(February 13, 2015 at 9:18 am)pocaracas Wrote:(February 13, 2015 at 9:10 am)SteveII Wrote: I do understand the difference. However, for historical figures/teachings/events, all we have are people's writings and therefore what they believed to be true. Of course they can be wrong. Historians look for evidence within each author's writings and other author's writings and construct a likely scenario. There is no such thing as proof--only evidence. And most readers of the evidence insert their bias into the conclusions. Your bias is naturalism and in a subject like religion and events shaping religion, you have already removed an entire set of possibilities that others are not so quick to remove from consideration.
Nah... we'd all like magic to be a part of the equation... the thing is, there's no evidence that magic is real. Hence, there's no reason to even consider that ancient writings about magic are representative of reality.
They are, instead, representative of our specie's shared wishful thinking that magic should be real... and, of this, we do have evidence.
I am interested to read your evidence.
