[GhostShark]

Maybe you guys have already discussed this and im sorry for making a new thread but have you ever wondered if the history we know actually happened?
I mean you probably have with religions and stuff but have you ever wondered if Charlemagne really existed or if the Trojan War occurred?
There is concrete evidence in the ruins and etc but still...
This could easily dip into Aliens(if we evolved from them and Scientology)

I believe that life is just one coincidence after another and that nothing is truly controlled.....

[snuffypuffer]

Interesting theory you have there, I'll be back with some comments.

[AndyThorley]

You could say that about anything...and some weirdos are.

For instance there's this weird nutcase cult somewhere that claim that WWII never happened and the supposedly dead and murdered simply went and formed china.

So...there's a lot of weird theories about, but the main question with your idea is "What do people gain from believing these things"

What, to use your example, does anyone have to gain if someone does or does not believe that however many years ago the trojans left a wooden horse behind, y'know?


The only example I can see of history being important is with religious events...it matters to some that God does or doesnt exist and it does matter to others whether, say, buddah existed (Sorry if Im getting this wrong...Im not very religious myself) because people base their lives and in some cases their decisions on these things.

[BuhiBuhi-Kun]

I think it happened,
but I don't trust historians and thier views about how and what happened. Because frankly they have too much tied up in prestige and wanting to right to be 100% objective. It's like the proof that vikings were here (in Canada) long before Colombus and the fur traders but it's kinda hushed up. Nobody wants to be proven wrong after so many years of teaching "history". Well that's my take on it....

[Blood Angel]

i'll enlighten you to a old saying "history is written by the victors"

[endofthingstocome]

[BuhiBuhi-Kun]

*shaking fist*
Dang victors...get you....get you good.

[AndyThorley]

Its true...according to historical records there's a battle between Ramesses the Second of egypt and the hittites...The battle of Qadesh in Syria, to be precise...according to accounts from both sides, both the hitites and the egyptians won.

[Celumnaz]

hehe, when I was a kid (6 or 7) I would think what they were telling me about God... and sometimes I'd think "Well, He could have made us 5 sec. ago with all current memories intact" and I'd daydream from there that we were all really just one minute old and such.

He could have just made us and I only *think* I've posted on this website before...

[Cufflink]

Amazingly, the Japanese, despite the lovely people that they are, refuse to fully acknowledge what happened in WW2.

And then, there's Hollywood...

U571, anyone? The enigma machine was actually captured by us limeys, quite easily, and was fully in use before America joined in and saved our collective bacon.

Braveheart? William Wallace was soundly beaten in the second battle, before legging it, and hiding. He was then caught and executed. Probably for that dreadful attempts at a Scots accent.

And he had a beard, apparently. Looked nothing like Slaine the Barabarian, whatsoever.

History isn't just written by the victors, it's re-written by racist hacks in Hollywood.

[Ericat]

As many know, Shakespeare has been credited with some great literary masterpieces etc, blah blah blah.

The truth is that his daughter was illiterate and apparently needed help to write her own name in adulthood!?

Also, he was from a small village and remained there for most of his life therefore unable to secure the worldly experience that is portrayed in his works.

So what this means is that 'Shakespeare' is but a hoax. Someone needed to advance an agenda of some historical significance and needed a scapegoat.
If the dude was such a john holmes in literary circles, how could his daughter be so devoid of education ?

History is but smoke and mirrors teaching people to believe none of what they hear and half of what they see.

[Aslan]

Personally, I don't believe that 'history is written by the victors'. I think it's a nice concise soundbite that seems to ring true, but in actual fact is at best a truism and at worst is just plain wrong.

I think that immediate history is written by the victors - in the sense that only the people left alive are the ones who can say what happened - but in the modern world there is no immediate history. Every major event is dissected and discussed and analysed by numerous conflicting voices almost as soon as it happens. There was no sense of the coalition in Iraq, for example, dictating what would be written in history books for ever more; in fact, the participants of any side of anything make pretty suspicious sources for most historians.

So when Andy points out that...

[AndyThorley]

From what Ive read of shakespeare (Titus andronicus, romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, the merchant of venice...hardly the most concise readings, but more than my friend here who claims shakespeare didnt write his plays) and though some of them take place in different countries (Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet take place in Italy and Macbeth in Scotland, for example) they dont use any form of historical knowledge.

And even if they had then Shakespeare could have easilly picked them up...from travellers in a pub, for example (if Shakespeare would go there, I dunno him personally so I cant comment)