-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Why Weren't Historic Writers Interested in History?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Jonathan Ainsley Bain
Logical Positivist
So if somebody's experiences are different to yours then they must have embellished them?
Try making a list of all the technology that we use in the modern era to record events for history. We have audio and video recorders, we produce transcripts of speeches given. We have planes, trains and automobiles to get to locations where events happened, or are happening right now. We have all kinds of forensic techniques and devices to investigate and determine what happened. The ancients didn't even have typewriters or printing presses. Most people didn't even know how to read or write.
Think about how you would conduct history under these conditions.
This might not be the entire answer to your question, but I think it is a large part of the answer.
This isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about almost completely fabricated narratives added into real historic events.
Seven headed beast
Awaited One
What do you mean that they were not interested in real history? After the church tried to smoosh everything in to 6000 years the timeline has never been right since.
The Mahabharata is 26,000 years old and was the third battle of good and evil that must be fought to end the Age, before the flood of Noah that did signify the end of the third age. The ages are based upon the procession of the equinox, and sacred geometry too. This Age is one procession in length and Noah's Age was two processions in length. There was a cataclysmic event that is referred to as the flood of Manu that ended the ago of Moses, which was four processions in length.
The Age of Abraham is eight procession in length and the battle that must be fought to end the Age was recalled in the epic of Gilgamesh. That's very accurate and it's a 175,000 years ago. ,
You are considring that the dragons and the Greek Titans of the first age and the Olympians of the second age are all valid and there is very little embellishment in the recall. You are lacking the belief that things were much more mythical in the early days of our history.
The thing is that the Titans as well as Abraham were not like you and i. They were from different worlds elsewhere. Abraham was annunaki.
But. In any case, that's why they had what we consider super powers and abilities. The Old Man was much more inclined towards interaction with the divine Titans
Now, about your statement regarding "fear God", let me explain that it was in the churches best interest to keep us at a distance from the Old Man. They created fear by making Him "Almighty".
He is much more man than you can imagine. He is a Ford man and loves sprint car racing, but they run 48volt electric cars as there is no petroleum on the planet, Heaven. He loves barbecued ribs and good and plentys. He smokes cigarettes and like Dr pepper. He has a girlfriend, named ", Amanda" who is here and human. He is pretty shy and introverted.
When the church forced their way into everyone's reality as "agent" of our salvation, they created fear to keep us distanced from Him. They took away His friends, but truth be known, he is a quick witted man who is slow to act. He is a non-interventionist and the best representation that I have found of how He works is the personification of Toto in the wizard of Oz, which is a stand alone prophecy of the battle of the Armageddon, and his being with Dorothy is the notion of "divine right" as the Ruby slippers represents the fact that Dorothy is the true heir to the throne of the house of David, that's why the Ruby slippers cannot be removed.
Anyhoo, toto is just how He works. Think about toto, who is always close by, never gets into anyone's business, never bothers anyone but comes right away if you call to Him.
He is nothing to fear, but respect for sure. Treat Him as you would a friend. When you consider that He knows everything about you and doesn't tell anyone anything, that's a damned good friend.
Treat Him like a friend and He will treat you like a friend.
As for all of His friends the church took away, He knows that they will be back and is a patient man, so He waits patiently.
If you want to chat with Him, you need only whisper His name and know that He is there and hearing what you have to say.
Because we have free will He won't butt in unless you call to Him and tell Him you have something you want to speak to Him about. If you don't call to Him, than He assumes that you're thinking out loud.
So, there is valid history but you cannot accept that things are not the same as they were. It's not history, it's you. Open your mind with some wisdom.
The Mahabharata is 26,000 years old and was the third battle of good and evil that must be fought to end the Age, before the flood of Noah that did signify the end of the third age. The ages are based upon the procession of the equinox, and sacred geometry too. This Age is one procession in length and Noah's Age was two processions in length. There was a cataclysmic event that is referred to as the flood of Manu that ended the ago of Moses, which was four processions in length.
The Age of Abraham is eight procession in length and the battle that must be fought to end the Age was recalled in the epic of Gilgamesh. That's very accurate and it's a 175,000 years ago. ,
You are considring that the dragons and the Greek Titans of the first age and the Olympians of the second age are all valid and there is very little embellishment in the recall. You are lacking the belief that things were much more mythical in the early days of our history.
