There is a legend that if you take a rock or sand from the beaches of Hawaii national park, you will be cursed by the goddess Pele. It is understood that Pele views the rocks and sand on her beaches as her children, and is enraged that you should steal them from her. Terrible tragedy befalls those who remove the rocks and sand. The only solution is to return the rocks and sand from where they came, and that's what thousands of people do, often at great expense.
At first blush this seems kind of silly. Starting with the first part, that Pele has had a whole lot of kids by this point and most parents would be happy if a couple of them actually went out into the world instead of staying home forever, in the sandy equivalent to the basement. However, we here at the conspiracy nut don't stop with the first blush. We go at least two blushes deep.
Our research indicates that all religions, everywhere, appear kind of silly. Some of them believe in floating rivers of the damned, some of them believe in battles fought in the clouds, one of them even believes teenagers who tell them they never had sex, even though they are clearly pregnant.
As it turns out, most things look silly from the outside. Bowling looks positively ridiculous, but it's actually pretty fun. So, maybe it's not so ridiculous to be respectful of other beliefs.
In Vegas you can stay at the Luxor hotel, which is a pyramid. That has always seemed like a weird kind of hotel. The pyramids are tombs, meant to carry the dead to the afterlife. It would be like opening a casino and calling it "The Nazarene!", with a giant statue of Jesus, and the doors to the casino are the wounds in his hands. Once inside you would be greeted by twelve minimum wage actors dressed as apostles giving you the good news about the loosest slots in town! And what's that? Someone just won the big jackpot, a bag of silver coins! I'm just saying if you looked at it from a particular point of view, it seems kind of trashy and insensitive.
Of course trashy and insensitive is relative, and that kind of is Vegas culture after all. Maybe being garish and weird is their religious prerogative. We should probably do a little more research, preferably at the tables. I've got a system, or at least I believe I do, and isn't faith a wonderful thing?
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