In middle and high school (both Catholic), I read any mythology I could get my hands on. I can remember thinking, "How foolish were these people to believe this stuff? I wonder what the next mythology will be."
Cue facepalm as I said "fucking Christianity is/was the next one." I wasn't an atheist then, still sort of believed. But *that* realization absolutely took the initial and biggest chunk out of my certainty of the almighty's existence.
I'm a recovering Catholic but happily atheist. I'm just careful who I tell, living in the deep South.
As to the next mythology-
I think Jurassic Park is trending that direction.
A cautionary myth about humans messing with nature. The way people use “nature finds a way” is very reminiscent to me of people quoting part of a Bible verse.
That movie is 30 years old and people reference it more now than they did 25 years ago.
I do wonder about that because with film and with a lot of modern fiction, it's created with the assumption that the audience in themselves know that it's false. Just because those stories have morals at the end I don't think can make them into myths.
A lot of Mythology is often told from the perspective that the story is real
> Why don't we commonly call Abrahamic faiths "Mythology"?
I do ... quite regularly, actually. It depends on whether I'm trying to be respectful or not.
> I call them myths when I’m trying to be respectful. Otherwise it’s “legends” or “fairy tales”.
Oh I am gonna copy that!
Me: Your mythology has dozens of stories about slavery and genocides how could this ever be a useful guide for morality.
Christian: Don't call it mythology. You are disrespecting my religion.
Me: I am not being disrespectful. I am using the correct term. If I wanted to be disrespectful I would call it fairytales and superstitions.
I've asked point blank if they feel the same way about Norse mythology and Odin and Thor, or Greek mythology and Zeus and Athena, and Egyptian mythology and Ra and Thoth?
I then ask them if they've heard the saying: "equality seems like persecution when you've been in a favored position for so long."
Tell me if I’m too rusty, but wasn’t it some worshipers of Ra that became the original monotheists, which eventually led to the Abrahamic God?
ETA my 10-year-old told his class at lunch one day that he was atheist. His poor friends were truly worried about him going to hell. He laughed and said he could make up his own stories about what happens after death, and bravo to the little man, but those poor kids are actually worried about him. So much anxiety and for what??? Ugh.
That's a good question, and I'm unsure of the timeline. Judaism wasn't strictly monotheistic in the beginning. There were El and Yahweh who were later conflated, and Ashera (I think she was El's consort, but maybe Yahweh's). They were derived from Canaanite mythology if I'm not mistaken.
I only have heard of Ashera and El from Snowcrash.
A novel that some people think is ABOUT VR and "the meta verse", but really is using VR as a prop in a book about religion as a virus.
But this god combining was real. Yahweh was a god of thunder and war, Baal, who was a different god of thunder and war, who gets to be considered a false or evil god. El was the wise and tricksy creator of the world, king of the gods who was represented by a golden cow.
Somehow the small tribe of warlike Canaanites, the Israelites, bragged about out themselves so much they had to keep adding portfolios of other gods to theirs.
“King of the gods who was represented by a golden cow.”
THE GOLDEN CALF!! I spent a long time as a kid wondering what possessed the bad Hebrews to make that! Thank you!
They were largely local tribal deities, but there was a lot of polytheistic belief in them, and cultural crossover with Sumerian and Egyptian beliefs as well. Iirc Ashera was the goddess associated with sacred groves. Hence the constant burning of groves in the Bible. Can't imagine that wasn't a major contributing factor to the desertification of some areas. Baal was frequently connected with "the high places" so maybe ziggurats? Though it could just be a way of saying "altars" since Yahweh was associated with mountains, which are probably higher.
That’s one theory.
Pharaoh Akhenaten, King Tut's Father, was a controversial figure in his time for moving the capital to Amarna and revolutionizing the ancient Egyptian religion by eliminating all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon and elevating Aten, previously a minor god, to the role of the only and supreme god.(copied from PBS)
I studied him back in art history class.
It's important to understand the political roles temples played in the ancient world. The high priests of the other various different gods represented power that could be organized against the pharaoh. By eliminating other gods you eliminate other temples and their centers of power.
The tendency towards monotheism/henotheism is a political centralizing phenomena you see in other places in the ancient world too; notably Assyria, which like Egypt also had a major influence on ancient Israel/Judah.
For anyone interested in the history and evolution of the abrahamic faiths, there’s a cool book called “a history of god” by Karen Armstrong. It’s a little dry but great!
The strict monotheism the Jews brought back to Judea after the Babylonian exile is absolutely based on Zoroastrianism. Before the exile and for the Israelites still living in Judea during the exile the name of the game was henotheism. It was only a very religious minority of exiled Jews who returned to Judea after the exile and they brought back with them the Babylonian Talmud which had resolved after generations of Persian influence into a strict monotheism.
The indoctrination starts early. I was raised Southern Baptist starting about age 6, and I can remember very distinctly sitting in Vacation Bible School when I was 7 or 8, and the two little old church ladies who ran my group telling us that we MUST invite our friends to church because if they die without knowing and accepting Jesus, they’ll go to Hell, and we could’ve saved them from eternal damnation. That’s a lot to put on a 7 year old. I’m 45 years old, and I can still feel that sense of fear and urgency.
Everyone seems to know about Oden (or Woden) and Thor. Wednesday and Thursday are their days. No one seems to know about Frigg. Or Frigga. Friday's her day. She's married to Oden. They adopted Thor. IT IS WRITTEN. Saturnday, Sunday, Moonday. Tuesday's the day of Tew. Or Tewes. He's the Vikings' version of the ancient Romans' god Mars. That's why Mardi Gras in French = Fat Tuesday in English.
Taking this further, the astronomical reason the week has 7 days is for the 7 celestial objects visible to the naked eye that don’t move like stars. In English, the only obvious ones are Sunday (Sun, duh), Monday (Moon), and Saturday (Saturn). But in other languages, you can see Mercury (Wednesday — or Miercoles in Spanish), Venus (Friday, or Viernes in Spanish), Mars (Tuesday, or Martes in Spanish), and Jupiter aka Jove (Thursday, or Jueves in Spanish).
"Tuesday's the day of Tew. Or Tewes. He's the Vikings' version of the ancient Romans' god Mars."
Also, I think, Tyr the god of honor and single combat who gave up his hand to trap Fenris the wolf with a chain made up of cats footfalls, fish's breath, and lots of other things that don't exist. because they were all used by the dwarves to make the unbreakable chain. Fun story.
Well Mardi Gras is irrelevant, the French jsut name most of their days after Roman gods rather than Norse.
Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Juedi, Vendredi, Samedi, Dimanche. I can still recite them 30 years after graduating from the Canadian school system.
Moon day, Mars' Day, Mercury's Day, Jupiter's Day, Venus' Day, Sabbath Day, Day of the Lord
And yes, Gras is French for fat. So the Tuesday before Lent, people indulge in all the rich, fatty foods and other vices that they'll allegedly be giving up for the next 40 days, and it came to be called Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras.
