Theos-Talk Archives (May 1999ar Message tt00026)

In a message dated 5/4/99 5:46:21 PM, Jerry wrote:

<<There are more people living
on Earth today than all the dead people throughout
our history added together. >>

I highly doubt this.  Indian, Egyptian, Chinese, and other records of past 
civilizations give very high figures for the number of people in their armies 
and serving as bureaucrats etc.  The Mahabharata records a great war 
involving millions of people.  However, scholars of religion, 
anthropologists, archeologists, etc., have chosen to regard these as mythic, 
or gross exaggerations of actual events.  In their scholarly estimation, the 
childish ancients certainly can't be relied upon to document their own 
societies.  That is up to modern researches with an almost complete dearth of 
physical and literary evidence!

Keep in mind these are the SAME scholars who appear to be able to read 
ancient Greek authors on history (like Herodotus) and take at face value the 
dates and reports they give on various events they have witnessed, unless 
they involve anything paranormal.  Find me *one* tenured professor at *any* 
university in the world who has put anything in print indicating a belief 
that Apollonius of Tyana actually appeared in two greatly separated cities on 
one day, or that the oracles at Ephesus or Delphi could actually predict the 
future.  Scholars bend over backwards to explain how the learned and 
reasonable Plato can record so ridiculous a tradition as the island of 
Atlantis sinking in one day.  So far I've heard about fifteen theories, 
including the ever-popular island of Thera in the Mediterannean which was 
decimated and then flooded by volcanic eruption.  No academic I'm aware of 
thinks there was actually a large island and/or continent in the Atlantic 
which sunk, as Plato and HPB both assert.

Relying on materialistic scientific accounts of history to buttress or attack 
our occult philosophy is weak at best.  With such assumptions as theirs 
(including Neo-Darwinian theories of evolution, like "punctuated equilibrium" 
which is hogwash) we cannot expect much of their work.  Again, I encourage 
those Theosophists of a scholarly bent to get engaged in the academic 
production of knowledge so we can take hold of the rudder of modern learning 
and help steer the ship in our direction.  There are "facts" which support 
our views as well, but Marxist and materialistic scholars are even *LOOKING* 
at them.  They must be forced to critically engage with OUR views.

Rich

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