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Abnormality
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I can’t say for sure. But they do say that those who control history also control what we learn about it.
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Robert_Sock
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I believe that.
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Abnormality
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I think it would be incredibly naive to think that the history of Catholicism is not filled with its own share of dishonesty and abuse. However, i would agree that one must judge Catholicism for its theology alone, and not for the evil acts of its members.
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Don_Jackson
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History is composed of chronology, events, and historiography.
Chronology is accurate, events are accurate, only historiography is biased.
History is not written by the winners, historiography often is.
The only other misconception of History (which is the purest of all academic pursuits), is that “History repeats itself”.
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The_Scott
Guest
On the contrary, with advancements in archaeology, many episodes and characters in the Old and New Testaments have been confirmed. Can you give some examples of the opposite?
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sophion
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means = forgery to support claims of political authority
ends = control over chaos
of course. it was just an example. i’m not drawing conclusions from it.
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sophion
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please re-read the last sentence of post#15.
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
History is different from different perspectives. It’s not lies and deception, it just depends upon who is looking at the events. However, SOME history writing is definitely lies and deception, designed to corrupt people’s viewpoint of events. You have to look at who is writing the textbooks.
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sophion
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some are rumors that became accepted as truth:
Disproving many historical ‘facts’
washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/disproving-many-historical-facts/?page=all
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Rolltide
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Actually, that’s not true in the slightest. It may not be “literally” true in the Christian sense of the word, but it is a very important historical source for historians. There are many, many parts of the Bible that have been used to corroborate real world events. The same, I might add, can be said of the Iliad and Odyssey, which is also a very important historical source, as well as being a piece of literature. Look up Heinrich Schleimann of Sir Arthur Evans for an education on the dangers of dismissing ancient sources thought to be simply “legendary” or “mythological”.
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sophion
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of course. there are historical facts in the bible. but some its historical narrations are unreliable.
so if you read something in the bible that appears to be historical, dont just believe it. it requires study to verify if its reliable or not.
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The_Scott
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I did. And my question still stands. What scientific advancement has made intellectuals declare that the Bible is not “historically accurate”?
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The_Scott
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Just bringing up his name sends chills down archaeologists’ and historians’ spines.
Oh Heinrich, you important madman!
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latingirl
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Point taken. However as an ex-Protestant, I was absolutely shocked at how many things I was told that were lies and I am shocked at some of the myths that are thrown at the Catholic Church. I admit that Catholic history is not completely blameless as I have seen some truth-twisting in their accounts, but Protestant history presents an often abominable twisting of truth.
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Rolltide
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Correct, and this is a point of course that even the Vatican would admit. After all, it is a collection of thousands of people trained in reading ancient languages, history, philosophy, and theology. That’s why they’ve argued against the idea of “sola scriptura” for so long.of course. there are historical facts in the bible. but some its historical narrations are unreliable.
so if you read something in the bible that appears to be historical, dont just believe it. it requires study to verify if its reliable or not.
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Richard320
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Of course - because the winner gets to write the history.
And then there’s all the revisionist stuff that comes later. Not much is made of the fact that the French weren’t 100% Allied during WWII. Did you know there was a naval battle - not much of one - between the US and France? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_battleship_Jean_Bart_(1940)#At_Casablanca
It’s also not mentioned much in schoolbooks that the Axis Powers weren’t just Germany, Japan, and Italy.
And those are just off the top of my head.
And then there’s all the revisionist stuff that comes later. Not much is made of the fact that the French weren’t 100% Allied during WWII. Did you know there was a naval battle - not much of one - between the US and France? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_battleship_Jean_Bart_(1940)#At_Casablanca
It’s also not mentioned much in schoolbooks that the Axis Powers weren’t just Germany, Japan, and Italy.
And those are just off the top of my head.
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Tantum_ergo
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Exactly.
The idea of ‘critical thinking’ and "questioning’ can at least at the start be very helpful. None of us wishes to hold a ‘blind’ belief.
