Religion v. Myth

Ahanu said:
So we are the ones who create our purpose?
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It's our fate to do so. We cannot not do so, we must create. In this sense, we were born in the image of the supernova, which also was fated to create new worlds where meaning and purpose could become known.
 
It is said that in the epoch prior to our present age a student only needed to hear once and thus remember verbatim.
After that last epoch lessons needed to be written due to poor memory of the common student.

And all lessons are passed along via aural reception.
 
Bhaktajan II said:
It is said that in the epoch prior to our present age a student only needed to hear once and thus remember verbatim.
After that last epoch lessons needed to be written due to poor memory of the common student.

And all lessons are passed along via aural reception.
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That's an interesting myth!

I bet the deaf don't tell it this way, though.
 
Cino said:
It's our fate to do so. We cannot not do so, we must create. In this sense, we were born in the image of the supernova, which also was fated to create new worlds where meaning and purpose could become known.
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Become known or created? This discovery versus create issue is as old as Plato.
 
Ahanu said:
Become known or created? This discovery versus create issue is as old as Plato.
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Yes, but I think Plato was too impressed by his own cleverness.

He was quite pleased with his creation of the idea of discovery.

Anyway, I can't come up with a good Gedankenexperiment to tell the difference between the two.
 
Ahanu said:
Yes, otherwise it is not a myth. Myths and religions answer why.
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All right: We were created out of the supernova, to find out and to enthuse about it. Great big exploding stars are amazing! i can go on and on, launch into lyrical adoration about how amazing they are.

It created us to know it and adore it. Right?
 
I tend to hate the word "mythology" because it tries to reduce, ridicule and trivialize the religions of the ancients.

The word 'myth' though, in some cases apply well to intentional folklore and allegorical tales.

But "mythology", I consider an abhorrent word to refer to ancient religions. I call them what they are: religions. If pagan/magical revival of the 19th-21st century has told us anything - it's that there is a very large appeal still to be had of these ancient religious traditions and there is a heap of knowledge (on many levels) to be ascertained from what remnants we do have left from them.

That whole Darwinian idea of 'progress' is pretty damning really, it's very much the flavor of the times though.
 
HakimPtsid said:
That whole Darwinian idea of 'progress' is pretty damning really, it's very much the flavor of the times though.
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It's a powerful myth in its own right, though. Progress, purpose, goals, transcendence maybe...
 
Other than a weak attempt to defend todays mythology, why shouldn't the thought that the sun is dragged across the sky by a chariot be dismissed as infantile poppycock once we know the earth spins?
 
wil said:
Other than a weak attempt to defend todays mythology, why shouldn't the thought that the sun is dragged across the sky by a chariot be dismissed as infantile poppycock once we know the earth spins?
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And therein is the line - Myth isn’t rooted in or based on fact.
 
Bhaktajan II said:
It is said that in the epoch prior to our present age a student only needed to hear once and thus remember verbatim.
After that last epoch lessons needed to be written due to poor memory of the common student.

And all lessons are passed along via aural reception.
Click to expand...

but the problem in passing done lore is the result similar to this parlor game:
Chinese whispers or telephone is an internationally popular children's game in which players form a line, and the first player comes up with a message and whispers it to the ear of the second person in the line. The second player repeats the message to the third player, and so on.
 
HakimPtsid said:
But "mythology", I consider an abhorrent word to refer to ancient religions. I call them what they are: religions.
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This, and Wil's reference to Helios, are what started me thinking about this question in the first place. (I probably should have named this thread Religion v. Mythology.) We know now how the sun works thanks to science, so I wonder why some religions die out when scientific evidence piles up while others do not.
 
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