Thanks for referring me here, @eric3579.

It's all true. The bit about pretty much zero world history being taught in schools is correct, but in a way that just makes it all the MORE puzzling.

I teach high school level students English. I do a unit on "Local Heroes" where my students learn a little bit about significant people from native English speaking countries. To get the theme across, I start with a Thai guy named Phraya Phichai who is a very significant person in the province where I live. From there I talk about Elvis Presley or Amelia Earhart for the US, Lord Nelson for England, William Wallace for Scotland, Nelson Mandela for South Africa, etc. to demonstrate people who have a similar kind of significance to people from those states/countries.

After that unit, during oral testing I ask every student to name their favorite historical figure / hero other than the ones we covered. Single most common response: the King of Thailand (the one that just died last year was and still is extremely respected / revered by Thais). But the second most common response: Hitler. By a pretty wide margin. I'd say 30%+ say the King, and nearly 10% say Hitler. Random sports players, musicians, etc. make up most of the rest -- but none with a big chunk of the responses like those 2.

I used to be pretty shocked by all of that kind of stuff here (I've seen the shirts, chicken restaurant, nazi flags for sale, etc.) but I guess I'm pretty numb to it by now. No idea what the source of it is, because it really does seem quite strange that Hitler isn't covered in schools here, yet somehow people seem to learn broad strokes about him enough for him to be oddly "popular". Whatever the source of that is, it seems to filter out the stuff that should make him infamous as opposed to a general pop culture sort of famous.

I don't mind if they don't know things, and you're completely right in that I don't know 0.1% of relevant history, be it American, Kiwi or anywhere else.

OTOH, because I don't know said history I don't go around comparing people to historical figures I don't know about.

I wouldn't compare Hillary to Kate Sheppard, for example, because I only barely know who she is.

Basically, it's not an issue here because while anime characters are culturally Japanese (they speak Japanese, bow, eat with chopsticks, etc.), many times they also live in countries that are clearly NOT Japan. The ambiguous cultural status of the characters lets the writers put them in a variety of both familiar and exotic situations (i.e. going to a public bath vs. going to a high school prom,) which creates interesting tensions.

You see this a lot in anime like the Gundam series in which battles take place over several different countries on earth, as well as across space colonies, and yet everyone involved in the war, whether they have Japanese names or not, acts pretty damned Japanese all the time. Yet, the series incorporates non-Japanese elements as well. The building architecture of the Zeon space colonies, for example, is clearly European-inspired.

So Japanese people are used to the ambiguity of the "nationality" of their anime characters. I don't think Japanese people will have any problem with Scarlett Johansson unless the movie doesn't stay true to the character itself.

Now if a non-Japanese person had been cast to play Ryouma Sakamoto or some other real-life Japanese historical figure, I think there would be a pretty big reaction.

At least they're real historical figures (terminator vs robocop...). That was some damn fine wordplay, glad to see they're still able to produce quality stuff

Might be interesting to compare and contrast how we in the US have handled our laundry list of "bad things we've done in the past" compared to, say, Germany.

I know that the Nazi flag and other imagery are outright banned / censored in Germany. From what I understand, WW2 history taught in schools in Germany is handled very carefully, if not largely glossed over.

In the US, the only bit of history that gets treatment similar to that (in my experience/opinion) is the Vietnam war. I know my High School history classes definitely glossed over it and didn't want to get into any details about why, how, or whether or not we should have been in the war at all.

Compare that to WW2, which was covered in pretty great detail. Very much including actively encouraging students to consider their own thoughts on controversial things like dropping not just one but two atomic bombs on Japan.

The Civil War is also covered much more openly and honestly. I don't think I can recall anyone ever seriously suggesting that the single, most important root cause of the Civil War wasn't slavery. Other umbrella labels like "states rights" might be referred to as the impetus, but yes, any and all of those things really boil down to slavery.



One thing that scares me about the German approach (sweep under the rug and don't talk about it) is that it sort of all too conveniently ignores the reality that these terrible things were done by people who were (disturbingly) not very different from us. OK, Hitler himself might have been a 1 in a million or 1 in a billion combination of evil, crazy, and powerful. But Joe Average from today ... not so different from Hans Average from 1930s Germany.

