelligible, they respected it." (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925: p. 205, 22) Following the oracle seemed a ridiculous notion to Lucian who called Alexander's followers various expletives such as idiots, dolts, fat-heads, and simpletons. But modern day man cannot criticize -- the fact that we as a nation base many of our modern decisions and rules on the United States Constitution and the legal process should make us look to Alexander's Oracle. The...

What would Lucian think of us and our failure to question the basis of our social establishment?
In conclusion, as Lucian points out, Alexander created a persona of a prophet and we today are still awaiting the second coming. Was Asclepius, Alexander's heavenly serpent, and Jesus born of the same mindset? Were theses living icons divinity's spokesmen or the result of well thought out scammers who found a system that worked and recycled an Oracle into a Bible? This report aimed to apply the observations of Lucian to our modern day religious phenomena to see if there were in viable comparisons. Unfortunately, there were some real close coincidences and there are many more like the fact that far too often religious leaders write about occurrences after the fact yet still claim them as prophecies. When Alexander made "belated oracles to make amends for those in which he had made bad predictions" (Lucian: translated by Harmon, 1925: p. 213, 28) sounds a lot like many predictions of destruction written after the fact in our modern day Bible. I wonder

References

Lucian: translated by Harmon, a.M. (1925). Alexander the False Prophet. Newport: Yale University.

Lucian