Ezhil.

You say the past is full of lies. But how else are we to learn and grow except from learning from our past? There is no analyse of the present without counting on what has happened in our past. Or else we will fall for the same things over and over again.

Analyzing the present without a standard of history to say how it's played out before, is only to philosophize ideas without any merrit to test them on the trials of if they will work or not. The past is not full of lies, but is our teacher. The repackaging of history (how we tell it, how we write it) can be full of lies, but the past is the past.

Natham,
You are quite right there are some that live in the past. In fact a good many, for example I have often wondered why Muslims insist on living in the past with their outdated ideologies and traditions and cultural ways. Surely it would be a great move forward if muslims changed the way they insist women dress and gave them more freedom and not insist they have a relative at their side when out of the house. Surely muslims could update their actions by not advocating that all Jews and infidels be killed if they don't convert to Islam. Then there is honor killing of daughters if she falls in love with an infidel or refuses to marry the old bloke chosen for her. Maybe you can convince muslims that blowing up others is out dated and stop running over people, its mot the fashionable way.

With a few billion Muslims in the world, to convince muslims to 'get up to date' is a real challenge for you and when that job is done come and talk to me about the westerners that still think multiculturalism works just great and we should not discriminate in relation to culture when setting immigration policy. The African refugees have obviously integrated well and respect our laws and social ways. As did the Lebs. History shows 'open borders' works well for 'illegal entrants'

A lecture tour of the Middle East about 'modern culture'could be a good place for you to start.

Ezhil,

What do you mean? Lies are told all the time: in the past, now and they will be told in the future.

Can you provide us with examples of 'lies' in the history you have read?

You are right – man does not always learn from history, and makes the same mistakes, so perhaps you see that there is truth in history, but it is ignored, and therefore it doesn't work? Is that what you mean?

Why do you say “History is useful only as subject in educational institutions” if it is lies? Do not people attend schools and universities to learn how to apply what they have learned to life?

By 'analysing' the present, do you also mean that we just put aside thousands of years of learning and just make things up as we go? What criteria do we have without comparisons with the past?

I don't know how many, if any, live in the past but I do know how important understanding the past is.

If you don't understand the past then you have no chance of understanding the present and if you don't know how we got here from there you have no chance of understanding where we are headed.

Too many of today's folk just think that the present is the way it just is, the way it was and the way it'll always be. They don't, for example, understand how unique democracy is and how fragile it really is. They just see it now, and, not knowing the past don't know how it came to be and what could cause it to no longer 'be'.

So comments like "The history of the past are all made up stories " are about as anti-intellectual as can be imagined. Such people cannot hope to understand the present because they don't even bother to acquaint themselves with the past.

Living in the past may be unfulfilling except for our elders who might have a past they don't want to let pass. But immersing ourselves in the past is absolutely vital for our understanding of all that is, and all that will be, around us. Its what makes us human.

Certainly many living like the days of sodom and gomorrah or the days of noah. Would be good to move on however marxist regress not progress. That is why they turn blind eye to Islam

With very little history being taught these days, and very little interest in it, the last couple of generations think the world began with their births.

Runner,

My money says that Sodom and Gomorrah are already repeating themselves.