What's the difference between Mythology and Religion?

Question

Is it just that a religion falls out of favor and we start calling it mythology?

Answer 1

When your churches/temples become museums, your beliefs become mythology.

Other than that, theology and mythology are synonymous just like religion and cult. It's just that christians don't want to admit that they are just a cult with a mythology which has as much and as little basis as any other cult with any other mythology in history.

Answer 2

Mythology is other people's religion. A couple of the answers above illustrate that quite succinctly.

Another way of looking at it is that mythology is a narrative form of a people's highest and most sacred truth. That requires an open mind, however, which is rare and priceless.

Answer 3

A mythology is any body or cycle of myths – a narrative, oral tradition, or a popular belief or assumption, based on the legendary heroes of a culture. [1] Mythology sometimes involves supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. Mythology is also branch of knowledge dealing with the collection, study and interpretation of myths or fables.

A myth consists of irreducible plot elements identified as archetypes or mythemes and is not identical to any specific wording or retelling. C. S. Lewis identifies[1]Mythopoeia as an art form distinct from literature or poetry.


A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a human community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience. The term "religion" refers to both the personal practices related to communal faith and to group rituals and communication stemming from shared conviction.

Religion is often described as a communal system for the coherence of belief focusing on a system of thought, unseen being, person, or object, that is considered to be supernatural, sacred, divine, or of the highest truth. Moral codes, practices, values, institutions, traditions, and rituals are often traditionally associated with the core belief, and these may have some overlap with concepts in secular philosophy. Religion can also be described as a way of life.

The development of religion has taken many forms in various cultures. "Organized religion" generally refers to an organization of people supporting the exercise of some religion with a prescribed set of beliefs, often taking the form of a legal entity (see religion-supporting organization). Other religions believe in personal revelation and responsibility. "Religion" is sometimes used interchangeably with "faith" or "belief system,"[1] but is more socially defined than that of personal convictions.

Answer 4

Semantics, mythology means a system of legends, and stories usually with a religious context and implies neither truth nor false hood.
Religion is a system of worship and belief, usually based on a mythological structure.

Very littledifference, but fun to use to mess with people's heads.

Answer 5

Someone else's religion is mythology. It's like the difference between clothes (what your culture would wear) and a costume (what someone outside of your culture wears).

Answer 6

The definitions of a "myth" is that it attempts to answer universal questions. That answer may include a diety or a religious aspect. It may not. Issues it could address could include death and evil, but also issues like the weather, seasons, marriage, and many other things. It does not have to include God.

A religion is an attempt to define the relationship between God and man. That relationship may extend into questions about life, death, sin, evil, etc. But they are secondary to the relationship between God and man.

Answer 7

There's heaps more questions about robots in Mythology than in Religion - why, we can only guess.

Answer 8

Basically when an religion dies or is no longer practiced, it becomes mythology in societies that have a different religion or lack thereof.

Answer 9

Religion is the way you look up to your God. Mythology is the way you look at your God.

Answer 10

Mythology is better written