Celebrating one's heritage and past is OK, sometimes even good. Especially when one can honestly own and try to understand the bad along with the good. I think it is OK to appreciate the Confederate flag, along with historical figures like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It is possible to accept that their core motivations were done in support of a very bad and evil institution (slavery), but to still respect or even admire their accomplishments as human beings. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves too, but we are willing to look beyond that when considering his legacy.

Maybe the Confederate flag is tied too closely to the institution of slavery for it ever to be uncoupled from that. Maybe a government that prides itself on being democratic should consider that that connection creates a conflict with many of its constituents. But I hope we never sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.

The Jesus myth isn't one taken seriously by many scholars. Even Richard Dawkins admitted that Jesus is a historical figure.

But ERB is not necessarily a place for real life historical figures...so it is within rights to go off the movie too... (See Darth Vader for not real past...the song would go kind of like...no lyrics from Vader, Hitler wins by default

21%, but like TheGenk I wouldn't qualify myself as a people person either, as psychological tests go (and I've taken a couple) it's pretty weak.
The quiz comparing historical figures was kind of interesting, managed 5 out of 7 on that one. And a lot of the traits mentioned in this video could really go either way, many of those things could apply to people and they still would not be a psychopath.

I'm always amazed that anyone would even think that any biopic, movie, mini-series, or made for TV movie would be accurate. It's compressed, staged and artificial because that's the format that works for the medium. American pop culture eats its own feces, like when George Clooney made a movie about Chuck Barris (that great historical figure).

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one. This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

Your argument eats itself. If there aren't any absolute laws of logic (including that one), then there are no rules period, and thus no logic. If there is no such thing as logic then I could say "The cucumber faints west in the umbrage" and it would be an entirely valid response to anything you say. Yet you continue to make absolute statements like:

"All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction."

"This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications"

"you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective"

The sea cucumber faints west in the umbrage, my friend.

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)

No, I can't 100 percent prove I am not actually a circus peanut dreaming I'm a man, but it doesn't matter what I can prove to you. What matters is what is true. You have absolute freedom to live in total denial of reality if you want to, but reality isn't what we dictate it is. Just because you have no way of figuring it out doesn't mean no one does. The one who does have it figured out is God, because He created it. Because He is God He can make us absolutely certain of who He is and what He wants from us, transcending all physical or mental rationale.

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

If everything is permitted then it is equally valid not to permit, which means you have no argument. Your way isn't better than any other way according to your logic so all that you can argue is that you prefer it.

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

I can't prove God exists to you, but He can. God isn't hiding from you; He has been knocking on your door your entire life. It's your choice whether you want to open the door, but you are going to meet Him one day regardless of what you choose.

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

I was created before I had a mind. The Universe has a beginning, it was created, and the Creator is the judge.

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.),

The Catholics borrowed those from the Pagans..you won't find those in the bible.

the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

Sources?

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which..

Let's see some sources..

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))

I know exactly what it is and I am very familar with it.

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)

Abraham is the father of the Jewish people and he worshiped the LORD.

I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)

Because I know Him personally and His Spirit lives within me.

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?

To be a Christian is to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore there is no Christianity without Him. He is the only way to know God:

John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

He wasn't pointing to Himself, He was pointing to God.

This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.

This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

You do realize that the word son and the word sun, in hebrew or in egyptian, aren't even remotely similar don't you? The word Christ does mean the anointed one, that is what the Messiah is. Jesus *is* the Christ. In regards to Horus being Christ, and a lot of other things you said, please take a look at this:

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/#horus

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.

Read the gospel of John and pray to God and ask Him to help you understand it.

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment.

John the baptist said he wasn't the Messiah and Simon was outdone by Philip.

I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).

The missing part of this theory is the explanation for the empty tomb.

Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

The quran isn't accurate, but if you read the Old Testament without humanistic glasses on, you'll find it was the humans who were malevolent and God was who long suffering with them.

