When do you distinguish between mythology and religion?

[sidetrack]

I’m putting this post in this sub-forum because it can be applicable to non-Catholic religions and is kind about the nature of religion.It confuses me how when I read something it might categorize certain aspects of a religion as mythology.I’ve seen these with Hinduism,Shintoism,Buddhism and (now that I think about it) Taoism.I know that the latter two religions allow syncretism and Shintoism has been syncretic with Buddhism since the 6th century.I dont really understand though how it can be said that Hinduism (even though it’s a monism based faith which relativizes things at times so it can significance and a connection to the divine) has mythologized aspects.I’ve read that it’s because “not [all things are] necessarily held by all Hindus to be literal accounts of historical events, but are taken to have deeper, often symbolic, meaning, and which have been given a complex range of interpretations”(wikipedia on Hindu mythology) however can be applicable to a formal religion as well.One that comes into my mind personally is the Biblical allegory of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.alling a (note)** living *belief system mythology is touchy in my opinion though when you consider indigenous beliefs like those of Native Americans.An example is Iktomi a spider-trickster spirit in the Lakota beliefs who is prophesied to spread his web over the land which some contemporary Natives have interpreted as meaning the phone and internet networks.There’s even Christian mythology supposedly!(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_mythology please read the paragraph under “Christian attitudes toward myth”).I guess that in all these different belief systems you’ve got to consider what folk religion is and the role of animism if it’s there.I also suppose that some of this stuff can be defined as folklore (believed but not worshipped).I have a feeling though that to the average person this really muddles there views on mythology,religion and distinguishing it.I would really appreciate what you people have to reply to this.Thank you very much so for your time.

*it’s a misconception that happens if you dont understand Native beliefs to think that he’s evil.He just a being whose gaze is to be avoided or trouble will find you.Him and *Mica *(coyote) will in some instances help the Lakota people live a better life with technology,protect them from evil and warn of danger.

 

[NonServiam]

As a non-believer, I don’t see any real difference between mythology and religion: the only difference seems to be the number of people who take the story literally. If a lot of people believe the story, it’s considered religion. If, in the future, practically no one believes the story, it’s considered myth.

Think about it: the ancient Greeks literally believed in their gods and the stories surrounding them. It was religion for them. Now, however, when just about no one believes in those stories any more, that religion has become a collection of myths.

As far as Christianity goes, it seems that believers have a difficult time deciding exactly what’s literal and what’s symbolic and – most importantly – the criteria for distinguishing them. Unless you accept the entire Bible as literal or the entire Bible as symbolic, you have to have a means of distinguishing the parts that are meant to be taken literally from the parts that are meant to be symbolic.

If you’re willing to grant that the Garden of Eden story is symbolic, then where (and how?) do you draw the line between the symbolic and the literal? Once you admit that parts of the Bible can be read non-literally, who’s to say that the Jesus story isn’t symbolic or that the supernatural/miracle parts of the Jesus story aren’t symbolic?

 

[DJK100]

Once you admit that parts of the Bible can be read non-literally, who’s to say that the Jesus story isn’t symbolic or that the supernatural/miracle parts of the Jesus story aren’t symbolic?

The Church magisterium as guided by the holy spirit. Also the eye witness accounts as told to the authors of the bible.

 

[RobbyS]

As a non-believer, I don’t see any real difference between mythology and religion: the only difference seems to be the number of people who take the story literally. If a lot of people believe the story, it’s considered religion. If, in the future, practically no one believes the story, it’s considered myth.

Think about it: the ancient Greeks literally believed in their gods and the stories surrounding them. It was religion for them. Now, however, when just about no one believes in those stories any more, that religion has become a collection of myths.

As far as Christianity goes, it seems that believers have a difficult time deciding exactly what’s literal and what’s symbolic and – most importantly – the criteria for distinguishing them. Unless you accept the entire Bible as literal or the entire Bible as symbolic, you have to have a means of distinguishing the parts that are meant to be taken literally from the parts that are meant to be symbolic.

If you’re willing to grant that the Garden of Eden story is symbolic, then where (and how?) do you draw the line between the symbolic and the literal? Once you admit that parts of the Bible can be read non-literally, who’s to say that the Jesus story isn’t symbolic or that the supernatural/miracle parts of the Jesus story aren’t symbolic?