The thing is that the Titans as well as Abraham were not like you and i. They were from different worlds elsewhere. Abraham was annunaki.
But. In any case, that's why they had what we consider super powers and abilities. The Old Man was much more inclined towards interaction with the divine Titans
Now, about your statement regarding "fear God", let me explain that it was in the churches best interest to keep us at a distance from the Old Man. They created fear by making Him "Almighty".
He is much more man than you can imagine. He is a Ford man and loves sprint car racing, but they run 48volt electric cars as there is no petroleum on the planet, Heaven. He loves barbecued ribs and good and plentys. He smokes cigarettes and like Dr pepper. He has a girlfriend, named ", Amanda" who is here and human. He is pretty shy and introverted.
When the church forced their way into everyone's reality as "agent" of our salvation, they created fear to keep us distanced from Him. They took away His friends, but truth be known, he is a quick witted man who is slow to act. He is a non-interventionist and the best representation that I have found of how He works is the personification of Toto in the wizard of Oz, which is a stand alone prophecy of the battle of the Armageddon, and his being with Dorothy is the notion of "divine right" as the Ruby slippers represents the fact that Dorothy is the true heir to the throne of the house of David, that's why the Ruby slippers cannot be removed.
Anyhoo, toto is just how He works. Think about toto, who is always close by, never gets into anyone's business, never bothers anyone but comes right away if you call to Him.
He is nothing to fear, but respect for sure. Treat Him as you would a friend. When you consider that He knows everything about you and doesn't tell anyone anything, that's a damned good friend.
Treat Him like a friend and He will treat you like a friend.
As for all of His friends the church took away, He knows that they will be back and is a patient man, so He waits patiently.
If you want to chat with Him, you need only whisper His name and know that He is there and hearing what you have to say.
Because we have free will He won't butt in unless you call to Him and tell Him you have something you want to speak to Him about. If you don't call to Him, than He assumes that you're thinking out loud.
So, there is valid history but you cannot accept that things are not the same as they were. It's not history, it's you. Open your mind with some wisdom.
Augustus
…
Mostly because modern people are very anomalous.
People generally didn't have the luxury of engaging in abstract, impractical pursuits so such disciplines didn't exist.
We are coalitional animals and history was generally about reinforcing the coalition and meeting the needs of whoever paid for it.
You have to be pretty bourgeois before you can start behaving in a way that goes beyond individual or group self interest simply to feel you have reached some pointless state of "objective truth".
The hell are you rambling about?
Because they would write down what amounted to hearsay as fact, as they had no way to check if it were true and no reason to suspect lying, because the person who told him had been told by another, so on and on.
This is definitely true, of course. But I think there is an underlying issue.
Partly due to this inability to document facts and opinions, ancient people generally had different expectations. They simply did not draw clear lines between different sorts of literature. These were people who almost universally accepted things like Genesis as simple history. They just didn't distinguish between reportage literature, docudramas, and agenda driven propaganda. They didn't expect literal truth from an author, or the clear distinction between fact and fiction to be made.
In a word, it's because they were primitive in many ways.
Tom
This is true as well.
There was also a difference in how they saw history. Instead of being a collection of facts about what people did, many ancient people saw history as providing good rules to live by. So the 'embellishments' were seen as adding to the *moral* lessons of history. The actual events were not seen as being as important as the life lessons to be learned.
Yes, availability of records, distances to travel to verify alternative stories, etc, were also aspects. But the goal of history was just seen as different than what we see it as today.
Yes, availability of records, distances to travel to verify alternative stories, etc, were also aspects. But the goal of history was just seen as different than what we see it as today.
