HIstory Mistakes

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]Karado wrote:
Their were GIANTS among mankind…Christian Archeologist Joe Taylor of The Mt. Blanco
Fossil Museum elaborates…and check out that big assed Human Femur, I would NOT want to
tango with that Giant when alive who was estimated to be about 15 feet tall…WTF.
The Bible ‘rubs it in’ that some of these evil giants (there are no “good” Giants in scripture) had six fingers
and six toes…I say ‘rubs it in’ because they mention the six fingered/six toed
abominations TWICE in the Bible…which must mean we shouldn’t forget that.
Mentioning it once woulda been good enough for me.
Respected Ancient Christian Historian “Josephus”, in his work "Antiquities Of The Jews’’ said the Bones of these
Giants were also still on public display in his time, and witnesses to these Giants when they were alive said they were terrifying to the sight, and terrifying to hear.
This was not myth as many claim and try to ‘erase’ from history.

Fuck…me.

If you’re into that, check out these books

22

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think one of history’s really tragic mistakes is when pittbulll was conceived.[/quote]

And nursed.

Not conceiving or nursing the knothead would’ve prevented us from experiencing the tragedy we have before us today.

The only solution I can think of is to have VTBalla, aka Belly Flop, and Pittttttttbullllll go on a all-gay cruise to Amsterdam and disappear into the “coffee shop” counter culture, possibly reappearing somewhere like the interior of Somalia…without internet capability, of course, and heavily involved in sex acts with pregnant donkeys.[/quote]

Or they could just give each other syphilis and then die.[/quote]
This is really necessary? And from two men who claim to know Christ?

23

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I could probably come up with something better than this if I thought about it longer, but one that always gets me, and that I always mention to my students, is the whole thing about the “domino theory”. People always criticize a lot of U.S. foreign policy during the first couple decades of the Cold War. There’s a lot of legitimate criticism to be made, for sure, but these people invariably sight the domino theory as some bullshit, paranoia-driven excuse for subjugating everyone around the world in some mad race to dominate everyone.

They forget the legitimate threat that the domino theory was, along with who exactly it was who was shaping American foreign policy in order to combat it in the first place. These were all people who broke their teeth during WWII, when the dominoes really were falling, and falling to a madman in Hitler. Of course they’re going to think that the domino theory was a very real possibility since their entire careers were built or started during a period in which a laissez faire attitude toward Germany in the early to mid 1930’s basically let him topple over domino after domino in Europe. I think people like the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the CIA director, the President and so forth were completely justified in believing that the spectre of Communism could have led to a similar situation, and I don’t blame them for making some of the foreign policy mistakes they made in an attempt to stop the dominoes from falling.

I suppose another mistake that bothers me is a very generalized one that is applicable to all sorts of specific scenarios, both today and in the past. There seems to be this feeling amongst many that “the government” is capable of pulling off all sorts of sinister conspiracies around the world. Many times, something fucked up happened, like 9/11 or the JFK assassination or whatever, and people automatically think that those things happened because some devious element hiding in the shadows is running the gov’t and they allowed that event to happen.

From everything I’ve learned in all of my research into things like that, specifically the JFK assassination, the gov’t simply fucks up and makes a mistake and sometimes it leads to catastrophe. The gov’t is too inept to pull off these conspiracies. The reality is that sometimes the gov’t just makes a mind-bogglingly simple mistake that has horrific consequences. There was no 9/11 conspiracy and there was no massive CIA-run JFK conspiracy. The gov’t simply fucked up something that they should have never fucked up and people were killed as a result. And of course, the gov’t is going to try and cover up these mistakes so no one realizes how much they actually fucked up. They might hide some things, refuse access to others, whatever. And then when these conspiratorially-bent people start snooping around they automatically assume that these attempts to hide stuff are part of the conspiracy coverup, when in reality they’re simply trying to cover their own asses so people don’t realize what bumbling fools are running things sometimes.[/quote]

You make some great points. That is the problem I have with conspiracy theorists, they have too much faith in what an organization can do. Someone messing up is more believable than some high overriding system that controls every outcome.

24

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I think one of history’s really tragic mistakes is when pittbulll was conceived.[/quote]

And nursed.

Not conceiving or nursing the knothead would’ve prevented us from experiencing the tragedy we have before us today.

The only solution I can think of is to have VTBalla, aka Belly Flop, and Pittttttttbullllll go on a all-gay cruise to Amsterdam and disappear into the “coffee shop” counter culture, possibly reappearing somewhere like the interior of Somalia…without internet capability, of course, and heavily involved in sex acts with pregnant donkeys.[/quote]

Or they could just give each other syphilis and then die.[/quote]
This is really necessary? And from two men who claim to know Christ? [/quote]

I never met Christ. I just believe in his principles, which I admit I don’t always follow.

