HISTORY

What is our history? Collective world history, ethnic history, family history, personal history, political history, religious history, so many different histories inside each of us. Who writes history? Some say the victors. If this is so then how do we know what is real and what is not? What would it be like to know our 'real' history, the God's-honest-truth? An accurate, true record written by witnesses with no bias. Never happen, we are a species destined to lie, to fabricate our very existence if we could. You won't see dolphins or chimps doing that.

History is a way for us to revel in our triumphs and justify our ugliness and pettiness. History justifies negative actions that were a direct result of our alleged suffering. Our history is no more real than tales of fairies and aliens. Our recorded history is a series of novellas written by consensus. It is man made. Even scientific history is written by man and therefore suspect. Opinion, theory, hypothesis, and wild guess mixed with a dash of truth.

Do we really know who we were? Do we know who we are now? What about the deniers of history. Did the Holocaust,Armenian genocide, and dinosaurs actually happen or is it hearsay. Do witnesses tell the truth, can they accurately recall the events they witnessed? According to police, eyewitness accounts are notoriously inaccurate. Therefore, can history ever be entirely accurate? Questions, upon questions, that's all we have.

I know in my own personal history there are some things I remember and some I don't. Some that I remember vividly never happened. Memories that I lay claim to are actually the property of others. My own truth as experienced and witnessed by me is not true. I am fallible, my truth therefore is only conjecture. I believe in God, dinosaurs, the history of the world as loosely stated in texts. I also believe there's another side to all those stories, the untold side. Information left buried and unspoken, some irrelevant, some significant and life changing. If as individuals we lie all the time about everything, how can we imply history is an infallible truth? We are wonderful liars, creative and manipulative. Some lies are so masterfully concocted they sway the masses to the certainty of its principle. Think Hitler.

As an example: What if the was no evil snake in Eden, he was the good guy it was Eve who was the evil one. Not wanting to be punished for touching the apple she laid the blame on the snake. "He made me do it!" she cried. She still got in trouble, tossed out of paradise, the curse of childbirth, all that. The snake came out the worse for wear. Forced to slither on his belly for eternity, his legacy throughout biblical history is to be known as the devils confederate; hated and hunted. Though the provocateur, Eve is still known as the innocent. With regards to childbirth, God has given women a short memory about the pain, and children have always been considered a blessing not a curse. It is so easy to play with history - change the viewpoint, change the roles. Just like historians have done with the Indians, Jews, Muslims, blacks, Chinese, Irish, Mexicans and the Vikings.

We really have no history, no pure truth of what came before. Like the bible, history books were written by men long after the deed was done. No witnesses, just what the guilty want in a crime; and this lack of accuracy is a crime. The problem is by writing biased truth you change the perspective of an event. By changing the perspective you change the roles and justify the wrongs. Were the Indians really the bad guys or were we? Strangely, history is fluid. The Indians were the bad guys once, now they are a persecuted minority and we are the bad guys who crushed them through our ignorance and arrogance. Now we are enlightened, and as such the events have changed. It still isn't truth though, its just another point of view passing as history.