Question of the Day: History and Religion

This question came up in response to my post on Edain McCoy:
I was wondering how Wiccans (to the extent that one can generalize) account for new historical or archaeological information as it affects belief systems. Like, suppose you believe X based on historical fact Y, but then Y changes due to new info. That might be too vague a question to be answered, or too obvious to be bothered with, but forgive me -- I'm an interested outsider to Wicca.

That's kind of vague to answer, but I'll try.

This was a much bigger problem when Wicca was commonly promoting itself as ancient, because every time our understanding of ancient cultures changed, the Wiccans were in an uproar over it.

When Wicca is understood as a modern religion, that stops being so problematic.

Also, Wicca expects people to seek their own revelation rather than having revelation dictated to them through a prophet. As such, our understanding of history can change without it threatening out beliefs. Our founder was not a saint. He was a human being, and he had the same quirks that other human beings have. We can discuss such things without it endangering the validity of what he taught.

Really, I can't think off of the top of my head of any of my religious beliefs that are dependent upon history. While studying how other people have related to my gods in the past has certainly helped me in my quest to better understand and become closer to those gods, my ultimate beliefs are based on personal gnosis. Discovering that people actually thought somewhat differently than I first thought does change my own personal experiences (although it may suggest an avenue of further exploration for myself, and might even explain why I've hit a dead end, if that's how I've been feeling).