The power of myths..................

Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions.  Rather, it's the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all.  As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched, or smelled.
     Legends, myths, gods, and religions appeared for the first time with the Cognitive Revolution.  Many animals and human species could previously say, "Careful!  A lion!"  Thanks to the Cognitive Revolution, Homo Sapiens acquired the ability to say, "The lion is the guardian spirit of our tribe."  This ability to speak about fictions is the most unique feature of Sapiens language. ...
     But fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively.  We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states.  Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.  Ants and bees can also work together in large numbers, but they do so in a very rigid manner and only with close relatives.  Wolves and chimpanzees cooperate far more flexibly than ants, but they can do so only with small numbers of other individuals that they know intimately.  Sapiens can cooperate in extremely flexible ways with countless numbers of strangers.  That's why Sapiens rule the world whereas ants eat our leftovers and chimps are locked up in zoos and research laboratories.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  Sapiens:  A Brief History of Humankind