definition-of-atheism, mythsMany people read the the Iliad and the Odyssey and other mythological texts and don’t believe that any of the events occurred or creatures and beings ever existed, however they claim to get something from the reading. I don’t believe a train can think or have perseverance, but when I was a kid, I got some value from “The Little Engine That Could”. Robert Bly made a good living, and started an entire movement by interpreting a Grimm’s fairy tale in his book, “Iron John”.
I understand that we also need to address where to draw the line, but that is a different question. First, I want to ask if it fits within the definition of atheism to acknowledge that myths have value, that studying, reading, discussing and learning from them is an important part of any education?
EDIT: an attempt at a definition: A story or preferably a set of stories with similar settings and characters with recognizable physical elements for a society that also include characters that have thoughts but don’t have conscience brains, such as dead people speaking, the wind having purpose, a trickster animal or something with no form at all. These characters could be good, evil, masters of other’s fate or not. Also included could be characters with physical abilities beyond any known natural limits.
Excluded for my definition for this question would be claims of someone thinking or doing something, such as “It’s a myth that Einstein believed in the Christian god.” and allegory in a story, like “the wind was furious.”
Of course we can. Myths are expressions of Human psychology and sociology, whether we agree with the conclusions they reach or not. To close our minds to myths would be to close our minds to the Human family altogether. We are myth making machines, because we are pattern making machines.
What we can’t do is mistake the myths for reality, which is what believers do…
Myths are absolutely fascinating. The ones which have been around the longest have great characters, crackling plots, universal truths about human psychology, and sometimes real poetry. Once you start comparing them, you can see patterns emerge — Joseph Campbell’s The Hero With a Thousand Faces and the accompanying PBS special with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, are great textbooks for this kind of study. I love the Greco-Roman mythology.
But they are just stories. They’re not history.
As a well educated person you need to know the most popular myths and stories, because polical discussions often use metaphers from religious myths, but also from areligious literature. Sodom and Ghomorrah, the singing of the sirens, Robinson Crusoe, …
You need to know it to know what is meant by them, and should engage in discussions and interpretations to prevent from beeing easily fooled.
In a less and less religious world the pictures, metaphers and stories will of course change, and new pictures will dominate the debates: 1984, James Bond, Bambi, …
Absolutely!
One of the hallmarks of great works art - literature, music, painting, sculpture, etc. - is that they:
Works of art are deliberately made so you have to do some mental work to see what they’re getting at, and frequently have messages on several levels. After you’ve gone to the effort to do this, any insight you gain is more likely to stick, rather than you just getting factoids and going, “Yeah, uh-huh.”
If you look at them as art, the great myths and religious books fill that bill. They may not be historically accurate, but if they didn’t have anything useful to say, people wouldn’t have gone to the bother of hand-copying them through thousands of years.
I personally am inspired by the example of Odysseus in Homer as a person who kept his commitments at great personal cost, and particularly who loved his family and made exceptional effort to get home to them. I also take Louis L’Amour’s Sacketts as partial role models, and interestingly enough, am generally in favor of the Sermon on the Mount. The dialectic between Tyrel Sackett the two-fisted gunslinger, and “If anyone smites you on the cheek, turn the other cheek also”, makes for some very interesting practical philosophical analysis.
Myths such as the Iliad, the Edda or the Song of the Nibelungs have entertainment value. At least, that’s why I read them. I think it’s important to teach them because they’re some of the finest fiction that our world has to offer, and much of modern fiction is ultimately based in those tales.
By contrast, I found the Bible boring and badly written. Granted, I didn’t read the original of the other myths either (mainly because the original is hard to read). But even a romanticised version of the Bible is mostly boring, unless you put in Charlon Heston (whose films, let’s face it, don’t have a whole lot to do with the stories found in the Bible).
I do think that learning Christian mythology too is important when living in a “western” country since its tradition has undeniably changed much of our culture and customs. I also think that some of it has literary merit, e.g. the KJV or Luther’s original translation. Not so much because it’s good literature (as I’ve said, I found reading it very tedious) but because the allegories and idioms have entered common speech and knowing them is thus a prerequisite to understanding many cultural references.
In summary, I think the greatest value that atheists can draw from all those myths is the entertainment value, and secondly the information how they have shaped our culture.
On the other hand, I don’t think that many good moral lessons can be drawn from either the Bible or Greek or Norse (or whatever) mythology. You don’t need to be George Carlin to see that the ten commandmends are bunkum and most of the moral lessons hidden in the other myths are blood-thirsty and not terribly refined.
First, all religion is mythology. There is no basis to them whatsoever. Whatever historicity they may claim is nullified by the supernatural and deistic underpinnings.
So, as a result it’s relatively easy to see that a familiarity with these primitive mythologies is useful, if only to understand the recurring themes that each religion believes is unique or ‘real’ inside their particular myths. This provides the atheist with a basis in understanding the ridiculousness of people that claim a ‘revealed true faith’ and ammunition for debating the deluded.
A good example of this is the myth cycle of Mithra and it’s comparisons to Jesus. While an atheist has no need to know this material, if he/she does have a knowledge of it - it provides evidence for the nature of the myths, and a strong basis for argument.
I do not see a need to make a distinction between atheists and theists in the case of studying mythology. Mythology, whether acknowledged as fiction or held as holy doctrine, is a part of our history as a sentient species seeking to understand the Universe. To be ignorant of the beliefs and narratives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is to be out of touch with the vast, and I mean vast, majority of humanity alive today. To be ignorant of dominant myths of the past is to be out of touch with our roots.
It is easy to reject and mock religion and religious myths, but as much as we value our reason we are more than computers. Myths allow us to contextualize the world in which our ancestors lived to give us a better understanding of where we come from and who we have become as a species.
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