I think you are begging the question. The Bible, you think, is not real history. But our contention is that the Bible aims to anchor God in real events. Contrary to what liberal Bible scholars want to thing, the Bible itself serves to demythologize the common narrative in that geographic location,and to explain how the gods fit in human history. The God of the Bible is not a “god” as Zeus is a god, rather the likes of Zeus are images created by mankind. Skeptics such as Voltaire claim that the God of the Bible is the creation of the Jews.But as Josephus and other Jews of the period point out, there is a startling converge of the idea of God as presented by Moses and “God” as he is understood by Plato, And Plato aimed at deconstruction of the traditional gods. The decline of the idea of God in philosophy not withstanding, God remains a moving force in history. Evolution does not “kill” God but simply introduces “Evolution” as a kind of mythological force on place of Him, a new mythological which presupposes a primordial time and which deprives human beings of their freedom and significance. By Evolution I do not mean the theory discoverable by scientific investigation, which seems to me as “useful” to our understanding of nature as atomic theory, but an image of reality as false as the mythology of Abraham’s time.

 

[NonServiam]

The Church magisterium as guided by the holy spirit.

And what criteria do they use to distinguish myth from reality? “The holy spirit told us!” is hardly a convincing criteria, especially since there are other denominations and other individual Christians who claim to have the guidance of the holy spirit giving them a completely different interpretation.

Also the eye witness accounts as told to the authors of the bible.

There’s no record from any eyewitness – all we have are claims that there were eyewitnesses to the stories that were eventually written down (decades and decades after the supposed facts) as the Gospels.

We’re left with the same problem: the Gospels might just be myths or might be a real story (or based on a real story) that has been supplemented with mythological elements and, from where I stand, there’s no objective way to distinguish the myth parts from the real parts.

 

[meltzerboy]

I’m no expert on this topic; however, I don’t believe mythology is necessarily regarded as representative of non-reality. In fact, according to Joseph Campbell, the noted teacher and writer of comparative mythology, the common myths (with variations) between diverse cultures, both East and West, suggest not a false misconception of truth but rather a unified confirmation. I think the difficulty arises when specific religions believe they are unique in their perspective and have little in common with other religions, and in no way have been influenced by other cultures or their own.

 

[BigFellaMick]

its like the tag in here i read the other day said “for believers proof is not necessary. for non-believers proof is not enough”. The Magisterium is infallible. That might be something hard to accept for someone not grounded in the Church or who has not had the pleasure of having knowledge of the Church other than from an external source. For some the thought of a God is laughable. Yet how is that more laughable than a universe so impossibly massive to the extent that we can’t even see everything that’s out there or understand fully what’s out there, yet some are ready to believe that all of it, despite every electron, every planet, every blood vessel in every animal is all tied together so closely to allow everything to coexist together. And all of that was just “chance”. I don’t know my friend, its much easier to understand that God is responsible for the endless universe we live in as opposed to nothing coming from something and something magically evolving into something else for no reason. All life everywhere having no reason, no purpose, no direction. But that’s just my opinion.

 

[DJK100]

And what criteria do they use to distinguish myth from reality? “The holy spirit told us!” is hardly a convincing criteria, especially since there are other denominations and other individual Christians who claim to have the guidance of the holy spirit giving them a completely different interpretation.

There’s no record from any eyewitness – all we have are claims that there were eyewitnesses to the stories that were eventually written down (decades and decades after the supposed facts) as the Gospels.

Nope. Eyewitness accounts.

 

[NonServiam]

Nope. Eyewitness accounts.

So you continue to baselessly assert. Are you aware that no one is sure who wrote the Gospels and that there are no original copies? Are you aware that most Biblical scholarship dates the Gospels to well into the first century? Are you aware that even the introduction to the Gospels in scholarly editions of The Bible freely admit that the authors of the text are unknown and that these introductions use phrases such as “the author of the Gospel of Matthew,” etc.?

Quite apart from the fact that – and this is one of the points of this thread – even if we knew exactly who wrote these documents, it still wouldn’t tell us how to distinguish between what is fact and what is myth mixed in with fact.

 

[NonServiam]

I think you are begging the question. The Bible, you think, is not real history.

Well, I don’t know what to tell you except that when someone gives me a book filled with stories that are fantastic and improbable, I don’t start from the position that everything in the book is true.

But again, some people – you guys, for example – assert that some of it’s myth (like, the Garden of Eden stuff) and that some of it’s fact (like, the Jesus stuff), but you don’t provide any criteria for distinguishing between myth and fact, other than saying that some spirit tells your church which is which. But you have to understand that other Christians and Christian denominations report that the same spirit tells them differently.