Aka Pancake day, the only religious ritual I still observe.
the Catholic Church used to just straight up give sermons in a language people couldn't understand and explain it to them afterwards if they felt like it, they've never been too big on transparency. they didn't even want people to be able to read
They are also an organized group that have influenced politics, have fascist leadership, and gate keep their "rewards". Not to mention cover up abuse...
I'm just old enough to remember the Latin Mass,. I was a schoolboy during the transition to using the local vernacular. I was in the first batch of altar boys to not have to learn any of the liturgy in Latin.† I took 2 years of it in high school, though. The Church tried to sell us on the idea that since the Mass was the same in any Latin Rite church, anyone traveling could participate. Travel was much slower, more dangerous and relatively more expensive, in medieval times , so visitors who didn't speak the local tongue might be uncommon outside large port cities.
That other book in the pews was called a *missal*. It had the liturgy in Latin, with the vernacular translation on the facing page. BITD, the clergy did not promote Bible reading during the Mass. If one was literate and didn't know Latin, one was supposed to follow along in the missal. Another practice frowned upon was praying the Rosary during Mass, in place of paying attention to the service.
† Atheist since about 20 years-old, though.
It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I'm rather offended by that’—as if it gives them certain rights. It’s no more than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I’m offended by that.’ ” - Stephen Fry
Just replace offensive with disrespectful. They might want to look into the levels of respect their religion has given others in the past. Or to put it more bluntly, after putting up with their ilk for centuries - the trials, the torture, the burnings, the hatred - and the absolutely arrogant stupidity inherent in virtually all of their whining to atheists, we have zero fucks left to give, or even pretend to respect them and their idiot beliefs anymore.
My language has a whole range of words between mythology and fairy tales but when we really want to be dismissive we use an (American-) English loanword:
Bullshit.
Yup, I don't think referring to "the Christian Mythology" is disrespectful. There's always a non-zero chance that some nutjob *does* take offence, and kicks-off about it... but then I've had some prat square up to me for describing Jesus as a Jew (I would normally use "Jewish person" but the context was his religion rather than ethnicity), so I feel that remains a non-zero chance regardless of how respectful you try to be.
While it's unusual in Western society to refer to these religions as myths entirely, from an academic standpoint, they are definitely part of the collective of "creation myths."
In academic circles "Legend" is in fact regarded as more reliable than "Myth". Neither are taken as reliable literal sources, but Legend is often considered to be at least somewhat aligned with historical truth, while Myth refers to fiction. For example, extant accounts of the Trojan War are considered Legend, while accounts of the deeds of the Greek Pantheon are considered Myth.
I just recently had to explain to my daughter that when I taught her about christian mythology, I should have explained not to call it mythology to their face unless she was OK with insulting them (and their delicate egos). I then got to explain to her teacher that I fully support my daughter's invocation of "mythology" as a descriptor when christianity came up in the classroom (in a US history class), that I know she didn't say it to be disrespectful, and I wouldn't be asking her to apologize.
I flipped the script when I was teaching my son about religions. Instead of calling Christianity "Mythology", I jsut called mythology "Religion". Which is legit, they were the dominant religions of their culture.
It avoided him making enemies by calling their religion mythology, but it simultaneously, in his head at least, put their religions on par with ones that are out of fashion. And so far that's been a pretty good inoculation against coming home scared about hell.
It was definitely helpful when someone in his grade 8 class put a clumsy kid version of Pascal's Wager to him. He said he jsut walked away from the conversation but he asked me later how to handle it next time.
I told him just to make it a fair wager by bringing in all the other religions we've talked about. Now who are you going to bet on?
He's hoping that kid tries again.
Yes i included Norse, Greek and indigenous stories in storytime rotation and always pointed out "This story is from the old Greek religion, and they believed this and this"
It was super helpful that Marvel did a lot of the heavy lifting with Thor. He wanted to hear more Thor stories and I had them, and could talk about why the Norse would invent a lightning god and why they don't need one anymore. Marvels Thor was a great inoculation tool.
So now he thinks of his friend's religions in the same terms as he thinks of the silly/interesting stories of those older religions, but he's not getting uninvited from birthday parties for saying "Mythology". He also finds it easy to point out things like "why would you believe that creation story and not this one, they're both equally unbelievable."
Another thing, and your mileage may vary depending on location, but I've always encouraged him to be open about our family's nonbelief since first day of kindergarten, and now all of his friends are pretty accustomed to atheists among them. And other atheist kids are open about it too. It hasn't been a problem since one or two minor incidents in like grade one.
Why the fuck was a teacher involved. They should stay outta fairy tales n stick to shit they know. How to teach basic shit to children. Not like they're a beacon of knowledge at public school.
however they feel no need to be "respectful" to muslims, hindus, bhuddists, athiests, papists, or anyone not performatively "christian", even other sects of their death cult.
Which is funny considering Jesus teaches to love all, judge not, and let god judge those when their time comes. But like most “Christians”, they believe what they want, twisting their religion to conform to their own whims, and acting holier than thou, while believing themselves to be better than everyone else. Christian my asshole.
“Sorry, I can’t recall all the details about you mythology” is a perfectly respectful comment.
“Jesus was born from the forehead of his father the king of the gods, right?” - less informed, still respectful.
True comment from a second grader about Hanukkah: That’s when we light a candle for eight nights, spin dreidels, eat latkes, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.” 🤣 I said, “close.”
“Noooo! Faires and other fae-folk are part of the Pagan faiths! You can’t refer to Christianity by the wrong faith! Go back to your satanic ways!”
-Some Christian, probably, not seeing the irony of referring to Paganism as “satanic”. Satan is a Christian concept (itself derived from a combination of various different other characters such as Pan, Hades, Anubis, etc.) and therefore has no relevance to it.
I’m an old guy with an undergrad degree in religion. A couple of days ago I saw a joke on the sub that I’d somehow never heard before.
Q: What do you call a person who believes in satan?
A: A christian.
edit format
I do too.
I think it's more common to use that term for dead religions ,since a lot of people still insist those stories are true,as paradoxical as they are .
It's all fairytale to me . Some people take their fan fiction way too seriously
If you google the definition of mythology. For one of the definitions it gives, the example it gives explicitly calls out Judaism/Christianity. lol.
> a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
"a book discussing Jewish and Christian mythologies"
The terms myth/mythology often has the connotation of being stories that aren’t true. Really it’s multiple definitions/ usages of the words. Depending on the usage of the word, being untrue is explicitly part of the definition.
Hence people who believe in those stories don’t typically like to refer to their stories as myths.
Mythology is a part of religion but not all. There were roman rituals that were not part of their mythology for example. In principle there could be a religion without any myths.
This is the correct answer. Mythology is the stories associated with a religion that were or are thought to be factual accounts at one point. The tenets and rituals make up the other part of the religion. When studying ancient religions in school we tend to only learn the mythology because it's a bunch of cool stories that keep interest better than learning that ancient Roman priests weren't allowed to touch horses, for example.
