SriJoy wrote:Its neither western, nor dogmatic. Chinese, Japanese, etc. also reject religious literature as history. this is because, as i've already noted- almost all religious literature is modified for religious gain. Only religious texts i know are not modified, are Koran and the Vedas - books mostly on ritual and commandments, not 'this is what happened' recordings.
These are all your assumptions as far as I can tell, and noted by multiple people on this thread, who are similarly very aware of the fact that you are injecting your bias/opinion as fact.
Its laughable to claim only religious literature is modified for some gain. Almost all literature, commissioned by a patron has some element of bias in it. We can even see "secular literature" from the Donigers, the Pollocks and what not of the world, full of hostile stereotypes & peddling specific narratives. Many "secular" "historians" or "linguists" or this or that are activists with an open agenda.
Next, the stuff about religion and history. On the one hand many historians are seeking allegory, parables in purely mythological tales stating they perhaps represent social mores or attitudes of eras in question. OTOH, you are cavalierly dismissing entire reams of historical accounts merely because they may have a religious element to them. Quoting China as some sort of example when they have an anti-religion attitude post Mao & Japan when they came under colonial influence and had to reject their entire "militaristic culture" & we all know what happened to Axis countries and their social system post world war 2.
At this point its clear to me at least, you are wasting this forums time with your allegations & statements that somehow, moreorless:
- just because some text has a religious element to it, its automatically pointless (by which standards most accounts of kings and this and that, quoting some allusion to their cultures deities will automatically be suspect, but are yet taken as useful accounts, but of course, we indians are a special case and need to be treated differently)
-people on this forum have an agenda equal to the conservatives to randomly put large dates into indian events (as versus trying to determine the truth) and you have repeatedly alluded to some sort of supremacy narrative
-dismissed all and every efforts to find a middle path with specious claims and examples as above
- made airy fairy claims about supremacy in multiple areas
This forum does not serve as SriJoy's personal bulletin board to distract, harangue (and get harangued in turn), and then waste reams and reams of forum bandwidth on forum members who are trying to fix your idee fixe.
Multiple contradictions in your own posts:
stating someone like herodotus is ok a few posts back:
a defense of herodotus
... me this tripe about someone who existed before Christ. It's all cooked up. If you believe that - it is your call. I know what I choose to believe Herodotus does give dates. He simply fails to record what is hearsay (to him) and what he knows as facts or what he's seen and what he's heard. that ...
then
All people who record history have recorded a load of bullshit. Herodotus said there were gold digging ants in India. If you search for dates you read that Hiuen Tsang visited India and the place of Buddha's death even before the Buddha was born. Show us ...
after which
... 2000+ years ago say 'don't believe him, he is a hack'. But i just wanted to put it on record, that the reason people like Ctesias, Polybius and Herodotus are not trusted, is not because of some 'random snipping and whim of evil western historians' but because other historians form the same period ...
then claims of automatically secular etc etc
... thread to return to topic. there is no goal-post being shifted, nothing being cornered- except for those who seek to equate secular literature (Herodotus, Diodorus, etc. are not sources of worship material), with non-secular, religious material (Ramayana, Mahabharata). The general view of authors ...
..
Nobody accepts Herodotus as correct. He is to history what Freud is to psychology : first guy (that we know of), who tried to study history and wrote about various regions of (his) world. As per ants that dig up gold- seems like there is a grain of truth to it, after all :
Your arguments are all over the place & come across "as ok, lets win the argument at all costs" and shifting the goalposts to match whatever claims you are making and tailoring them to rebut your opponents points.
This debating "method" as versus actually sharing information has meant you have multiple reports against you, multiple requests that you are a troll, however much leeway has been shown given that you are a new member & passionate discussions can always create such chaos.
You have a chip on your shoulder and an idee fixe about religion & hence everything flows from that. Others here don't share that. If you can't fix that yourself, stop distracting this thread kindly with allegations of what folks here are and then getting heated responses in turn.
At this point, reconsider your participation in this debate and your debating methods. This sort of disruption is wasting everyones time.
Enough please.