Some ancient narratives contain remarkably reliable records of real events

Although I never mentioned Hancock, I don't buy much of what Hancock is selling. They originally just had Randall on, then later they had Randall and Hancock. I think Randalls research has WAY more foundation to it, and Hancock is riding his coat tails. I do find his commentary intriguing sometimes.

> At the same time, for a body of scientists, they seem pretty uninterested in finding the truth.

There's no reason anyone who believes the accepted truth is wrong can't go do some research to prove otherwise. (Like Schliemann did.)

Expecting others to be obliged to investigate one's own crackpot theories isn't fair. Their reluctance to do so is not evidence of a conspiracy against the truth.

For example, in the 1970's a popular theory was that 100 mpg carburetors existed, and a vast conspiracy by Big Oil was suppressing all information about them. The proof of this conspiracy was, naturally, nobody was able to find any evidence of such carburetors.

I assume you are aware of and have real refutations for the proposition that the Eye of the Sahara could be a location for Atlantis?

And you are absolutely incorrect about Plato's description being considered allegory at the time. Anyone during his time could have gone to Egypt and asked the same questions Solon did and gotten the same answer from the same temple.

You are repeating wrote cultural knowledge as if you had real research to back it up.

Would you have said the same of Troy right up until they found it a few years ago?

Can you point me to where in those podcast they discredit that the Richat structure in Africa does not fit the description of Atlantis?

This documentary is pretty sober and not at all fanciful, lays out how the Richat matches Plato's description exactly:

https://visitingatlantis.com/

You absolutely don't need to buy into the fanciful myths of Atlantis to speculate that is probably was an ancient bronze age city located at the Richat.

"definitely have to be a conspiracy theorist" might be going to far. History gets a major rewrite every so often somehow at each turn there's no room for heterodoxy . . .

Well, it depends on what you consider a true story. We think a story is true if it accurately represents what actually happened (as if a camera was filming the event). Ancient peoples would think this is ridiculous. A true story is one that gets the "true" message you want to impart across to the listeners. A person who changes names, places, events, etc. to fit their message is not a liar, they are a historian. Of course we look at that and think its nonsense, just as they would look at the works of our historians and think its nonsense. Which one is right? Of course, we are biased to think we are right.

I don't have evidence the Ancient Greek gods were/are not real. I do believe they are real in a sense. At least in collective unconscious, they will influence humankind.

And conversely just because one story is not 100% true doesn't mean that every story is not true, which is what most academics appear to assume.

Except that in an orally transmitted culture, stories are _also_ told to communicate actual, factual history.

So the issue is that we no longer communicate our history through stories told out loud and therefore decided not to be able to conceive of any culture actually doing the same.

Embellished is not the same as made up. Adam could be a real person, just obviously not the first man, but the first patriarch recorded by jew tradition, so his story was mixed with the creation tale. Egyptians believed that pharaohs were gods. Talking animals might be a misunderstanding, when animal names were actually monikers for some persons or tribes, etc.

So what is your explanation for the spacefaring journeys through the solar system found within ancient Hindu texts?

Animals do speak, actually. This is something you might not have come to understand or accept yet, but science is no longer able to assert that animals are not communicating in distinct languages. Everywhere we have studied, we have found one.

So the ability to understand an animal and learn its language is absolutely not far fetched, except to the fragile conception of human history that is the Western mind.

and of course, modern 'history' is also suffused with, uh, spin. Classic recent example : the profound differences in Cold War history as told by each 'side'

I can also think of a concrete example from when I was in middle school : Shay's Rebellion was presented in history class in a completely different light to the way I've come to understand it from independent reading [i.e., in school we learned that Shay's guys were rogues as opposed to folks [generally Rev. War vets] unjustly dispossessed by (among other economic factors) ill effects of speculative investment in government assets and misguided fiscal + tax policy]

The bias you are falling for is the assumption that what you are reading when you open said history book is not just generally about things that actually happened, but far more importantly not just "how they actually happened, why they actually happened" but what has been omitted and left out intentionally to frame a certain narrative that is not in line with the interests of those who make you believe the history book you are opening is 100% accurate.

The difference being that far more in the past where there was an inherent interest in preserving the accuracy of certain classes of events where self-interests demanded and required accuracy, today what you think you are reading, whose accuracy is assumed by proximity to criteria that are surely far more accurate (i.e., order of things that were not fantasy), there is an inherent incentive to distort the perspective because those who record and disseminate the "history" are far less likely also self-interested in actual accuracy of the history. It's essentially the "to the winners go the myths and legends" problem. The accuracy of events actually goes down in many different ways when you start muddling interests as modern society has. Do you ever think, e.g., that we would have written a history in which the enemy is the "good guy", but we just happened to win the war? Reality though is that the history you read assumes an accuracy through formality or deliberateness ... it is the same reason that so many people are conned into thinking that NPR and the mainstream media are somehow inherently more accurate or right, let alone just not devious, because they talk in a deliberate and calm and precise tone.

In many ways the very precision the western world has obsessed about is contributing to the very corruption of its soul because we are obsessed with procedure and process to such a blinding and OCD degree that we miss the underlying message and lessons. It's a rather mentally unhealthy mentality that insists on the "accuracy" that "not all of those who want to conquer us have killed us yet...", thus, post hoc ergo propter hoc, "...our enemies are also just like us because they say they are and we believe their words over their actions". It's an odd obsession with formality and process that has totally negated spirit and emotion and just plain and simply most fundamental and instinctual self-preservation.

So here we are and instead of having learned a history that makes us realize that "socialism" is not about being social and friendly, and communism is not about being a community even if specific details are not perfectly captured; we say, "well, since they have not been done properly we will give it all another go."

When the only means of preserving your history is to speak it truthfully, that's what you do.

You're equating our currently accepted laws of physics as being the only true set of physical laws. How naive to assume that what we know now is the only truth.

Maybe analogous to the talking snake in the story of Adam and Eve. Some guy prob got kicked out of a nice place for sleeping with a lady he wasn’t suppose to lol.