I’m not aware of a method of determining who’s “really” in touch with this spirit, and even if we could determine that, I’m also not aware of a method of determining whether this spirit is even telling people the truth.

 

[NonServiam]

For some the thought of a God is laughable. Yet how is that more laughable than a universe so impossibly massive to the extent that we can’t even see everything that’s out there or understand fully what’s out there, yet some are ready to believe that all of it, despite every electron, every planet, every blood vessel in every animal is all tied together so closely to allow everything to coexist together. And all of that was just “chance”.

As you imply, the complexity of the universe is something that needs to be explained, and for some, the improbability of complexity arising through natural processes makes a natural worldview difficult to swallow.

However, the postulation of an all-powerful intelligence only adds to the complexity that needs to be explained.

No matter how improbable you may think a completely natural universe is, the existence of a completely natural universe plus an all-powerful intelligence (that just exists for no reason at all) is infinitely more improbable, by definition.

In short, postulating an all-powerful supernatural intelligence doesn’t solve the problem of improbability – it makes it worse.

 

[StrawberryJam]

So you continue to baselessly assert. Are you aware that no one is sure who wrote the Gospels and that there are no original copies? Are you aware that most Biblical scholarship dates the Gospels to well into the first century? Are you aware that even the introduction to the Gospels in scholarly editions of The Bible freely admit that the authors of the text are unknown and that these introductions use phrases such as “the author of the Gospel of Matthew,” etc.?

Quite apart from the fact that – and this is one of the points of this thread – even if we knew exactly who wrote these documents, it still wouldn’t tell us how to distinguish between what is fact and what is myth mixed in with fact.

He or she mentioned eyewitness accounts.

Eyewitness accounts are the worst kind of evidence to be had.

 

[DJK100]

I’m not aware of a method of determining who’s “really” in touch with this spirit, and even if we could determine that, I’m also not aware of a method of determining whether this spirit is even telling people the truth.

Sure you do, the Church Magisterium tells you so as dictated by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirt will guide you to all truth — it says it right there in the bible.

Satisfied now?

 

[DJK100]

He or she mentioned eyewitness accounts.

Eyewitness accounts are the worst kind of evidence to be had.

Well, I guess we bette abandon most of the court systems then if we can’t believe what anyone has seen with their own eyes.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Well, I guess we bette abandon most of the court systems then if we can’t believe what anyone has seen with their own eyes.

The court system is the place to find how unreliable eyewitness testimony is.

 

[DJK100]

However, the postulation of an all-powerful intelligence only adds to the complexity that needs to be explained

 

[DJK100]

The court system is the place to find how unreliable eyewitness testimony is.

Exactly, lets get rid of them. I mean some people have been put to death for telling their eye witness accounts and not retracting them under torture and death. Seems pretty unreliable to me.

 

[StrawberryJam]

Exactly, lets get rid of them. I mean some people have been put to death for telling their eye witness accounts and not retracting them under torture and death. Seems pretty unreliable to me.

Willingness to die notwithstanding, it’s the least reliable.

Many will die for a lie. And have.

 

[meltzerboy]

He or she mentioned eyewitness accounts.

Eyewitness accounts are the worst kind of evidence to be had.

You are correct. There is a ton of psychological research (by Loftus, for example) which shows just how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be, guided as it often is by limitations of physical reality, as well as perceptual errors, cognitive expectations and preconceptions, motivational factors, and prior experience.

 

[DJK100]

Willingness to die notwithstanding, it’s the least reliable.

Many will die for a lie. And have.

True many have died for a lie. Although many have died for the truth.

If you look at the events, the apostles claimed to witness miraculous things not under any duress or stress that would cloud their memory, unlike witness to say a robbery or a murder etc. This eye witness believes what he sees to be true and has first hand knowledge of the person who performed these feat. The eyewitness goes on living his life in abject poverty and runs the risk of getting killed on a daily basis for talking about these things which incidentally were witnessed by numerous others. This eye witness is then brought up to a court where all they would have to do is say"just kidding!" to be exhonerated. But don’t do that. This while being in a court in which you know you will be condemned to die a horrible gruesome death for not doing the very simple act of retracting what you personally saw. I can see how that testimony would be unreliable. Like I said let’s get rid of that in court.