25

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Everyone is wrong about something. And, there are some mistakes that our fellow man makes more often that not, usually because of bad information. No academic subject seems to be the example of this more frequently than history. Whether it be some even like the Civil War, 9/11, Vietnam, or a period of time such as the Renaissance, it seems that somewhere along the line generalizations were made incorrectly and the common opinion among the public is somehow horribly false.

I’d like to get everyone’s opinion on what their favorite/most frustrating event or period in history that it seems most people get incorrect when in discussion.

Mine is the Medieval Ages (a.k.a. “Dark Ages”), for whatever reason this seems to be one of the most misunderstood (by the general population) periods in Western Civilization, second would be the early dealings with Moslems all the way up to Tours, and third (which is more of a favorite than an annoyance) is the discussion of who would win, European Knights v. The Great Khan’s army…mostly because it was settled when they fought the first time (hint: we lost).[/quote]

I agree with you that many people significantly misunderstand this time period. At the same time, I’m not really interested in any sort of Roman Catholic white-washing of that time period. Yes, Protestant-polemicized characterizations of the period are often incredibly inaccurate (especially the ridiculous and all-too-common assertion that the church hid the bible from the common people, as if they would have known how to make sense out of it, or even read it, anyway). Nevertheless, I’m against any sort of theological interpretation of the period, Catholic or Protestant.

26

[quote]Karado wrote:
Their were GIANTS among mankind…Christian Archeologist Joe Taylor of The Mt. Blanco
Fossil Museum elaborates…and check out that big assed Human Femur, I would NOT want to
tango with that Giant when alive who was estimated to be about 15 feet tall…WTF.
The Bible ‘rubs it in’ that some of these evil giants (there are no “good” Giants in scripture) had six fingers
and six toes…I say ‘rubs it in’ because they mention the six fingered/six toed
abominations TWICE in the Bible…which must mean we shouldn’t forget that.
Mentioning it once woulda been good enough for me.
Respected Ancient Christian Historian “Josephus”, in his work "Antiquities Of The Jews’’ said the Bones of these
Giants were also still on public display in his time, and witnesses to these Giants when they were alive said they were terrifying to the sight, and terrifying to hear.
This was not myth as many claim and try to ‘erase’ from history.
[/quote]

Karado, I don’t understand, man. Is this stuff really that important to you?

  1. There is no concrete evidence that anyone found giant human bones. It’s all hearsay, and often reports of supposed giant human bones turn out to belong to other large animals.

  2. If you went and read that passages referring to six fingered giant(s), you would realize that they are two accounts about the exact same guy, found in 2 Samuel 21:20-21 and 1 Chronicles 20:6-7. The two accounts in Hebrew mirror each other almost word for word (the only real difference being in the order the numbers are placed in). Even the contexts of the two passages are the same - David’s wars against the Philistines and their giant champions. In other words, you don’t have an two separate texts alluding to different six-fingered figures; you have two texts referring to the SAME six-fingered figure. Moreover, you don’t even have two separate accounts here. The fact is that the author of Chronicles frequently quotes from the earlier historical books (1 Samuel through 2 Kings, known collectively as 1-4 Kingdoms), so what you have in the case of 1 Chronicles 20:6-7 is really a copy of 2 Samuel 21:20-21.

And as for the notion that the presence of two references to an event somehow indicates the importance of a subject, you’re missing a key point - when the Chronicler was writing, there was no BIBLE. There was no canon. The Chronicler didn’t write down the exact same events recorded in 2 Samuel 21:20-21 to remind you how important they were; he more likely wrote 1-2 Chronicles as a replacement historical text for returned exiles who didn’t have access to 1-4 Kingdoms, as well as to put forth his own theological vision. There is NO indication that he had any idea that his books would eventually be gathered together with 1-4 Kingdoms in a canon.

  1. Josephus wasn’t a Christian historian; he was a Jewish historian, and when he mentions the bones of giants on display, he’s not talking about full skeletons like you find in museums. Rather, it is more likely that he refers to giant animal bones mistakenly assumed to belong to humans.

For the record, I am not arguing with the bible’s claims; I’m arguing against shoddy scholarship.

27

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

Second was Russia being allowed a seat at Yalta. In hindsight, the war in Europe should have continued until vermin known as the Soviet were exterminated. Instead, FDR thought it would be nice if he and Churchill allowed the USSR to have Eastern Europe. They did nothing but create a cold war for the next 40 years.

[/quote]

I’ll go one step further and say it was a strategic mistake to ally with the USSR during WWII period. The Soviets, and now Russians, have proven themselves over and over and over again to be a scourge to the Planet Earth.[/quote]

I dunno if I can agree with that. The alliance was helpful in the dark days of the war, and not having at least a nominal alliance would have seriously complicated the process of waging an effective war because you have one more variable to worry about. I would say that I believe the mistake was made with Yalta, but I am not sure that really counts as this thread’s topic? Chris did you mean 1) mistakes about people’s understanding of history that pisses you off and/or your most frustrating times and 2) your personal favs?

