@detroitmechworks The karma of ideas. Individuals may not be reborn but the same ideas are recycled throughout history as your comment clearly states.

I got that idea from a realization that if you simply replace aliens with angels/gods and spaceships with giant beetles, we've been telling the SAME fucking stories for thousands of years.

Here is my cosmology:

In the beginning, the great Flying spaghetti Monster created a gigantic meatball upon which various parasitic life forms developed, grew and flourished. The golden age of Spaceship Meatball occurred when my primordial ancestor, the Great Alligator spread progeny over the world. Things went well until an alligator became convinced that he was the Chosen One. Chosen by whom? Chosen to do what? Of course, to breed better, stronger wiser Alligators (blessed be their race!).

The Great Alligator saw what his spawn had done. He appealed to the Holy One, blessed is his name, the Flying Spaghetti Monster for deliverance. FSM then produced Crocodiles to teach Alligators to eschew their pridefulness.

By the Eternal Law of Unintended Consequences, this introduced the Yin and Yang or duality of life. Eternal warfare was born. Through the ages, the two factions have fought; the balance sometimes favoring one side and then the other.

Then, the FSM, in its unbounded wisdom bestowed upon the combatants the Holy Marinara Sauce. This became a medium of exchange between the two sides. One side, whether Alligator or Crocodile, I know not which, convinced one of the opposition creatures that Marinara Sauce was something which could be used to stimulate the appetites of those who availed themselves of it, thus possessing almost limitless potential with which to enhance the combat of those deemed less worthy. Doling out a small amount of Marinara Sauce to the warriors of each tribe, the Elites found a way by which they would collect and hoard more of the precious Marinara Sauce than was allotted to the individual warriors (now known as chumps). The King Alligator, in secret meetings with the King Crocodile, then saw what they had created was mutually beneficial --to them personally.

The Flying Spaghetti Monster looks down upon the struggling mass of Reptiles and decided that the Meatball upon which they lived must be destroyed to stop the warring. IT decided to terminate Planet Meatball, whether by heat or ice I know not, and try again.

This was done, perhaps by a minor meatball cast upon the baleful planet. Then FSM, in its almost infinite wisdom, started over. This time IT (blessed be Its name) created humanoids. But, alas, the same thing happened again.

If you believe mythology, the main problem is always that if you try to avoid events, it causes them to happen. Then there's the whole "Cassandra Curse" issue, where if you warn people, suddenly it's YOUR FAULT.

Personally, I'm of the CRAZY theory that this has all happened before... and it will all happen again. All we can do is enjoy the time allotted to us. I got that idea from a realization that if you simply replace aliens with angels/gods and spaceships with giant beetles, we've been telling the SAME fucking stories for thousands of years. The aspirational monomyth that is convinced that we will ALL become glorious gods one day... (Thanks, I believe there's already a BUNCH of cults with that as the "Secret Knowledge"... PASS, thank you!)

But hey, I'm a cynic who believes that the modern world's devices bear FAR too eerie a similarity to ancient tales and legends... I mean, what do we have in the house that looks kinda like a lamp, and follows orders and wishes of the owner of the lamp... or the ring too, because I believe Google JUST game out with that one!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRKBGBSSaYg]