History is a lie

History has a funny habit of changing.

Now, in a Star Trek reality this can be explained away with time travel, temporal distortions and whatever. However, in the real world we have to look for far more down to earth reasons.

The biggest problem is that most people don’t realise how the past changes.

At school they are trained to believe that what’s said is a fact is a fact. In the History lesson they are told ‘facts’ that they usually have no way of directly checking.

I mean, how can any of us actually prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that there was a Battle of Hastings and that it happened in 1066? Was it caught on camera? Are there newsreels about it? Nope, it’s tales and stories that have been told over the years and then somebody else has started to write down, others have copied and then it’s become embedded in history as a ‘fact’.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there wasn’t a Battle of Hastings, or that it wasn’t in 1066. The simple truth is that I have absolutely no idea if there was or wasn’t. Neither has anybody alive today. We trust what the historians tell us.

Speaking of Star Trek, do we trust the historians who confidently tell us that the original series contains the immortalised phrase, “Beam me up Scotty”? We believe them. I mean, it’s a phrase you’d hear all the time.

However, “Beam me up Scotty” is also a phrase that never ever appeared in any episode of Star Trek whatsoever. So, why the lie that it did?

Well, it’s a mixture of faulty recall and the stuff of urban legend creation.

The big difference between the tale of the phrase “Beam me up Scotty” being said in Star Trek and the existence of the Battle of Hastings in 1066 is that a nerd can carefully play through each episode looking for it.  There is video evidence that it never happened.

Meanwhile, there’s nothing we can do to verify the Battle of Hastings beyond listening to hearsay evidence. Now, that’s not good. We know that hearsay evidence tells us that Star Trek contains the phrase “Beam me up Scotty”. So, how can we trust what we are being told by others when there is no actual evidence or accurate record to play back?

We can’t.

Let’s extend this beyond the Battle of Hastings, and look at the stories of Jesus Christ or other religious icons. Whole religions and belief systems could be based on hearsay because there’s no actual physical evidence.

Historians cannot be trusted. People telling others ‘facts’ can’t be trusted. They have other motivations.

I’ve always said to people that they should leave their minds open and always ask, “Why does he / she want me to believe that?” when somebody is telling us something. That’s the fast-track to the real truth.

Now then. Why do I want you to believe that?