so what differentiates religion from other mythological beliefs?

Question

if you believe in faries - or ghosts - or invisible pink unicorns - or other things you can't see or prove, it's called "mythology"

if you believe God answers prayers - or Jesus rose from the dead - or Mohammed rode to Jerusalem on the back of a winged horse - or when you die you get to live forever on a cloud (with or without virgins) - it's called "religion"

what's the difference? apart from the fact that more people believe in Jesus than fairies - I don't see it.

Answer 1

Religion is what people believe.
Mythology is what people used to believe.

It is probably not quite as cut-and-dried as that, but that is the general idea.

Answer 2

One word: time.

Thousands of years ago, Greek mythology was Greek religion. The Oracle of Delphi was a real woman, not a figure of story and legend.

Hundreds of years ago, people believed witches were real, enough to incarcerate and execute women by the dozens, by the hundreds even, with no real evidence to support it.

As time goes on, people can look back and see what they thought was real in a different light. It's kind of like kids who believe there's a monster under their bed; once they're older and get over that fear, they can look under their bed again and see it's either just their imagination or an assortment of junk assembled in such a way as to resemble something terrifying.

Religion, in a certain light, really is nothing more than popular mythology that has yet to be widely disproven. Fairies we can accept as myth because we've covered almost all of the surface world at this point and found zero evidence to support that an honest-to-God fairy ever existed. Jesus is harder because he's yet to be disproven as something beyond a man.

So, again, the main difference is time. Is it possible that one of these religions today is actually right? Sure. But it's also possible that, centuries or millenia from now, our descendants will look back at our times and be studying Jesus' resurrection or the flight of the Jews from Egypt in Mythology 101.

Answer 3

The difference between a religious or spiritual faith and mythology is only the belief and experiences of the person professing that religious or spiritual belief.

Although, obviously there are evangelicals of all kinds that believe that its possible to somehow transfer or convince others of their own personal experiences with their faith. The truth is that it is pretty impossible to prove a personal spiritual or emotional experience in other than, perhaps, a change in that person's behavior.

If you are looking for absolute proof, its my opinion anyway, that you won't get it. It will take your own exploration, beyond what you can get from any book or evangelical to find it. And even then you could easily explain away the experience.

Actually, myths, I believe were stories concerning gods or goddesses that were meant to illustrate certain things about the nature of those deities, or a particular virtue. I'm not sure if they were meant to be "historical" accounts of their actions. Not that those gods weren't considered real, but all of the stories about perhaps weren't.

I believe that some Pagans believe that some of the stories about their personal deities are myth rather than fact. And a FEW (admittedly a VERY VERY few) Christians believe the same thing about some biblical accounts.

And actually, there are quite a good number of people who worship Diana, Hecate, Thor, Thoth etc. and their numbers are growing. One person's myth is another's faith. Just depends on the individual.

Answer 4

Well, the proper definition of Myth is a story with moral relevance.

So technically religion is myth.

Problem is that myth has also come to mean, a false belief.
And no one likes their religious beliefs to be called false.

So, in the common usage, from the perspective of the believer:

A myth is a fictional story with moral relevance.
While religion is a non-fictional story with moral relevance.

JFTR. The Muslims believe in Jinn, which are pretty close to the western concept of fairies. So there are a whole bunch of people who believe in Jesus AND fairies ;-)

Answer 5

Fundamentally, there is no difference.

The only thing that sets religion apart from mythology is that a religion still will have a large number of followers. Even Christianity, some day, will be reduced to mythology.

Answer 6

Doggoned good question. You know, more than a few of the biblical stories...I'm talking Christianity, the religion in which I came of age...have parallels with the stories of Western and Eastern mythologies. But the fact seems not to give many Christians pause. A talking snake, unicorns, dragons, virgin birth, walking on water, a talking donkey, and so on, and on and on, seem to our Christian brothers and sisters to be perfectly logical. As the king of Siam said in that awful American musical, It is a puzzlement.

Answer 7

There is no difference. But just try getting people to open their eyes. That's the miracle waiting to happen.

Answer 8

amen to that

Answer 9

history.......... God bless