In the spirit of Godwin's law - I propose Beastie's law

[Jerry McAllister]

On Tue, Nov 27, 2007 at 10:17:00PM -0800, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:

> 
> CC set to FreeBSD Chat (Jerry you deleted the wrong mailing list)
> 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > [mailto:owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org]On Behalf Of Jerry
> > McAllister
> > Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 9:23 AM
> > To: Peo Nilsson
> > Cc: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Re: In the spirit of Godwin's law - I propose Beastie's law
> >
> > >
> > > Well, by "erasing" the history, no matter who "tried"
> > > to write it, the chance decrease...
> >
> > Hmmm.   I have come to think that our writing our history condemns
> > us to repeat it rather than the other way around.    With oral history
> > it is possible to creatively adjust it in each generation.  With written
> > history, it is only creatively adjusted (no history is written truthfully)
> > when it is first written down which is the time it is least understood
> > or at least, least seen in perspective.
> >
> > Then, since it is written, we seem condemned to believing it rather
> > than making it useful to our needs.
> >
> 
> Oral history has given us such nonsense as the "virgin" birth of
> Jesus, so that instead of history focusing on the truth inherent
> in what the guy was actually preaching, it instead focuses on
> an impossible asexual human reproduction event that in reality
> never happened.  Yes, Virginia, Mary did feel Joseph's schlong.
> 
> The next time you see a group of Christmas carolers, stop them
> and ask how many of them know what the Golden Rule is.  10-to-1
> odds you will find at least 1 of them that can't tell you what it
> is.
> 
> Written history is much, much better.

Well, I am not convinced.

That virgin birth stuff was needed by a people in that time (to comfort
some followers and prove to others that they were just as good as the
other popular religions of the day who all had miracle births), but if
it had not been written, it may well have been dropped in later times - 
or it might have grown in to something more interesting for todays kiddies..

Of course, since writing/reading is a core skill in getting our society
where it is today, it is impossible to know what the total picture would 
be without it at all and it is unlikely that writing/reading could have
existed for "science" and not for writing history.

But, the fact remains that history is not accurately recorded and we
are condemned to try and relive (in some way) the untrue history.
We are constantly looking back to the good old days -- that never were
like that.

////jerry
 
> Ted
>