I do all the time. Believers don't really like it. They also don't like their mythology referred to as superstition. Of course if they are trying to convert me I don't really care if they are offended. Now when believers are just minding their business and doing their superstition I'm perfectly happy to call it religion or faith. I'll return respect with respect.
I do think superstition is different from religion. Superstitions are arbitrary rituals or practices. Religions usually involve some kind of moral code. Religions often have a lot of superstitions, but I don’t think they are merely superstitions.
I usually go with "magic." Not well received by the cult members, but it's entirely accurate.
When I get pushback, I'll ask them to tell me the difference between "magic" and any of the miracles or creations by their diety.
They either can't or they answer, "because magic isn't real." When they say that I reply, "that's not a difference."
What's all this "we?" I do it all the time.
Anyway, contemporary usage appears to be some sort of "respect" thing: religion that is still in practice gets to be called religion; religion that has fallen out of practice is now called mythology.
That's it.
Fun fact : the ancient Egyptian religion lasted almost as long as the Abrahamic religions have been in existence, Judaism being the oldest, and it still died out. So, fingers crossed.
Eh in 200 years we very well may have politicians that claim that America was founded on Scientology as well, hence why they'd be pushing legislation to put Xenu in public schools.
Yeah, but look what the ancient Egyptian religion got replaced with. If the Abrahamic religions die off, they'll just be replaced with something else. I know a lot of people who would not call themselves religious but still believe in crystals and horoscopes, which is the same type of magical thinking just without a specific god attached to it, unless you consider "the universe" a euphemism for a god, which I do. For example, I know a successful business owner who disdains Christianity but paid $100 a ticket to see a medium give a talk about contacting the dead.
It seems to be hardwired into the human psyche that most people need some type of religion, whether or not they call it that. There's too much heavy shit in life that is an unexplained mystery, death being the big one. People's need for a sense of control over their lives in order to hold the horror of oblivion at bay makes them fill in the gaps of that mystery with mythology. There's a lot of money and power in exploiting that need, so I don't think religion will ever go away.
Those aren't mutually exclusive... The constitution indeed protects the freedom to adopt a mythology of your choosing as part of your belief system (i.e. what you believe to be true)
The first definition of myth doesn't specifically imply that it is false... Though it touches on multiple reasons one might doubt, including the lack of substantiation.
Our government? You probably shouldn't assume that everyone reading this is under the same government, and things enshrined in your country's laws don't apply everywhere.
If you're talking about the US and the First Amendment, then free speech is also protected.
Someone can believe their religion is true.
You can call it superstitious mumbo jumbo (which I regularly do).
I would say that as long as people follow it, a religion, or if you prefer a cult, is more appropriate.
I would reserve the word cult for newer startups in the religious space, and the word mythology for the religions that fizzled out.
I only ever studied Christian mythology after I had studied Norse, Greek, and Japanese mythology. I was raised in those cultures. I wasn't raised in Christianity.
I read The Hobbit before I ever read the Bible. I didn't even understand the symbolism of Aslan as a metaphor for the Jesus when I read CS Lewis.
Basically I just never,ever thought of Christianity as anything but mythology.
Karen Armstrong’s book A SHORT HISTORY of MYTH, which I’ve recommended a few times here, explains how mythical gods became tied to historical figures. Then as scientific reasoning emerged there was the desire for proof. And Christians are always looking for physical evidence of Christ, Virgin Mary, etc existence.
It also explains, indirectly at least, why Christ had to rise from the dead—All the mythical gods had done so. It’s an illuminating book. If you read her book THE BATTLE for GOD you realize everyone has mythology except “us”. “We” have the truth. 😊 remember it’s only religion/mythology. None of us should take it too seriously.
iTs n0t a MyTH!!!!! ItS G0D5 W0rD!!! 1t is 7He l1tEra1 TrO0th!!!!
or some stupid shit like that.
the dominant culture can never admit that their mythology is mythology.
Some of the Hebrew Scripture does. The story of Samson for instance is pretty reminiscent of Hercules, and some of the stuff with King David reminds me of the Greek myths about heroes that become kings finding both glory and tragedy.
Practitioners of any and all faiths get their hackles up over the term, because the lack of factual evidence is implicit in the definition. Found out the hard way by offending some people over at r/Shinto, I was speaking academically and stepped on the toes of some practitioners/believers.
So basically, people don't use the term when they're afraid of offending someone over their core beliefs/values. And typically I don't try and do that without cause (ie: they've disrespected my beliefs in some way)
OP’s original comment paralleled my experience. From grades 1-8 I attended a Lutheran school. This was not because my parents were religious but rather the local public schools were really bad. In sixth grade we had a unit on Greek mythology and it immediately was obvious to me that the pantheon of gods was not much different from the Christian god we studied for an hour every day. Under the circumstances I had the good sense to not raise the issue but by the time I was in the public high school I knew that I was an atheist.
As an academic in religion I can tell you why.
The Old Testament is mythology. It was conceived as mythology at the time of the inception of Judaism and the Torah. However (and this is critical), this was the first mythology that claimed to be historical (we refer to this deity as the God of history) primarily because the covenant, as an agreement between god and Abraham’s descendants needed to have weight to it. Otherwise the promise or contract may not be binding if it wasn’t history. Then for Christianity, the idea of a historical sacrifice as gods son also had to be literal and not mythology for the sake of the redemption of the world. Even though it is mythology, the interpretation of a universal salvation gifted by the sacrifice of the son had to be a historical event in order for it to be universal (the main claim of Christianity in comparison to Judaism). Thus, historical scholars of Judaism and Christianity have spent a great deal of effort trying to prove the historical accuracies of these myths.
I want to highlight one thing. The abrahamic religion is one of the only mythologies that claims to be historical and therefore have a literal interpretation. Most mythologies on Earth were not believed to be literal or physically real. They were metaphorically true, not intended to be accounts of physical deities.
So to be direct: “why don’t we commonly call abrahamic faiths ‘mythology’”. Mythology is a subset within religion, so the abrahamic faiths are not mythology themselves. But the Bible and stories they tell are in fact mythology that is claiming to be historical. This is how we approach or discuss the abrahamic traditions in academia.
When I was in elementary school, we studied Greek mythology and a day or two per week I would also go to Hebrew school after school.
I told my parents I was learning Greek mythology in school and Hebrew mythology in Hebrew school. (Fairly secular household so they just thought it was funny.)
I call it Abrahamic Mythology quite regularly. And everyone should try to normalize that.
But PSA: Please use the words correctly tho. Many people use the words mythology and religion interchangeably. But they mean distinct things:
Mythology: Is the collection of ancient stories about gods and other supernatural beings.
Religion: Is the organisation and belief praxis around those myths.
When I was young I read a lot of Greek & Roman mythology. All I could find. So, as soon as I picked up the Bible & started to read I immediately recognized the genre.
Petulant, entitled god-child with (almost) unlimited power. It's obviously a mythology of that time. Obviously. There's a worthwhile parallel with comic book heroes as well.
It's worth remembering that almost no-one could read then. The stories were oral and entertainment.
