Why should we care what ANYONE thought before 300 years ago?

Question

An average person of the modern era knows more profound facts and information than any relatively intelligent (mis)informed person did hundreds, especially thousands of years ago,
so why should anything they say at all be taken seriously or applied to anyone's lives today?
The faulty opinions and humorous myths of peoples gone by shouldn't be taken seriously except as a point of trivial interest or reference.

Angel: are you sure it was God who wrote that infection might be contagious, not middle easterners?interesting.

Obviously, learning history is not helping society whatsoever, we are educated in the past,
what we should do is wipe the slate clean and start over,
we would probably make MORE progress.

Answer 1

I'm always a little suprised when people make fun of the ideas and beliefs of people who lived a long time ago. You fail to realize that your own ideas and beliefs are built up out of theirs. Ancient people weren't as clueless as you seem to think they were. They invented geometry, astronomy, algebra, and philosophy. A thousand years ago they described the workings of the eye and invented eyeglasses. Ancient greeks believed that the world was round. They even used geometry and astronomical observations to calculate its circumference. They knew more about anatomy and medical practices than people in the 1700s. I think that ancient people were just as inventive, creative, and intelligent as modern people. Many of those crazy myths and stories that you think are so humerous were created to pass on their wisdom and values to succeeding generations. You may laugh at some of their ideas, but rest assured that a thousand years from now your descendants will be laughing at the crazy ideas you have now. They'll have all sorts of newer "better" ideas of their own. :D

Answer 2

I believe it to be arrogant to think that you can not learn anything from the past. As I explained in another answer that in the book of Leviticus, God instructs the people that if an infection breaks out that they should isolate the individual. This is a common practise in all hospitals today. God was the first to set up the idea of isolating infection. You must be young. The young always think they know it all.

Answer 3

We should only care until we come up with something better. In some cases, ideas hold up for centuries. The Art of War by Sun Tsu is still thought of as a defining text on war and competition in general, still taught today to businessmen as theory and still the basis for many military tactics even today.

But you're right, we shouldn't really care...but don't underestimate the value of good reference points.

Answer 4

There may be some truth to that, but you also have to consider that people don't think as broadly today as they did back then. Back then there was so little information that they felt comfortable studying a wide variety of fields--psychology, biology, philosophy, music...and in doing so they could make connections that not many people can make today.

And anyway, sometimes too much information is more of a burden than not enough.

Answer 5

You are correct when it comes to understanding how the universe works but there is still value in the ideas of Shakespeare, Plato, Homer, Aesop, Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tse, and, yes, the torah/bible/quran.

As long as one can accept the myths for what they are and the understanding of nature for what it was, you should care as part of being a well educated person. The non-religious commandments and the beatitudes are enduring ideas as are other ideas in the bible.

Answer 6

Any idea that has been around for hundreds of years obviously has stood the test of time. If something (like marriage, for example) was a bad idea, then why has it lasted for generations? It should have been replaced by something better by now if it were inherently inferior to modern ideas.

Answer 7

Because we discovered some pretty important things more than 300 years ago. And we use a lot of those things even today, without thinking about it.

For example, humanity invented the wheel more than 300 years ago.

Answer 8

Because history repeats itself. Knowledge of the past leads to better understanding of the future. Why make the same mistakes twice.

Answer 9

All of our facts that we know today we learned from the past and so to devalidate information from the past is to devalidate what we know today. Just as we learn from the past so to will the peoples of the future learn from what we know today.Besides history is enriching.

Answer 10

Because human knowledge today is built upon the ideas of 300 years ago.