Why is there a religion & spirituality AND mythology & folklore section?

Question

Isn't religion just contemporary mythology?

Answer 1

Because god is just an idea and the bible is a collection of myths.

While we have none of the autographs of the Bible, the early manuscripts we do have have and that are known to be genuine, by the most conservative estimates, have 200,000 differences between the wording in them, and while many are not meaningful, some completely change the doctrine of the church. (Ehrman, Bart, Ph.D.; Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and Why; Harper Collins, 2006 -- p. 89). less conservative estimates range up to about 400,000 -- and there are programmers now endeavoring to write a program that will be able to count the exact number of variances.

And that's only the start of the difficulties for the Bible. If you only use the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as it is printed in modern Bibles then you are looking at enormous problems anyway -- in fact insurmountable ones. The World does not have corners (Isaiah 11:12), nor does it sit on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), nor water (Psalms 24:1-2). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow (Job 38: 22-23). For the sake of all that is decent, you can't even harmonize the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis with each other, say nothing of being able to defend the Biblical creation as scientifically factual. That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cuds (Deuteronomy 14:7). It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true] (Matthew 13: 31-32). It is hardly a font of rational thought or scientific accuracy. Furthermore these errors only scratch the surface. Try harmonizing accounts in Joshua and the telling of the same tales in timeline in Judges sometime. If you can you are more proficient than any theologian I've ever met, and I've met a few.

Late bronze age men created the OT and early iron age ones the NT. It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would (Judges 1:19), and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were beseiging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away (2 Kings 3: 19-27) -- further it is not surprising that no punishment is mentioned -- the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically in Judges 11:30-39

The long and short of it is, the Bible is a mythic book, written by bronze and iron age men who were recording primarily oral legends in written form. In any realistic sense it is drivel. You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

Read the verses, read the context -- to all the things I've suggested, calm your breathing and thinking and ask yourself if this is really the God of the Universe you are reading about -- or a tribal deity, which has now evolved into the one we worship. I think you will find biblegod sadly lacking -- something the liturgical churches have been saying for hundreds of years. If you find yourself unwilling to even look -- ask yourself why? Are you willing to sacrifice the truth, in order to maintain a comfortable myth for yourself?

And if you want a chuckle, read the second, and theoretically final version of the ten commandments. They are in Exodus 34: 10-26. That is the covenant Yahweh actually made with Israel. No seething here.

Seriously, you are feeling conflicted because you have been told things that are not true -- the biggest one being that the Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is a bronze age book written by bronze age men -- except for some parts of the NT that were written by early Iron age men. It is not divine, and what is says about human sexuality is greatly dependent on the sexual morales of a single culture in the 1st to 4th century CE -- 1st to 4th century I say because the root copies that we have are from the 1st to 4th centuries. Anything older may well have been -- as we can see from Dr. Ehrman's work -- changed.

Have a nice day.

Answer 2

It all depends on how you define the terms. Religion and spirituality usually refer to those philosophies that people currently believe. Whether you believe them or not has nothing to do with the definitions. Some people believe that spirituality should be separated from religion because one can be spiritual without being religious. I think this is just splitting hairs because they usually mean "organised religion." Besides I believe that everyone has a "religion," If you work hard at not believing anything or making fun of what others believe, then you have made that your religion.

Now mythology is an extremely complicated concept. Most people assume, incorrectly, that a myth is always a lie or a story that was told hundreds of years ago that no one believes any more. While these definitions are true. Myth can be far more complicated than that. Myth comes from the innate symbols within the subconscious of all humans that define our belief systems. For many people myths manifest themselves in dreams; for others they manifest in religious symbolism. Folklore is just stories, poems, songs, etc. with no known origin, but doesn't have anything to do with spirituality.

I would figure that the two divisions would be in order to place question with spiritual connotations in one section and those which just want answers about stories in another. Of course we could also argue that philosophy belongs in one or the other of these two sections.

Answer 3

Of course religion isn't contemporary mythology. There is nothing contemporary about religions-most of them are based on ages old mythology tempered by medievil thinking concerning good and evil.

Fortunately, as society gets more educated and questioning then so the power of religion fades. Eventually all religions will have the same power over people as the concept of a flat earth and the sun being the chariot of the sun god as he races through the sky.

Answer 4

Religion & spirituality are real. The only ones in this section who could be categorized as mythology would be the atheists who believe in that a big bang from nothing created everything, unless they really don't have souls so religion/spirituality would be mythology to them. Of course, if they thought it was mythology, why would they spend so much time in religion? So maybe they just want to be atheists, but they're drawn to religion because deep down inside, they knew they're wrong.

Answer 5

Not necessarily. It's all about point of view.

Spirituality usually encompasses what a person believes to be true. It can cover things such as the idea of God and the afterlife.

Mythology on the other hand can be considered those things which societies see as not true, and yet are ideas that have existed through centuries.

For instance, King Arthur and the knights of the round table are mythology to some people, yet truth to others.

Also, to some people, dragons are part of myth and legend, to others, they are part of their spiritual beliefs.

It stops people from having their beliefs pidgeonholed as myth, and also stops people from being forced to talk about their views on mythology in a section about spirituality.

Answer 6

No. People who wish to discuss mythology and folklore usually do not believe that the stories under discussion have any foundation in fact. The Metamorphoses of Ovid is a fascinating account of how the gods toy with us, but no-one regards it as true. People discussing religion believe their stories to be based on truth. It isn't relevant whether you or I do, it is in the minds of believers that it matters. Perhaps in a thousand years the Bible and the Qu'ran will be relegated to the same category as the Greek or Norse gods (for it is certain that they believed in theirs as strongly as any Christian believes in her or his). Y!A will have questions on Christianity and Islam in the mythology section then. Doubtless the religion and spirituality section will then consist of some completely different mumbo-jumbo we cannot envisage.

Answer 7

Great question.
Had you asked the Greeks whether they thought their religion was just contemporary mythology at that time, they would have killed you.... just like today's christians and muslims would do to you if they could. And sometimes they do.

Answer 8

Religion is a myth, spiratuality and folklore are intertwined, but too many of the people here don't want to see or hear that.
I guess it's easier to look to a "higher power" than to face yourself
for some people

Answer 9

Religion and spirituality are literature and action in relationship with God.

Myth is literature regarding fiction, something not real. There has never been a proof that God does not exist.

Yet, there are many scientific facts that prove God does exist. First Action, first movement, Love, etc...to name a few.

Answer 10

No, it's not contemporary. All the doctrine was written thousands of years ago. Yes it is all mythology though.