The movie The Gods Must Be Crazy begins with a rather small aircraft flying over a remote village deep into the African continent. The pilot is drinking out of one those old-fashioned green Coca Cola bottles. When he is finished with the beverage, he throws the bottle out of the airplane and it lands near some tribal leaders below. They pick it up. They are greatly intrigued. It is shaped far differently from anything they have ever seen. Since the item has come from the heavens above, they believe it to be a god. They begin to assemble a new religion out of it. They develop songs and liturgies for it.

The movie demonstrates the powerful instinct men and women have to worship--whether they worship coke bottles or statues or success, whatever they prize most highly. It demonstrates the ama…