@ shinyblurry

This had already turned into an essay and I didn't want to take up even more room by quoting you verbatim so I've tried to break it down to save space.



1. "Except that?"

There are no absolute logical principles <---- including that one.
This is simply another way of describing the problem of induction and under determination. Like so many philosophical arguments you have attacked my position based upon the language it was described in and not due to its underlying thought process. This has resulted in a fallacy. Language merely conveys knowledge, it does not in an of itself contain it (and excellent example incidentally of what I was talking about).

2. "Is that absolutely true?"

All principles (save the observation "thinking exists") can only ever derived by induction. This is the case because one can never know for certain if any or all of ones experiences are fabrications, and furthermore that they never encompass all possible variables/possibilities. To put it another way, you can't ever be certain about any judgement one makes about the universe or anything in it because one cannot observe an exhaustive perspective (i.e. all of time and space for the thing in question). Thus there may always exist an example that could falsify your assumption. e.g. if I inducted that all swans are white because I had only ever seen white swans I would ultimately be incorrect as black swans can be observed to exist. Unless you can verify the entirety of existence across time there might always exist and experience/example to falsify any objective assertion. (you could be a brain in a jar, you can't prove 100% that your not)


3. "Including not permitting..which means you have no further argument against Christianity."

^ Pardon me? Did you even read what I wrote by way of explanation for that? What part of "everything is permitted" even remotely precludes me (or anyone) from anything, let alone arguing against Christianity?!?!?

What I felt I'd explained fairly clearly was the idea that the only demonstrable moral authority was yourself, or to put it another way that there are no moral authorities to be found anywhere else but within peoples minds.
Even if God himself speaks to you directly, that is an experience reducible only to the mind because ALL EXPERIENCES WITHIN HUMAN CONCEPTION OCCUR IN or at best VIA THE MIND!

Nothing has ever happened to any human being anywhere that was not experienced entirely in the mind (notice I didn't say "brain" ). When you see a chair you don't see the photons of light hitting your retina, you see something your mind made up to be representative (at best) of whatever phenomenon your eyes detected.

With that in mind (<- mind lol), "everything is permitted". The universe will continue on, unmoved by our moralities (or lack of). Only other humans will cry or rejoice at your actions and only within the sovereignty of your own mind will you find an irrefutable and absolute moral judge...

As for the other bits

A. "The earliest records of Mithraism bear no similarity to Christianity at all....."

Apart from all the same major dates for festivals and holy days (25th dec etc.), the entire symbology of dieing on a cross for three days then being resurrected, the "last supper" with 12 disciples, 3 wise men from the east bearing gifts. etc. etc.

I'd have more time for the Christian counter argument that the Mithraists stole this stuff from them if the same themes, dates and symoblogy didn't pop up in ancient cultures going back a few 1000 years over and over and over. The list of Messianic figures with the above characteristics in western folklore & myth is so long its almost a joke! & naturally is no co-incidence as they are describing the movement of the heavens (specifically the sun) by way of allegory. Speaking of which............

Pagan & Gnostic traditions are deeply intertwined to the point where one could consider many examples to be one and the same. Mithraism would be one such example. Pagan just means many Gods/worship of nature & archetypes in the human psyche. Mithraism fulfils this definition but it also fulfils the Gnostic one i.e. it teaches that one finds god of and within oneself, not as an external force, or indeed a force which is separate from oneself.

But then the Catholic Church did it level best to suppress and destroy any trace of Gnosticism through the ages so its no surprise to me that you're not entirely familiar with it. (most people haven't even heard of it and those that do tend to be under the misapprehension that its a Christian thing (again understandable under the circumstances))


B. "Actually, they came from a progressive revelation of Judiasm which preceeded all of that."

I'll come with you a little on that one. Before Rex Mundi (Jehova) showed up to fk everything up for them the Kabbalistic (and essentially Pagan) Jews possessed great wisdom and insight. Naturally not all of this was lost! (though after Solomon passed it would appear a regrettably large amount was)


C. "What Jesus did not teach that came from Judiasm was wholly His and entirely unique, and they came from the mouth of God Himself."


