# Erich Von Daniken-I Recommend



## Alex Kostin (Dec 14, 2007)

Erich Von Daniken is one of my favourite authors. His theories of the beginning of mankind and history are fascinating. But there's one thing I don't like about him-he's an atheist. Anyways, I recommend you his books. The main one is " Memories from the Future".


----------



## guppyman (Dec 14, 2007)

Hi,

I love his books too. I have 'Chariots of the gods'.

I believed what he says!!


----------



## Lote-Tree (Dec 14, 2007)

Alex Kostin said:


> Erich Von Daniken is one of my favourite authors. His theories of the beginning of mankind and history are fascinating. But there's one thing I don't like about him-he's an atheist. Anyways, I recommend you his books. The main one is " Memories from the Future".


 
But you know his works do not stand up to scrutiny?

It's like the other guy who thought there was face of ape on Mars?

Science works because it is verifiable.


----------



## Non Serviam (Dec 14, 2007)

My wife reads Erich von Daniken for pleasure. He's one of the few authors who can make her physically snort with laughter.


----------



## ewomack (Dec 14, 2007)

You can't argue with snorting laughter. But yes, his works, along with many of his theories, have been discredited for over a decade now. I was hooked after reading "Chariots of the Gods?" years ago. Gradually I realized how little credibility the whole thing had. It was still fun to read, though.


----------



## Sekaya (Dec 15, 2007)

yes, I've read chariots of the gods. as said, he doesn't stand up to scrutiny, but i find it can give some ideas for stories, etc. its just altogether fun to read.


----------



## Linton Robinson (Dec 15, 2007)

It's like science fiction with bad science.   Fun read.   It's the sort of thing I WANT to be true and the scientists all wrong and deluded.  Maybe others do to.   But it doesn't pay out.

Asimov wrote a brilliant refutation of much of it in his magazine column long ago.   One of the things I remember from it was that Van Danikken had sort of glossed over from hydrocarbons in the air to precipitating out as carbohydrates...creating manna in the Bible.   Well, as ol Ike gleefully pointed out...those things may have similar names, but chemicall crude oil isn't much like sugar.

His finale was dealing with the remarkable idea that the pull of the careening comet in "Worlds In Collision" caused the earth to stop rotating, thus making the long day of the Battle of Jericho and several other effects.   
He pointed to tiny, delicate crystals in deep caves...milennia old, fragile as cobweb, and NOT shaken up by the forces attendent on the forcible slowing of the earth's rotation.


----------



## Non Serviam (Dec 15, 2007)

"Worlds in Collision" is by Velikovsky, and the refutation you read was by Carl Sagan.  It's reprinted in Sagan's book, _Broca's Brain_, and it does make rather hilarious reading.

But unfortunately it has nothing to do with Von Daniken.


----------



## Linton Robinson (Dec 15, 2007)

Ah, yes...Velilovsky.   Can't say he has nothing to do with Von Daniken, though.   They're the two major dudes on that shelf.

I'll accept your attribution to Sagan, but I was pretty sure Asimov wrote the one I mentioned.  Possibly they both did.  Or possibly I'm having another bout of "Oldtimers' Disease"


----------



## Alex Kostin (Dec 15, 2007)

Daniken's main idea is interesting: men may have been visited by aliens in the past. I don't like that he somehow encourages people not to believe in God. But as the others said, it's fun.


----------



## Non Serviam (Dec 15, 2007)

Daniken's atheism is about the only thing I _do_ like about him.

A couple of centuries ago he would have been selling quack "miracle cures"; a couple of centuries before that he would have been selling fragments of the True Cross or saints' finger-bones.

His profession is to lie for profit.


----------



## Linton Robinson (Dec 15, 2007)

I don't see any reason to assume he's lying.   Most people would assume he's a crackpot who believes in his various theories.

This is just like the "they bombed japan to test-drive their hardware" thing.  Jump to the worst conclusion without any evidence other than the conviction that they're evil out there and you can tell it from where you sit.


----------