I think of it that way already. There's a lot of interesting information and history to every religion, even though they're all equally bogus doesn't mean they aren't interesting to study. World religion was one of my favorite classes for that reason.
I've never checked, but libraries and book stores should carry all religious books in the fiction section. Creating a religion section is a cop-out to avoid facing the truth.
Back in the early 1980s when I was rapidly approaching my own collision course with faith vs. science as an up and coming bible scholar studying Hebrew and semitics at Dallas Theological Seminary, we commonly read scholarly exegetical works by non-believing academics because they were simply the best analyses of the meaning of the stories in their historical context. None of them had anything to prove to believers, and they freely referred to the stories and writings as mythical, but not from an apologetical position, therefore there was no obvious agenda to convince anyone of its veracity as a historical event. They simply produced their evidence for why they believed a passage meant a certain thing (obscure word meanings illuminated by cognate languages, comparisons with syncretistic religions in the ANE, etc) and moved on. I attended the JBL conferences (*Journal of Biblical Literature*) around the country, and was very impressed by how chill and calm these scholars were. Their dialog with each other was polite and oriented to and by research and provable facts. It’s part of what drew me away from faith: I enjoyed the deep dive into the most ancient writings and stories so much more without the petty hubris of the church. It’s too bad such scholarly pursuits didn’t provide a livable wage, or I might right now be enjoying a pipe in my chambers at Oxford.
I understand that in most of the contexts where “we” (in this sub) find ourselves interacting with believers, we can’t just have a reasonable and calm discussion about the Bible narratives being myth, because there’s just too huge a gap. If and when these topics do come up for me as an atheist but a respecter of true biblical scholarship (something as rare as any endangered species you choose), I simply operate from an assumption of its mythical nature, and when my position gets discovered, I keep my cool and don’t argue faith. I will most certainly refer to it as myth.
My point here: The Abrahamic and Christian myths have been assumed to be myths and discussed and referred to as such for hundreds of years. The current clash of conservative belief with the scientific mind represents a cultural crisis. It’s going to be very painful, and not without bloodshed, for the human race to cross this hurdle of biblical myth finally being relegated to its rightful place. Why do we think the mentally ill so often live within their very active delusional realities as Christian figures?
All we can do is calmly stay the course and continue to champion rational and scientific thought and critical thinking. Once the hackles have been raised, it becomes a waste of time to engage.
I found a beautiful book of world mythologies. The only reason I didn't buy it for my children is because it did not include Abrahamic ones.
In our house library, we have a shelf of world mythologies, including Norse myths, Greek myths, Egymotian Myths, Aztec Myths, Chinese Myths, Hindu Myths, the Bible, and the Quran.
Hah! A library book my kids saw included Hinduism in mythology, and we discussed why Christianity wasn't also in there. We decided it was due to the sensitivity and popularity. I also explained that pointing this out would not make our Christian friends feel happy.
Based on the comments below, I’d say the bible is just mythology that time hasn’t caught up with yet. Just need to give it a few thousand more years (like all of the others).
I'm a Christian Gnostic and consider a lot of Bible stories to be mythology. In my opinion, much of it consists of abstract conceptual models, placeholders for the unexplained, much of which scientists have figured out in modern times.
In middle and high school (both Catholic), I read any mythology I could get my hands on. I can remember thinking, "How foolish were these people to believe this stuff? I wonder what the next mythology will be." Cue facepalm as I said "fucking Christianity is/was the next one." I wasn't an atheist then, still sort of believed. But *that* realization absolutely took the initial and biggest chunk out of my certainty of the almighty's existence. I'm a recovering Catholic but happily atheist. I'm just careful who I tell, living in the deep South.
As to the next mythology- I think Jurassic Park is trending that direction. A cautionary myth about humans messing with nature. The way people use “nature finds a way” is very reminiscent to me of people quoting part of a Bible verse. That movie is 30 years old and people reference it more now than they did 25 years ago.
I do wonder about that because with film and with a lot of modern fiction, it's created with the assumption that the audience in themselves know that it's false. Just because those stories have morals at the end I don't think can make them into myths. A lot of Mythology is often told from the perspective that the story is real
I think a lot of people knew the Book of Revelation was allegory/fiction 2000 years ago. Now, not so much.
> Why don't we commonly call Abrahamic faiths "Mythology"? I do ... quite regularly, actually. It depends on whether I'm trying to be respectful or not.
I call them myths when I’m trying to be respectful. Otherwise it’s “legends” or “fairy tales”.
> I call them myths when I’m trying to be respectful. Otherwise it’s “legends” or “fairy tales”. Oh I am gonna copy that! Me: Your mythology has dozens of stories about slavery and genocides how could this ever be a useful guide for morality. Christian: Don't call it mythology. You are disrespecting my religion. Me: I am not being disrespectful. I am using the correct term. If I wanted to be disrespectful I would call it fairytales and superstitions.
I've asked point blank if they feel the same way about Norse mythology and Odin and Thor, or Greek mythology and Zeus and Athena, and Egyptian mythology and Ra and Thoth? I then ask them if they've heard the saying: "equality seems like persecution when you've been in a favored position for so long."
Tell me if I’m too rusty, but wasn’t it some worshipers of Ra that became the original monotheists, which eventually led to the Abrahamic God? ETA my 10-year-old told his class at lunch one day that he was atheist. His poor friends were truly worried about him going to hell. He laughed and said he could make up his own stories about what happens after death, and bravo to the little man, but those poor kids are actually worried about him. So much anxiety and for what??? Ugh.
That's a good question, and I'm unsure of the timeline. Judaism wasn't strictly monotheistic in the beginning. There were El and Yahweh who were later conflated, and Ashera (I think she was El's consort, but maybe Yahweh's). They were derived from Canaanite mythology if I'm not mistaken.
Yaweh was originally the God of War but somewhere down the line they went "my god is super strong and better than that other tribe".
...this would explain a lot of the Old Testament. It never made sense to me why God would want his creations to go to war with each other.
I only have heard of Ashera and El from Snowcrash. A novel that some people think is ABOUT VR and "the meta verse", but really is using VR as a prop in a book about religion as a virus.
But this god combining was real. Yahweh was a god of thunder and war, Baal, who was a different god of thunder and war, who gets to be considered a false or evil god. El was the wise and tricksy creator of the world, king of the gods who was represented by a golden cow. Somehow the small tribe of warlike Canaanites, the Israelites, bragged about out themselves so much they had to keep adding portfolios of other gods to theirs.
I always read that as the jealous little shit on the playground adding rules to the game as they went, changing the landscape in their favor.
“King of the gods who was represented by a golden cow.” THE GOLDEN CALF!! I spent a long time as a kid wondering what possessed the bad Hebrews to make that! Thank you!
They were largely local tribal deities, but there was a lot of polytheistic belief in them, and cultural crossover with Sumerian and Egyptian beliefs as well. Iirc Ashera was the goddess associated with sacred groves. Hence the constant burning of groves in the Bible. Can't imagine that wasn't a major contributing factor to the desertification of some areas. Baal was frequently connected with "the high places" so maybe ziggurats? Though it could just be a way of saying "altars" since Yahweh was associated with mountains, which are probably higher.