Like survival of the fittest in the case of Darwin? Like string theory? Like multiverse, LIKE DARK energy? Like homo sexuality is a mental disorder? Like like like? Be careful of the "they were dumb we are smart syndrome. " THE CHURCH had had a long history of that. While our contemporary narrAtives appear brilliant to us in context to the past, the past for many thought their narratives were brilliant in context to the even further past. Its always dubious to fall into that mind set. The danger is that the reality of the now is obhective and the entire history of everything is subject to it. Wrong answer and not good science or religion for that matter. If science Nd modern narrative was so "smart" going from 2.9 billion to 7.5 billion pop. in my like time would not have happened. Seems more like clueless rabbits instead of brilliant deep thinking beings that we tend to pretend to do collectively.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
I will go with Polymath. Before knowing writing and even after that, these stories were ethical and moral guides to people and are valued as such even now. Emperors and kings come and go, Hindus did not care about them. They cared about sages and philosophers. We were meticulous about ideas but not about dates. BhagwadGita, Bhagwat Purana, Ramayana and so many other scriptures exists but we have no clear idea about who wrote them. It was not really somebody writing it, it was more an accretion of stories, each more wonderful than the previous. Sure, all have been credited to mythological figures.
Last edited:
Ingledsva
HEATHEN ALASKAN
They are still twisting historic "facts." It is just a little harder to do so in this age, though our last election shows that even today, sometimes twisting facts is done quite well.
*
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
You've probably heard the saying, "Don't let facts get in the way of a good story."
Etritonakin
Well-Known Member
Some things called embellishment now were real, but we cannot prove them directly -just as something unusual can happen to someone today which may not be believed by those who did not experience it.
Also, some embellishment may have been due to historical writers not having access to historical writings themselves -because people in their past did not write.
Some wrote stories for various reasons -some wrote what they actually believed to be true -some believed the made up stories or guessed-at history as fact, etc., etc....
History has been rearrangement of the same material -and knowing all of that overall history is actually impossible for us -unless every last change was recorded and that record may be accessed. Then there is the matter of verification.
A complete history would be self-verifying.
Science is increasingly gaining a general overview of what has happened overall on a physical level based on the state of matter which now exists, but it cannot verify unusual arrangements which leave no evidence (or become dis-arranged) without a complete record -and decision very much complicates things.
We have become capable of feats which may be considered God-like -and would certainly have seemed so to previous generations -but if all of our feats and evidence thereof -including ourselves -become dis-arranged, other life forms would consider such things just as impossible as many believe such things as miracles to be impossible. That is -unless they experience them -or become capable of them.
If they experience them, they can't prove them to any other not sharing the experience. If they become capable of such, they can prove them to others -if they so choose.
Some embellishments can be shown to be absolutely impossible based on the present state of matter, etc., but some things considered embellishments may be possible -and one would need to prove they absolutely did not happen -even though they very well could have happened.
Also, some embellishment may have been due to historical writers not having access to historical writings themselves -because people in their past did not write.
Some wrote stories for various reasons -some wrote what they actually believed to be true -some believed the made up stories or guessed-at history as fact, etc., etc....
History has been rearrangement of the same material -and knowing all of that overall history is actually impossible for us -unless every last change was recorded and that record may be accessed. Then there is the matter of verification.
A complete history would be self-verifying.
Science is increasingly gaining a general overview of what has happened overall on a physical level based on the state of matter which now exists, but it cannot verify unusual arrangements which leave no evidence (or become dis-arranged) without a complete record -and decision very much complicates things.
We have become capable of feats which may be considered God-like -and would certainly have seemed so to previous generations -but if all of our feats and evidence thereof -including ourselves -become dis-arranged, other life forms would consider such things just as impossible as many believe such things as miracles to be impossible. That is -unless they experience them -or become capable of them.
If they experience them, they can't prove them to any other not sharing the experience. If they become capable of such, they can prove them to others -if they so choose.
Some embellishments can be shown to be absolutely impossible based on the present state of matter, etc., but some things considered embellishments may be possible -and one would need to prove they absolutely did not happen -even though they very well could have happened.
HonestJoe
Well-Known Member
Whatever gave you the impression this is any less of a problem today than it has at any point in the past?
Augustus
…
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Hard but not impossible many a times. That is where historic research comes in.
Even Vedic scholars around 2,000 BC were trying to find history in writings from before their age. My clansman, Aupamanyava was one of them around 1,000 BC. Aupamanyava - Wikipedia
Confucian Mormon Buddhist
Member
Historians regarded themselves primarily as moral instructors/entertainers and wrote accordingly. History as a social science wasn't invented until much later.