I'm not sure I even want to grace that with a response. How could you possibly know what came from the mouth of God to a man 2000 years ago? If you say "because it says in the bible" please don't expect a sensible reply (I'm happy to fight non-sense with none-sense)


D. "The difference is Jesus Himself. You could take buddha out of buddhism, or zoroaster out of zoroastrianism and you would still have something. Without Jesus there is no Christianity."

^This one amused be greatly. I would say Buddhism & Zoroastranism were clearly superior for exactly that reason but that's not what I think you were alluding to? I assume you were suggesting that certain parts of the whole Jesus shebang could only have come from Jesus/God/Holy spirit because he made himself the centre of attention?
This is why I make a very distinct separation between the "Jesus" and the "Christ". Christ (or anointed one) goes back at least to Egypt. Horus is clearly "Christ" by basically any sensible measure I can think of, and by "Christ" I mean the "Sun of God" i.e. the freaking Sun.
This also forms the basis for an "as above so below" parable/allegory for the spiritual journey to enlightenment. You can find your way to heaven and God via the "Sun of God's" wisdom. No Miracle performing hippie Jew's were required before and I fail to see how sprouting the same fundamental idea just with a figurehead for a disenfranchised Jewish noble family anchored to everything helps?

Are there some pearl's of Jesus's wisdom I missed? Thus far I have yet to come across anything that didn't strike me as either a rewording of things wise men had preached for 1000's of years previously, or a power play by an unscrupulous or deluded individual.


E. "The Jesus myth theory isn't taken seriously by even skeptical bible scholars. There is more evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ than for Alexander the Great."

I happen to know its hotly contested even to this day but lets for the sake of this just take it as a given. When I said "at best a fabrication" it was because I consider the historical figure to be an impostor and a fraud. If anyone was a "true" messiah then John the Baptist and moreover Simon Magus are far better contenders but then that's a colossal can of worms I'm not sure I can be bothered to open at the moment. I'll just say in summary that I am of the opinion that Mr. Ben Yosef and his crew were plotting to return the house of David to power but largely failed in the end as the Roman establishment usurped most of the legacy they tried to create (though not entirely).
Either way they worshiped and championed a being (Psychological archetype) which I feel I have little choice but to call Satan i.e. the God of Abraham. This alone is a pretty major indictment for me and any historic figure that puts said "being" at the center of their belief system will garner my suspicion.

How can the God that appeared to Abraham be anything but malevolent if the accounts in the Torah and Quran are accurate?

(I hope that made sense towards the end, getting very late & tired here...)

Churchill - my favourite historical figure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltn04zRd3yQ

>> ^lucky760:

>> ^Yogi:
>> ^lucky760:
Reminds me of Clint Eastwood preparing to escape from Alcatraz using a bundle of matches to weld together a mini pickax (made out of a small nail cutter and its little nail file, IIRC).
Just me?

Who's Clint Eastwood?

He's a historical figure from the 1880s who unfortunately fell to his demise in Clayton's Ravine when the train he was engineering failed to stop before the tracks ended at an uncompleted bridge. Google "Mad Dog Tannen" for more info.


Ding ding ding!

Close out the comments. We have a winner.

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^lucky760:
Reminds me of Clint Eastwood preparing to escape from Alcatraz using a bundle of matches to weld together a mini pickax (made out of a small nail cutter and its little nail file, IIRC).
Just me?

Who's Clint Eastwood?


He's a historical figure from the 1880s who unfortunately fell to his demise in Clayton's Ravine when the train he was engineering failed to stop before the tracks ended at an uncompleted bridge. Google "Mad Dog Tannen" for more info.

>> ^braindonut:

To argue that his race had nothing to do with his elect-ability is disingenuous. To say it's the ONLY thing that got him elected is delusional.


I agree, like many things in life, there are many factors. Just because race was one of the many factors, it shouldn't make you a racist to point it out. Unless, perhaps, you are using it to argue against a particular policy, on the grounds that he is black, or thing the ONLY reason he got elected was because he was black or something retarded like that. But the entire tone of this interview, like @brycewi19 pointed out, is pretty annoying.