When do you distinguish between mythology and religion?

[Lokabrenna]

How is that different from science (belief in natural causes; the ritual of the scientific methods; etc.)?

The difference is that scientific phenomena can be observed, tested in a lab, and repeated (the repetition part is especially important). We can observe the effects of gravity, but we can’t see or weigh the soul (that hasn’t stopped people from trying). I don’t know if we can say the scientific method came about as a result of a story our ancestors told around a fire. Whereas religious rituals often have a story attached to them explaining the why or the how of the ritual. I guess you could argue that we use the Pythagorean Theorem because Pythagoras thought it up ages ago, but to my mind it’s more like “We use the theorem because it has been observed that it works.”

 

[RobbyS]

Considering there were no human witnesses to creation of evolution prior to man…there is a growing number of Catholics who are looking at the story of Adam and Eve…that the ancient land of Ur where Abraham came from also had similar first man and woman story…as well as the story of Noah…

That these are human myths attempting to describe the beginning of human events and eschatology – where we came from, the meaning of good and evil, and the question of the value of human existance and where it ends…myths that are describing some basic truths about God and us.

The Babylonian myths presents a relationship between men and the divine very different from that presented in Genesis. The Babylonian gods were not even the Creator but were themselves creations of a sort, beings that emerged from an indeterminant process. The OIlympian gods were much the same. If we think that Genesis provides a true picture, it is a picture as radically different from the mythology of the surrounding countries as Plato’s idea of “God” was from the gods. If one is looking for comparisons, look at the teachings of Zarathustra, which center on the question of good and evil.

 

[RobbyS]

The difference is that scientific phenomena can be observed, tested in a lab, and repeated (the repetition part is especially important). We can observe the effects of gravity, but we can’t see or weigh the soul (that hasn’t stopped people from trying). I don’t know if we can say the scientific method came about as a result of a story our ancestors told around a fire. Whereas religious rituals often have a story attached to them explaining the why or the how of the ritual. I guess you could argue that we use the Pythagorean Theorem because Pythagoras thought it up ages ago, but to my mind it’s more like “We use the theorem because it has been observed that it works.”

Well, it can be said that science has a “story,” too. The faith–I mean literally the faith that many people have in Evolution is very powerful. Aristotle said, man desires to know. But every often, what we know is not something that we know with the assurance that we know how to drive. The brilliant scientist Richard Feynman --an atheist btw–had an ability to see “through” a problem, to determine the substance behind the mathematical equations that describe it. He once commented that our knowledge is very fragile. We rely on formulas, and if someone presents the same knowledge in an unfamiliar way, we literally do not understand it. Even brilliant men may not have a deep insight into what it is they know.

 

[Warrenton]

Out with it: do you believe that the Adam and Eve story actually happened, in the same sense that it “actually happened” that I went to the store the other day?

Actually, I do, with one important qualification which I will try to explain at the end.

My biology teachers suggested that rather than thinking of precise beginnings, one could instead substitute an infinitely long chain of development. This did not satisfy the question, to my mind, about who the first person was. In fact, it using the teacher’s method, it was obvious I would never get an answer to the question, because instead of a single choice to reject or accept, I was now confronted with unlimited choices. Uldavai Gorge, or the next one over, or Java, or Peking, or… ad infinitum.

Clearly, the biology textbook could not, and would not, answer the question. It was a paradox, a seemingly stupendous accrual of information which eliminated the possibility of arriving at a conclusion.

So, I took another look at Genesis.

It posits a beginning. It names the participants. It states some of the principal acts of their lives. It answered the questions that I had.

Moreover, it seemed to accord with my own experience. As I mentioned, I disagree with Aristotle that nothing comes ex nihilo. I came ex nihilo, sometime during a democratic administration long out of office.

No explanation, no debate, no give and take, no evolution. Poof. Welcome to existence, wondrous realm of a few delights and numberless agonies.

More or less, this is what is related in Genesis. I relate the things that occur during my exisitence, and so did Adam. He did bad things, and I did bad things. He wanted a wife, I wanted one, too. He suffered, and I suffered. I commented (ad nauseam, in my parents’ view) about these things, apparently so did Adam, because the story was passed down. Thus, Genesis was consistent with experience. It was certainly more consistent that than the implication in biology class, which was that nobody thought anything worthy of comment until 1963, when Kennedy got shot.

To your question whether I believe Genesis in the same way as I believe you went to the store for milk: Vide licet my serious doubts about the reality of anything, based on the “preposterous test” you outlined supra. I have come round to thinking that preposterous or not, real or not, the various phenomena I experience need to be humoured, or the result is the prompt intrusion of the all to common phenomenom of pain. In short, I’ll play the game.