28

[quote]KingKai25 wrote:

[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
Everyone is wrong about something. And, there are some mistakes that our fellow man makes more often that not, usually because of bad information. No academic subject seems to be the example of this more frequently than history. Whether it be some even like the Civil War, 9/11, Vietnam, or a period of time such as the Renaissance, it seems that somewhere along the line generalizations were made incorrectly and the common opinion among the public is somehow horribly false.

I’d like to get everyone’s opinion on what their favorite/most frustrating event or period in history that it seems most people get incorrect when in discussion.

Mine is the Medieval Ages (a.k.a. “Dark Ages”), for whatever reason this seems to be one of the most misunderstood (by the general population) periods in Western Civilization, second would be the early dealings with Moslems all the way up to Tours, and third (which is more of a favorite than an annoyance) is the discussion of who would win, European Knights v. The Great Khan’s army…mostly because it was settled when they fought the first time (hint: we lost).[/quote]

I agree with you that many people significantly misunderstand this time period. At the same time, I’m not really interested in any sort of Roman Catholic white-washing of that time period. Yes, Protestant-polemicized characterizations of the period are often incredibly inaccurate (especially the ridiculous and all-too-common assertion that the church hid the bible from the common people, as if they would have known how to make sense out of it, or even read it, anyway). Nevertheless, I’m against any sort of theological interpretation of the period, Catholic or Protestant.[/quote]

I understand where you’re coming from completely, but I would say that any account of the period has some worldview interpretation that will lead to bias. Humanist (which is to say atheistic) interpretations of the period have been just as inaccurate in the evils they ascribe to religion’s effect on the time or history in general.

Note this is not to say that all or even most atheistic writers do such a thing or that they are not valuable scholarship to read (they are), but this is to say that it has and does occur just as with Protestant and Catholic. I believe in reading many accounts and balancing them against each other to the best of your abilities. That’s the whole critical thinking thing, and of course everybody has proclivities but it’s much easier than trying to find a single kind of interpretation you believe has a completely unbiased view (they don’t exist). Using bias in the casual sense here, not the “poor scholarship” sense, although that does exist in all interpretative frameworks.

30

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]drunkpig wrote:

Second was Russia being allowed a seat at Yalta. In hindsight, the war in Europe should have continued until vermin known as the Soviet were exterminated. Instead, FDR thought it would be nice if he and Churchill allowed the USSR to have Eastern Europe. They did nothing but create a cold war for the next 40 years.

[/quote]

I’ll go one step further and say it was a strategic mistake to ally with the USSR during WWII period. The Soviets, and now Russians, have proven themselves over and over and over again to be a scourge to the Planet Earth.[/quote]

I dunno if I can agree with that. The alliance was helpful in the dark days of the war, and not having at least a nominal alliance would have seriously complicated the process of waging an effective war because you have one more variable to worry about. I would say that I believe the mistake was made with Yalta, but I am not sure that really counts as this thread’s topic? Chris did you mean 1) mistakes about people’s understanding of history that pisses you off and/or your most frustrating times and 2) your personal favs?

[/quote]

Well, of course the alliance was helpful in the dark days of the war, etc. And maybe Yalta would’ve been the place to cut the cord. But the fact remains that the USSR since its birth and now Russia have been led by scumbags who have wreaked havoc upon the globe – evil, wicked men who continue to craft and implement malevolence. Obviously the Third Reich came out of the same mold but my point remains.[/quote]

Well while dramatic I certainly agree with your primary point about the USSR. I think Russia (currently) suffers more from a severe corruption hangover than being as wicked as you want to say. By this I mean not that there is no rampant corruption and evil there, but that they spent so long under the USSR operating manual it’s all they know (similar to the generation of Afghani’s who spent their entire lives under Soviet rule not understanding anything but how to fight and wage guerilla war…when we pulled out all help and contact and said “you’re on your own” after the USSR fell it killed a huge opportunity to help build a good relationship because they were completely un-prepared. Now we’re pretty fucked).

My point being, you spend the last 90 years under communist leadership and all your generation, your fathers and grandfathers generations respecting the iron fist and secret police power, accepting corruption as “status quo”…well the road back culturally is a damn long one. Especially because of the rampant corruption in gov’t that was already there before being “democratized” and the rule of the mafia in the early days of democracy (and up to now, as it is still a force in play)

32

Hahaha. Fair. I think the USSR was evil. But i don’t think there is a regime in Russia now in any relatable sense although there are lots of evil people (or for that matter, here at home as well).