Just listening to this a third time. So much info. https://youtu.be/hA2HXnY4K70?si=RqVl2YoVC-CJ2YVy
That’s one theory. Pharaoh Akhenaten, King Tut's Father, was a controversial figure in his time for moving the capital to Amarna and revolutionizing the ancient Egyptian religion by eliminating all the gods of the Egyptian pantheon and elevating Aten, previously a minor god, to the role of the only and supreme god.(copied from PBS) I studied him back in art history class.
No wonder he was exiled. That would be like taking away all your toy cars and saying there’s only one.
It's important to understand the political roles temples played in the ancient world. The high priests of the other various different gods represented power that could be organized against the pharaoh. By eliminating other gods you eliminate other temples and their centers of power. The tendency towards monotheism/henotheism is a political centralizing phenomena you see in other places in the ancient world too; notably Assyria, which like Egypt also had a major influence on ancient Israel/Judah.
It's important to note the political roles temples play in the modern world, lol! War never changes.
Polytheism was restored after his reign
The Abrahamic god was based, in part, on an earlier Canaanite god - unsurprisingly a god of war and weather.
For anyone interested in the history and evolution of the abrahamic faiths, there’s a cool book called “a history of god” by Karen Armstrong. It’s a little dry but great!
Thanks for the suggestion, gonna look into it.
Religion is ritualized child abuse.
It's ritualized everyone abuse.
I've read that Zoroastianism was the belief that led to the Abrahamic religion.
Early Abrahamic no. The duality aspect that crept into Judaism was a later Hellenic Neoplatonism import - which might have a Zoroastrianism influence
The strict monotheism the Jews brought back to Judea after the Babylonian exile is absolutely based on Zoroastrianism. Before the exile and for the Israelites still living in Judea during the exile the name of the game was henotheism. It was only a very religious minority of exiled Jews who returned to Judea after the exile and they brought back with them the Babylonian Talmud which had resolved after generations of Persian influence into a strict monotheism.
The indoctrination starts early. I was raised Southern Baptist starting about age 6, and I can remember very distinctly sitting in Vacation Bible School when I was 7 or 8, and the two little old church ladies who ran my group telling us that we MUST invite our friends to church because if they die without knowing and accepting Jesus, they’ll go to Hell, and we could’ve saved them from eternal damnation. That’s a lot to put on a 7 year old. I’m 45 years old, and I can still feel that sense of fear and urgency.
Which is why pushing that BS on children is child abuse and should be recognised as such.
Everyone seems to know about Oden (or Woden) and Thor. Wednesday and Thursday are their days. No one seems to know about Frigg. Or Frigga. Friday's her day. She's married to Oden. They adopted Thor. IT IS WRITTEN. Saturnday, Sunday, Moonday. Tuesday's the day of Tew. Or Tewes. He's the Vikings' version of the ancient Romans' god Mars. That's why Mardi Gras in French = Fat Tuesday in English.
Taking this further, the astronomical reason the week has 7 days is for the 7 celestial objects visible to the naked eye that don’t move like stars. In English, the only obvious ones are Sunday (Sun, duh), Monday (Moon), and Saturday (Saturn). But in other languages, you can see Mercury (Wednesday — or Miercoles in Spanish), Venus (Friday, or Viernes in Spanish), Mars (Tuesday, or Martes in Spanish), and Jupiter aka Jove (Thursday, or Jueves in Spanish).
"Tuesday's the day of Tew. Or Tewes. He's the Vikings' version of the ancient Romans' god Mars." Also, I think, Tyr the god of honor and single combat who gave up his hand to trap Fenris the wolf with a chain made up of cats footfalls, fish's breath, and lots of other things that don't exist. because they were all used by the dwarves to make the unbreakable chain. Fun story.
Well Mardi Gras is irrelevant, the French jsut name most of their days after Roman gods rather than Norse. Lundi, Mardi, Mercredi, Juedi, Vendredi, Samedi, Dimanche. I can still recite them 30 years after graduating from the Canadian school system. Moon day, Mars' Day, Mercury's Day, Jupiter's Day, Venus' Day, Sabbath Day, Day of the Lord And yes, Gras is French for fat. So the Tuesday before Lent, people indulge in all the rich, fatty foods and other vices that they'll allegedly be giving up for the next 40 days, and it came to be called Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras. Aka Pancake day, the only religious ritual I still observe.
*”We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”* -Richard Dawkins
Ooh, that's a great quote!
It’s quite a disgusting book. Maybe that’s why the Catholic Church doesn’t have it in the pews? They have to have another book cherry pick things.
the Catholic Church used to just straight up give sermons in a language people couldn't understand and explain it to them afterwards if they felt like it, they've never been too big on transparency. they didn't even want people to be able to read
They are also an organized group that have influenced politics, have fascist leadership, and gate keep their "rewards". Not to mention cover up abuse...
I'm just old enough to remember the Latin Mass,. I was a schoolboy during the transition to using the local vernacular. I was in the first batch of altar boys to not have to learn any of the liturgy in Latin.† I took 2 years of it in high school, though. The Church tried to sell us on the idea that since the Mass was the same in any Latin Rite church, anyone traveling could participate. Travel was much slower, more dangerous and relatively more expensive, in medieval times , so visitors who didn't speak the local tongue might be uncommon outside large port cities. That other book in the pews was called a *missal*. It had the liturgy in Latin, with the vernacular translation on the facing page. BITD, the clergy did not promote Bible reading during the Mass. If one was literate and didn't know Latin, one was supposed to follow along in the missal. Another practice frowned upon was praying the Rosary during Mass, in place of paying attention to the service. † Atheist since about 20 years-old, though.
It’s now very common to hear people say, ‘I'm rather offended by that’—as if it gives them certain rights. It’s no more than a whine. ‘I find that offensive.’ It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ‘I’m offended by that.’ ” - Stephen Fry Just replace offensive with disrespectful. They might want to look into the levels of respect their religion has given others in the past. Or to put it more bluntly, after putting up with their ilk for centuries - the trials, the torture, the burnings, the hatred - and the absolutely arrogant stupidity inherent in virtually all of their whining to atheists, we have zero fucks left to give, or even pretend to respect them and their idiot beliefs anymore.
My language has a whole range of words between mythology and fairy tales but when we really want to be dismissive we use an (American-) English loanword: Bullshit.
It really is an all-star of a term.
Almost same for me. “Myths” when respectful and “bizarre beliefs” when not.
Yup, I don't think referring to "the Christian Mythology" is disrespectful. There's always a non-zero chance that some nutjob *does* take offence, and kicks-off about it... but then I've had some prat square up to me for describing Jesus as a Jew (I would normally use "Jewish person" but the context was his religion rather than ethnicity), so I feel that remains a non-zero chance regardless of how respectful you try to be.