However, many go too far. Because the whole point of critical thinking and questioning is, or should be, to get to the truth. Unfortunately, some people keep on questioning and questioning and never ACCEPT ANYTHING as being what they call ‘proof’ acceptable to their notion of ‘true’. That is actually more dangerous in some ways than a blind belief, because at least with blind belief you have people going into action to UPHOLD that belief (or you have people on the ‘other side’ going into action to “PROTEST” the belief).
But when somebody goes too FAR in the ‘endless critical questioning’ set, you have in the end no true action. You don’t have somebody saying, "I have studied, I have found truth, I will now go forward to uphold that truth’. Instead you have, "I have studied. I have found claims. They aren’t good enough for me so I keep on studying over the same old ground and I keep saying it isn’t good enough for me. Since I can’t find truth that suits ME, I claim there is NO TRUTH but since I am still ‘questioning’, I don’t have to PROVIDE a truth, I just claim that nobody has proven THEIR TRUTH to my satisfaction".
In the short run, this seems like a perfectly brilliant strategy which builds up the little egos (“I’m so smart, I never just accept, I QUESTION things”) at the expense of others, (“What?: You claim something is true and you no longer question? You are brainwashed/intellectually lazy/fundamentally stupid/a traitor/trying to impose your views onto others. . .etc.”).
But because the questioner never actually makes the leap to FIND truth, he just spirals into an endless maze of knowing, in the end, nothing at all. Nothing is true, everything is biased/wrong/unprovable. No effort need be made beyond sneering at those who disagree with them and claiming that IF God exists, they never really ‘rejected’ Him because He was cad enough not to make Himself clear, and if God DOESN’T exist, they never were fools enough to really accept this ‘lie’ EITHER.
We used to call such people ‘fence-sitters’ because they never actually came out and stood up for anything.
Of course, the extreme of the person who ‘blindly believes’ without ever examining the belief would be wrong too. . .just as wrong as those who ‘blindly question’ without ever getting to the PURPOSE of questioning, which is ‘to find an answer’.
Good thing most Catholics, especially those on these forums, are neither blind believers, having studied their faith positions carefully, nor are they ‘endless questioners’ who keep on greeting every answer with a further ‘but why but why but why’ so that in the end they never accept any answer at all. . .’
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Tony_the_mad
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I agree very much with you about what the problem is. I disagree about the source. The problem are not those who are too skeptical; the problem generally is due to opponents of a fact using ‘skepticism’ as a method to assail something they cannot assail directly. In modern society, this tactic is used often by big corporations such as Microsoft, the tobacco industry, or big oil, etc. It even has a few fancy names such as FUD (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt ) or agnotology (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology ).
The only antidote to FUD that I have found is a quote from Pres. Reagan. ‘Trust, but verify’. In the end we have to trust the professions of historians, economist, scientists, and doctors as a whole even as we accept that an individual of these professions and even the entire profession can be wrong. (With individuals having a significant larger chance of being wrong particularly when they are being ‘cherry picked’.)
Concerning historians, for example, historians are, in my experience, sober people who work hard to come up with the most objective truth possible about history. Are they always correct? No. Do they have to work against propagandists who want to distort history? absolutely yes! Has their effort, and continued effort, produce a history that we can trust and use? Yes.
We are better off trusting historians than we are trusting those who deliberately sow doubt. For historians have the business of verifying facts and they do it very well. It is this verification process, that is not practices by the doubters, that sets the true professionals apart from those who want to manipulate the facts so that they can manipulate us. Even when they are wrong they have a much better chance of finding out how and why they are wrong then someone who does not do it for a living.
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Rolltide
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Be careful when you disqualify all “revisionist” history. It is QUITE often that new sources become available that change our perception of an event. For example, a study of the Inquisition records in Spain have demonstrated that the institution was far less harsh and killed far less people than commonly believed. I can also mention my earlier example of the Soviet Union and the opening of their archives in 1991. All of this is “revisionist” history as well.
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TheRealJuliane
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Well, I know that generations of Americans have been taught that FDR ended the Great Depression when in actuality, he prolonged it with his social programs. In fact, they are still being taught that FDR was the hero of The Great Depression. That’s just one glaring lie.
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