In India, China, and South America there are ceremonies and celebrations that are held that have been held for more than two thousands years. In Europe there isn’t or much fewer. The conclusion I draw is the church sought to erase traditions and stories that weren’t Christian and validates George Orwell’s point when he said He who controls the present controls the past since the church seemed to single handedly detach all of Europe from its past.
Almost all of the christian church’s traditions, holy days, celebrations, ideas, values, beliefs, symbolism, and rites have an unbroken link back to roman, greek, celtic and germanic cultures and religeons. going back as far and in some cases farther than eastern religeons, the only thing that has changed are the names.
and history writes itself, all that comes after, by man or woman, is a rewrite.
Urm… This. The Christian church didn’t seek to eradicate older traditions and religions, they built on top of them as a method of converting new members and they hardly conquered all festivities, there are many, even in Britain - possibly the country with the least traditional / mythological past, however this is due to successive invasions and attempted genocides of the previous inhabitants. Plus the whole lack of written word thing. I agree with George Orwell (in the sense that ‘control of’ is about controlling access not the thing in itself), but I don’t think your point supports it totally.
Like anything else, I think it shows how the control manifests itself. The sacred places of old were often co-opted and reinvented rather than simply destroyed. That is how you seamlessly blend yourself into the local narrative. It happens all the time. I was recently reading a paper dealing with the sinification of Marxism in China and, again, it is all over the place. Older values are co-opted but not changed. Same principle.
I think the general pattern is for people to want to attribute the good things of the past to themselves and the bad things to someone else. I think that is what the church/politicians/humanity does. People 2000 years ago liked Christmas. Rather than try to eliminate Christmas, Christians put for the idea that Christ was the reason Christmas existed. They attribute what is good (Christmas) to themselves (Christ, or their ideology).
Most people will tell you the real meaning of Christmas is related to Jesus. They can’t tell you the original story of how Christmas came to be before Jesus. That’s because the church replaced one past with one more in favor of itself.
So, Marxists used ancient Chinese art and stories to promote Marxism?
Christian theology saw Christ as the reality of all the positve things in the universe. Christ as the logos was the realization in a person of Plato’s realm of ideas. That’s a large part of the solution to riddles posed in the documentary “Zeigeist.” The early church fathers realized this because the insight was new. First Jesus of Nazareth was seen as the fulfillment the types of the Hebrew scriptures. Then, as the gospel of Christ spread he took on the symbols of the local myths and rituals. Subsequent generations tend forget because when you are born into a culture where stuff is practiced you take it for granted.
Not necessarily (though that wouldn’t surprise me). It was more the language used and how the concepts were envisioned. But a linguistic narrative isn’t all that different from a mythic narrative – both provide means of shaping thought.
Everyone who writes history rewrites someone else’s.
Not an complete rewrite though, Its more like a callaboration. The ruling order dominates but some of the songs of old are still heard. Its unfortunate.
^
Amerikans won. We own the world. We can say whatever we want and nobody else has a voice.
George Washington round-house kicked Hitler to death and single-handedly won WWII for US.
Get over it.
I was thinking about it today and I realized not only do people who write history re-write it, but we all re-write our own personal histories. For example, we might marry someone we really love or find a job that we feel is a life calling. Later, if the job or marriage don’t work out, we’ll re-examine the events leading up to getting the job or meeting the ex-wife and recast the meaning of them to fit into how we feel now. The story of how you found the best job will become the story of how you were tricked into taking the job that you really didn’t want. The story of how you met the love of your life becomes the story of how a women lied to you and tricked you into marrying her. Based on this observation about myself, I have to conclude that the past is just an explanation of how you came to believe what you believe today. When your beliefs in the present change, so to will your explanations of the past.
It’s not unlike news reporting. Look at Fox News, CNN and the BBC for coverage of any issue.
There are some differences.
Ooh, historigraphical debate?! 
Ruh-roh.
Read Peirce and Dewey on how we form ideas. If that’s how you feel you’ll love it.
I agree.
Epistemology alert! 
I’m a big fan of Dewey’s.
Pierce, not so much.