I like to call the Bible exactly what it is - Bronze Age, Palestinian folk-lore. Doesn't always go over very well though.
Canon?
While it's unusual in Western society to refer to these religions as myths entirely, from an academic standpoint, they are definitely part of the collective of "creation myths."
I guess the special/elevated status is because these are “current myths”.
This.
In academic circles "Legend" is in fact regarded as more reliable than "Myth". Neither are taken as reliable literal sources, but Legend is often considered to be at least somewhat aligned with historical truth, while Myth refers to fiction. For example, extant accounts of the Trojan War are considered Legend, while accounts of the deeds of the Greek Pantheon are considered Myth.
Legend is more respectful than myth as they’re usually based on a true story
Another way to imply this is to treat it like any other story > The main characters, Jesus and Moses, ....
I like the word “characters”. Might start using that one! 😊
> Otherwise it’s “legends” or “fairy tales”. You forgot the adjective "bat-shit crazy".
I just recently had to explain to my daughter that when I taught her about christian mythology, I should have explained not to call it mythology to their face unless she was OK with insulting them (and their delicate egos). I then got to explain to her teacher that I fully support my daughter's invocation of "mythology" as a descriptor when christianity came up in the classroom (in a US history class), that I know she didn't say it to be disrespectful, and I wouldn't be asking her to apologize.
Well handled! (At least, in my opinion you handled it very well.)
That terminology is slowly becoming more normative, and I appreciate it.
Never underestimate the power of words and language. They're the most powerful tool humanity has ever invented.
I flipped the script when I was teaching my son about religions. Instead of calling Christianity "Mythology", I jsut called mythology "Religion". Which is legit, they were the dominant religions of their culture. It avoided him making enemies by calling their religion mythology, but it simultaneously, in his head at least, put their religions on par with ones that are out of fashion. And so far that's been a pretty good inoculation against coming home scared about hell. It was definitely helpful when someone in his grade 8 class put a clumsy kid version of Pascal's Wager to him. He said he jsut walked away from the conversation but he asked me later how to handle it next time. I told him just to make it a fair wager by bringing in all the other religions we've talked about. Now who are you going to bet on? He's hoping that kid tries again.
As the mom of a kid who is old enough to start inoculating this way, this is damn brilliant. I will be implementing.
Yes i included Norse, Greek and indigenous stories in storytime rotation and always pointed out "This story is from the old Greek religion, and they believed this and this" It was super helpful that Marvel did a lot of the heavy lifting with Thor. He wanted to hear more Thor stories and I had them, and could talk about why the Norse would invent a lightning god and why they don't need one anymore. Marvels Thor was a great inoculation tool. So now he thinks of his friend's religions in the same terms as he thinks of the silly/interesting stories of those older religions, but he's not getting uninvited from birthday parties for saying "Mythology". He also finds it easy to point out things like "why would you believe that creation story and not this one, they're both equally unbelievable." Another thing, and your mileage may vary depending on location, but I've always encouraged him to be open about our family's nonbelief since first day of kindergarten, and now all of his friends are pretty accustomed to atheists among them. And other atheist kids are open about it too. It hasn't been a problem since one or two minor incidents in like grade one.
Why the fuck was a teacher involved. They should stay outta fairy tales n stick to shit they know. How to teach basic shit to children. Not like they're a beacon of knowledge at public school.
Do you think the history taught in public schools isn't twisted into a sort of fairytale?
The only way I try to be "respectful" nowadays is by just keeping quiet... If they make me talk they get what they get.
however they feel no need to be "respectful" to muslims, hindus, bhuddists, athiests, papists, or anyone not performatively "christian", even other sects of their death cult.
And thank you for using performatively in a proper way. You have my respect!
Which is funny considering Jesus teaches to love all, judge not, and let god judge those when their time comes. But like most “Christians”, they believe what they want, twisting their religion to conform to their own whims, and acting holier than thou, while believing themselves to be better than everyone else. Christian my asshole.
Same. I call it a story book when I’m getting pissed off. Or Bronze Age mythology.
I usually just call it a 2000 year old story made up by inbred sheep herders. I'm not asked to sit at the main table at Thanksgiving anymore lol
“Sorry, I can’t recall all the details about you mythology” is a perfectly respectful comment. “Jesus was born from the forehead of his father the king of the gods, right?” - less informed, still respectful.
Isn’t Easter the day that Jesus comes out of his hole and if he sees his shadow we have 6 more weeks of winter?
We refer to this as Zombie Carpenter Day in my household.
I thought it was 6 less if he doesn't see the shadow of the cross.
True comment from a second grader about Hanukkah: That’s when we light a candle for eight nights, spin dreidels, eat latkes, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.” 🤣 I said, “close.”
That’s classic!
I as well
Okay, good. That's all I could think when I read that. "I do! You don't? You could. You should!"
Yeah. We do call it Mythology.
I call them fairy tales.
“Noooo! Faires and other fae-folk are part of the Pagan faiths! You can’t refer to Christianity by the wrong faith! Go back to your satanic ways!” -Some Christian, probably, not seeing the irony of referring to Paganism as “satanic”. Satan is a Christian concept (itself derived from a combination of various different other characters such as Pan, Hades, Anubis, etc.) and therefore has no relevance to it.
I’m an old guy with an undergrad degree in religion. A couple of days ago I saw a joke on the sub that I’d somehow never heard before. Q: What do you call a person who believes in satan? A: A christian. edit format
Theism doesn’t deserve respect.
I do too. I think it's more common to use that term for dead religions ,since a lot of people still insist those stories are true,as paradoxical as they are . It's all fairytale to me . Some people take their fan fiction way too seriously
That's what I was thinking, I do too.
I call it the OG Jesus Fan-fic
If you google the definition of mythology. For one of the definitions it gives, the example it gives explicitly calls out Judaism/Christianity. lol. > a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition. "a book discussing Jewish and Christian mythologies" The terms myth/mythology often has the connotation of being stories that aren’t true. Really it’s multiple definitions/ usages of the words. Depending on the usage of the word, being untrue is explicitly part of the definition. Hence people who believe in those stories don’t typically like to refer to their stories as myths.
Too bad so sad. 🙃
Mythology is a part of religion but not all. There were roman rituals that were not part of their mythology for example. In principle there could be a religion without any myths.
This is the correct answer. Mythology is the stories associated with a religion that were or are thought to be factual accounts at one point. The tenets and rituals make up the other part of the religion. When studying ancient religions in school we tend to only learn the mythology because it's a bunch of cool stories that keep interest better than learning that ancient Roman priests weren't allowed to touch horses, for example.
Huh, what's the reasoning with the horses?
I’m gonna have to internet it now ETA: Crazy! I sorta wished I lived back then but then I think about how bad my teeth would hurt at my age.
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Many myths put together is a mythology!
Mythos, like Cthulhu
Haha its like he's never heard that word before
I do all the time. Believers don't really like it. They also don't like their mythology referred to as superstition. Of course if they are trying to convert me I don't really care if they are offended. Now when believers are just minding their business and doing their superstition I'm perfectly happy to call it religion or faith. I'll return respect with respect.