You and Adam are both pieces on the chessboard. I have no direct experience of either of you. Even if I did, it would not count for much, because I cannot really trust my senses, and the phenomena are notoriously unreliable. But, your story about milk accords with my experience about milk. I also buy it at the store, but evidently on a different schedule than you. Because I am generous, and the spirit of a Catholic Forum is one of brotherhood, I shall overlook your manifest error in buying milk on a different day than I do. You’re close enough, so I am willing to entertain the possibility.

Just so with Genesis.

 

[Warrenton]

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

This is interesting, and proves something that I had begun to suspect based on your changing the rules depending on who you were debating.

It is just this: it answers why you disbelieve.

We could may essay some possibilities:

1. You have no experience of meetings;
2. You have no experience of people who attend them and when they like to meet;
3. You have an animus against those who attend meetings, which causes you to reject their testimony; .
4. You want to feel like I think you won the debate, and so you disbelieve my need to go to a meeting to fulfill because it makes you feel superior (I don’t believe this, I merely suggest it as a possibility in a universe of possibilities);

Or, you were just being rude (ditto my thoughts in number 4 above);

Or, - perhaps it’s better to stop there.

The verdict is the same however we analyze the evidence: the disbelief you claim is a function of the lack of knowledge, or it is myth.

 

[Warrenton]

The difference is that scientific phenomena can be observed, tested in a lab, and repeated (the repetition part is especially important).

I see a problem with this.

Someone says: “Odin rode Sleipnir.”

It may be an observation, it may not be. It may be accurate, or not.

Another says: “Particles travelled faster than light.”

Like the first statement, this may or may not be an observation. It may be accurate or not. The potential for repetition does not change the basic fact that in both cases we are presented with a story.

In another thread, I implied that modern people will go on polluting the world to their eventual destruction. You disagreed with me, although I pointed out that past behavior (which is simply repeatability) shows otherwise.

Your disagreement illustrates the limitations of repeatability in determining belief.

 

[_Abyssinia]

I heard something interesting from Fr. Robert Barron on ‘World Over Live.’ C.S. Lewis said if anyone thinks the Gospels are the myths they have not reads many myths. Star Wars are myths, its set in a Galaxy far far away, long long time ago, like ‘once upon a time.’ A myth is a presentation of basic truths about life and nature, its not a historical document. When you say in the Gospels that Jesus was born when Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome, Quirinius was governor of Syria, that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that matters, they are saying these are not mythic statements, these are historical claims.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Right, and its much more vast than this. Israel itself is an astounding truth. Let alone the truths we have already discovered about Sodom and Gomorrah, or the Exodus from Egypt, the Dead Sea Scrolls just to name a few. Add thousands of years of Biblical Scholars?

 

[Lokabrenna]

Well, it can be said that science has a “story,” too. The faith–I mean literally the faith that many people have in Evolution is very powerful. Aristotle said, man desires to know. But every often, what we know is not something that we know with the assurance that we know how to drive. The brilliant scientist Richard Feynman --an atheist btw–had an ability to see “through” a problem, to determine the substance behind the mathematical equations that describe it. He once commented that our knowledge is very fragile. We rely on formulas, and if someone presents the same knowledge in an unfamiliar way, we literally do not understand it. Even brilliant men may not have a deep insight into what it is they know.

I suppose you could say that, but science also constantly revises its stories. I think a lot of people tend to assume that scientific theories are set in stone when the reality is that scientists are constantly revising their hypotheses and theories in response to new data that they uncover. Whereas religious myths may be reinterpreted, but the stories don’t change in the same way that scientific theories do.

 

[Andromedus]

I heard something interesting from Fr. Robert Barron on ‘World Over Live.’ C.S. Lewis said if anyone thinks the Gospels are the myths they have not reads many myths. Star Wars are myths, its set in a Galaxy far far away, long long time ago, like ‘once upon a time.’ A myth is a presentation of basic truths about life and nature, its not a historical document. When you say in the Gospels that Jesus was born when Caesar Augustus was emperor of Rome, Quirinius was governor of Syria, that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, that matters, they are saying these are not mythic statements, these are historical claims.

But C. S. Lewis also said that the life, death and ressurection of Christ is a myth, but a true one, in his view the story didin’t cease to be a myth just because it was true, and I think I agree with him.

I suppose you could say that, but science also constantly revises its stories. I think a lot of people tend to assume that scientific theories are set in stone when the reality is that scientists are constantly revising their hypotheses and theories in response to new data that they uncover. Whereas religious myths may be reinterpreted, but the stories don’t change in the same way that scientific theories do.

Actually they can change quite a lot, at least in a culture or in a religion where they don’t use writing that much, in such cultures and religions people add and eliminate details from a story often (well, relatively often) and therefore the stories change. Most religions doesn’t have a scripture like the Bible or the Quran, but I think you are already aware of that fact. Most of the time though the story have the same message and the basics of the story is still there even if it changes, which might have been what you meant now that I think about it? But I still wanted to point this out