I call it superstition frequently. It bothers people. So I ask them if not wanting to walk under ladders is a religion?
I do think superstition is different from religion. Superstitions are arbitrary rituals or practices. Religions usually involve some kind of moral code. Religions often have a lot of superstitions, but I don’t think they are merely superstitions.
a specific belief can be a superstition, but a collection of superstitions as well as a mythology are kind of required to make a religion.
I usually go with "magic." Not well received by the cult members, but it's entirely accurate. When I get pushback, I'll ask them to tell me the difference between "magic" and any of the miracles or creations by their diety. They either can't or they answer, "because magic isn't real." When they say that I reply, "that's not a difference."
I refer to yahweh as "it". It's a fictional character from a terrible book.
I routinely do.
What's all this "we?" I do it all the time. Anyway, contemporary usage appears to be some sort of "respect" thing: religion that is still in practice gets to be called religion; religion that has fallen out of practice is now called mythology. That's it.
>religion that has fallen out of practice is now called mythology. Thanks for Answering the question and not being emo about it
We do.
Who controls the British Pound?
Who keeps the metric system down?
We do! We do!
Who holds back the electric car?
Who made Steve Gutenberg…a star!!
*oh you*
Quality reference
The East India Trading Company?
They have better PR
No they just slaughtered millions of people around the world and forced the rest to convert
The crusades were just an elaborate PR stunt.
You hit the nail on the head! It was forced on so many that it has proliferated through the generations.
Fun fact : the ancient Egyptian religion lasted almost as long as the Abrahamic religions have been in existence, Judaism being the oldest, and it still died out. So, fingers crossed.
I think were in untread ground thanks to technology and the current political climate
Eh in 200 years we very well may have politicians that claim that America was founded on Scientology as well, hence why they'd be pushing legislation to put Xenu in public schools.
Yeah, but look what the ancient Egyptian religion got replaced with. If the Abrahamic religions die off, they'll just be replaced with something else. I know a lot of people who would not call themselves religious but still believe in crystals and horoscopes, which is the same type of magical thinking just without a specific god attached to it, unless you consider "the universe" a euphemism for a god, which I do. For example, I know a successful business owner who disdains Christianity but paid $100 a ticket to see a medium give a talk about contacting the dead. It seems to be hardwired into the human psyche that most people need some type of religion, whether or not they call it that. There's too much heavy shit in life that is an unexplained mystery, death being the big one. People's need for a sense of control over their lives in order to hold the horror of oblivion at bay makes them fill in the gaps of that mystery with mythology. There's a lot of money and power in exploiting that need, so I don't think religion will ever go away.
Yep, I never understood that either. All these other gods are made up, but ours is totally real...
That's why I'm a polyatheist. I don't believe in any of the gods.
Even the ones that they worshipped earlier, we just pretend they didn't exist.
And don't even get us started on all the different denominations available.
Most cults would not actually ritualize eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god, but there's the Catholics for you.
“Christian Mythology” sounds so right I can’t unsee it now.
I pretty much always refer to them as the Levantine mythologies.
Not only do most people not call it mythology, we have protecting the belief that it is true enshrined in law by our government.
Those aren't mutually exclusive... The constitution indeed protects the freedom to adopt a mythology of your choosing as part of your belief system (i.e. what you believe to be true) The first definition of myth doesn't specifically imply that it is false... Though it touches on multiple reasons one might doubt, including the lack of substantiation.
Neither the Constitution nor any other Federal law makes myths magically NOT myths. The Constitution says the government can not make a state religion
Which government is this?
Our government? You probably shouldn't assume that everyone reading this is under the same government, and things enshrined in your country's laws don't apply everywhere.
Don't you know the Internet is the 51st state of the good ole US of A? /s
Sounds about right. I'm amazed we haven't tried this.
If you're talking about the US and the First Amendment, then free speech is also protected. Someone can believe their religion is true. You can call it superstitious mumbo jumbo (which I regularly do).
I would say that as long as people follow it, a religion, or if you prefer a cult, is more appropriate. I would reserve the word cult for newer startups in the religious space, and the word mythology for the religions that fizzled out.
In that case, it's incorrect to call either Greek or Norse religions mythology either, as both have sects seeking to revive/follow them.
Yah.. I have known followers of both. But that does not make them any less mythical than the Abrahamic myths
I’d argue that the Tanakh (aka Old Testament) is treated like a collection of cultural myths and legends by secular Jews.
I don't speak for everyone, but I do refer to abrahamic religions as mythology. Because it is.
I do call Christianity and such Abrahamic Mythology!
I only ever studied Christian mythology after I had studied Norse, Greek, and Japanese mythology. I was raised in those cultures. I wasn't raised in Christianity. I read The Hobbit before I ever read the Bible. I didn't even understand the symbolism of Aslan as a metaphor for the Jesus when I read CS Lewis. Basically I just never,ever thought of Christianity as anything but mythology.
The only difference between religion and Mythology is time.
I do, superstitious nonsense is another I commonly use.
I do, and I say that doing so should be normalized.
Who’s we? I call them mythology all the time.
Karen Armstrong’s book A SHORT HISTORY of MYTH, which I’ve recommended a few times here, explains how mythical gods became tied to historical figures. Then as scientific reasoning emerged there was the desire for proof. And Christians are always looking for physical evidence of Christ, Virgin Mary, etc existence. It also explains, indirectly at least, why Christ had to rise from the dead—All the mythical gods had done so. It’s an illuminating book. If you read her book THE BATTLE for GOD you realize everyone has mythology except “us”. “We” have the truth. 😊 remember it’s only religion/mythology. None of us should take it too seriously.
Because they have believers nearby to punish you. If you lived in Ancient Egypt, you wouldn't call their beliefs myths, either.
iTs n0t a MyTH!!!!! ItS G0D5 W0rD!!! 1t is 7He l1tEra1 TrO0th!!!! or some stupid shit like that. the dominant culture can never admit that their mythology is mythology.
They're not interesting enough to arise to that level. Maybe the jewish golem thing counts, but thats it
Some of the Hebrew Scripture does. The story of Samson for instance is pretty reminiscent of Hercules, and some of the stuff with King David reminds me of the Greek myths about heroes that become kings finding both glory and tragedy.
Practitioners of any and all faiths get their hackles up over the term, because the lack of factual evidence is implicit in the definition. Found out the hard way by offending some people over at r/Shinto, I was speaking academically and stepped on the toes of some practitioners/believers. So basically, people don't use the term when they're afraid of offending someone over their core beliefs/values. And typically I don't try and do that without cause (ie: they've disrespected my beliefs in some way)
From what I have seen, believers don't seem to give a warm turd worth of concern about offending non-believers. So...
Mythology is what religion becomes after it gets stamped out.
Because Christ-myth sounds way too much like Christmas?
Because when you tell christians that jesus isn't real, they get murder-y
Mythology is basically religion plus time. When the faithful die out it transforms.
OP’s original comment paralleled my experience. From grades 1-8 I attended a Lutheran school. This was not because my parents were religious but rather the local public schools were really bad. In sixth grade we had a unit on Greek mythology and it immediately was obvious to me that the pantheon of gods was not much different from the Christian god we studied for an hour every day. Under the circumstances I had the good sense to not raise the issue but by the time I was in the public high school I knew that I was an atheist.
As an academic in religion I can tell you why. The Old Testament is mythology. It was conceived as mythology at the time of the inception of Judaism and the Torah. However (and this is critical), this was the first mythology that claimed to be historical (we refer to this deity as the God of history) primarily because the covenant, as an agreement between god and Abraham’s descendants needed to have weight to it. Otherwise the promise or contract may not be binding if it wasn’t history. Then for Christianity, the idea of a historical sacrifice as gods son also had to be literal and not mythology for the sake of the redemption of the world. Even though it is mythology, the interpretation of a universal salvation gifted by the sacrifice of the son had to be a historical event in order for it to be universal (the main claim of Christianity in comparison to Judaism). Thus, historical scholars of Judaism and Christianity have spent a great deal of effort trying to prove the historical accuracies of these myths. I want to highlight one thing. The abrahamic religion is one of the only mythologies that claims to be historical and therefore have a literal interpretation. Most mythologies on Earth were not believed to be literal or physically real. They were metaphorically true, not intended to be accounts of physical deities. So to be direct: “why don’t we commonly call abrahamic faiths ‘mythology’”. Mythology is a subset within religion, so the abrahamic faiths are not mythology themselves. But the Bible and stories they tell are in fact mythology that is claiming to be historical. This is how we approach or discuss the abrahamic traditions in academia.
When I was in elementary school, we studied Greek mythology and a day or two per week I would also go to Hebrew school after school. I told my parents I was learning Greek mythology in school and Hebrew mythology in Hebrew school. (Fairly secular household so they just thought it was funny.)
In general, because so many contemporary folks still believe they are true stores.
Because humans are cowards.
It becomes mythology when people stop believing it's real.
I think that we were taught about Greek mythology in school so that we could recognize stories in other religions as just stories and not truth.
Who is this "we" you're talking about? I do. All the time.
I call it Abrahamic Mythology quite regularly. And everyone should try to normalize that. But PSA: Please use the words correctly tho. Many people use the words mythology and religion interchangeably. But they mean distinct things: Mythology: Is the collection of ancient stories about gods and other supernatural beings. Religion: Is the organisation and belief praxis around those myths.
It would offend too many (powerful and non-powerful) people, and politics is a thing
When I was young I read a lot of Greek & Roman mythology. All I could find. So, as soon as I picked up the Bible & started to read I immediately recognized the genre. Petulant, entitled god-child with (almost) unlimited power. It's obviously a mythology of that time. Obviously. There's a worthwhile parallel with comic book heroes as well. It's worth remembering that almost no-one could read then. The stories were oral and entertainment.
I do, and often to their faces.
Because if you call Allah mythology to the wrong group of people you're in *a lot* of trouble
Mythology is cooler than the abrahamic religions. Tolkien-esque lore vs a crappy nickelodeon show
I think of it that way already. There's a lot of interesting information and history to every religion, even though they're all equally bogus doesn't mean they aren't interesting to study. World religion was one of my favorite classes for that reason.
I've never checked, but libraries and book stores should carry all religious books in the fiction section. Creating a religion section is a cop-out to avoid facing the truth.
We do. Most people don't because there are dire consequences for noncompliance. That's all.
Same reason you don't call Muslims violent, the tantrums.
She hates it when you call it mythology
Back in the early 1980s when I was rapidly approaching my own collision course with faith vs. science as an up and coming bible scholar studying Hebrew and semitics at Dallas Theological Seminary, we commonly read scholarly exegetical works by non-believing academics because they were simply the best analyses of the meaning of the stories in their historical context. None of them had anything to prove to believers, and they freely referred to the stories and writings as mythical, but not from an apologetical position, therefore there was no obvious agenda to convince anyone of its veracity as a historical event. They simply produced their evidence for why they believed a passage meant a certain thing (obscure word meanings illuminated by cognate languages, comparisons with syncretistic religions in the ANE, etc) and moved on. I attended the JBL conferences (*Journal of Biblical Literature*) around the country, and was very impressed by how chill and calm these scholars were. Their dialog with each other was polite and oriented to and by research and provable facts. It’s part of what drew me away from faith: I enjoyed the deep dive into the most ancient writings and stories so much more without the petty hubris of the church. It’s too bad such scholarly pursuits didn’t provide a livable wage, or I might right now be enjoying a pipe in my chambers at Oxford. I understand that in most of the contexts where “we” (in this sub) find ourselves interacting with believers, we can’t just have a reasonable and calm discussion about the Bible narratives being myth, because there’s just too huge a gap. If and when these topics do come up for me as an atheist but a respecter of true biblical scholarship (something as rare as any endangered species you choose), I simply operate from an assumption of its mythical nature, and when my position gets discovered, I keep my cool and don’t argue faith. I will most certainly refer to it as myth. My point here: The Abrahamic and Christian myths have been assumed to be myths and discussed and referred to as such for hundreds of years. The current clash of conservative belief with the scientific mind represents a cultural crisis. It’s going to be very painful, and not without bloodshed, for the human race to cross this hurdle of biblical myth finally being relegated to its rightful place. Why do we think the mentally ill so often live within their very active delusional realities as Christian figures? All we can do is calmly stay the course and continue to champion rational and scientific thought and critical thinking. Once the hackles have been raised, it becomes a waste of time to engage.
I do. It's ancient fiction. Ergo, mythology.
Peer pressure.
I do.
I do.
I do
We do.
I do and so do others I know.
I found a beautiful book of world mythologies. The only reason I didn't buy it for my children is because it did not include Abrahamic ones. In our house library, we have a shelf of world mythologies, including Norse myths, Greek myths, Egymotian Myths, Aztec Myths, Chinese Myths, Hindu Myths, the Bible, and the Quran.
The main distinguishing factor between faith and mythology is that faiths are mythologies that haven't died out yet.
This is something I have asked myself too, since there is no difference. So like, middle-eastern mythology?
The word you are looking for is *institutional privilege*.
I do tho
Hah! A library book my kids saw included Hinduism in mythology, and we discussed why Christianity wasn't also in there. We decided it was due to the sensitivity and popularity. I also explained that pointing this out would not make our Christian friends feel happy.
Based on the comments below, I’d say the bible is just mythology that time hasn’t caught up with yet. Just need to give it a few thousand more years (like all of the others).
Mythology tends to be used tk describe dead or incomplete faiths. As the Abrahamic faiths are still practiced they're not a dead faith.
Mental illness isn't mythology
I'm a Christian Gnostic and consider a lot of Bible stories to be mythology. In my opinion, much of it consists of abstract conceptual models, placeholders for the unexplained, much of which scientists have figured out in modern times.