What is Mythology for?

 What is Mythology for? There is a basic list that most of us can agree on, even if our particular version doesn't need every point.

1. It shows how to find meaning & direction. 

2. It tells how the Cosmos was created.

3. It explains how everything is all sustained and cooperates. 

4. It postulates the foundational Truths. 

5. It points to Redemption for what's broken. 

6. It promises a Resolution, and Victory, at the End of Time. 

Basically, it tells us how to navigate Reality for a satisfactory outcome. 

And yet, there are those who object to the idea of following a religion based on these kinds of myth. So we must ask ourselves, how we might "demythologize" our religion without ruining its Truth and spoiling our faith? At the very least, we have to regard it as a "poetic" expression of a kind of Truth which is hard to express in our normal way of speaking. We have to allow for some "artistic license," using a few alternative facts for the purpose of illustration, to show us the world as it is supposed to be. And yes, it can be based on actual history, and our normal kind of truth, and leave its mark in the past that archaeologists can dig up. 

Part One:

A myth is an attempt to explain a higher Truth, in terms that are familiar in its day, to people who can't quite grasp what you are saying... because they don't know enough yet. Just because it's told in a mythological fashion doesn't mean that it's completely false and imaginary. It may be trying to explain something for which there are no words available, so you have to use familiar words and things with similar actions and relationships. 

Unless we totally comprehend what's going on, and can correctly identify the actors and grasp what they are doing, on their terms, we must use our own words and ideas to convey however much meaning we can express... And that is making up a Myth. The myth makers are not liars. They are deep thinkers with a grand vision of a better way to live, in a world less corrupted than our own. The problem is, we don't know how to look at life that way. So we need an intermediate mode of speaking, as if we are children. 

We must consider carefully when we raise the objection that our stories are "just myths." If we refuse to appreciate them, despite their archaic language, then we are closing our ears to the Song of the Heavens, and our hearts will never hear the encouragement that was meant to give us strength to live. And then how shall we refute the despair that wails, " Something is broken! All is not as we feel it should be!" 

Part Two: 

Today our nomal default position is that of liberal, secular agnosticism. You use this as your initial presumption when you put faith and Christianity under the microscope. You barely challenge the things you can't live without. Instead, you have to do as C.S.Lewis did, and call them poetry and "true myths," which teach us how we want to be better. But how do we know these are better, unless we actually do believe in God, and Jesus as his representative? Isn't there really something objective about moral progress, and the hopeful philosophy that defines our ideals, and promotes an idealistic humanity? 

Even if it all just boils down to God saying, "Be like Me," it has to mean that we were not created to suffer and be slaves... and not just to worship either. There must be something more, which maybe we don't see yet, but God does know why. We are here, for the long run, onward into eternity. God is not merely an egotistical artist, demanding love, praise and worship. There's a bigger plan.

And until another revelation comes along, to give us a wider vision, and a better, more moral meaning for being human, in society and within nature, then we should stick to Christianity. And we owe it our allegiance, even if we feel we must demythologize it, or call it "true myth."

Part Three:

In the Biblical myth, humanity was created in the image and likeness of God, and thereby we are something wonderful.  Even the Fall does not negate this. Even the worst of us is valuable in the sight of God. We are all broken, yet God does not abandon us to the dustbin, because we are also, all of us, somehow redeemable. God wants to help us. Yes, we all have some bad in us, but even the worst still has some good, whether or not we want to believe that. And that is why we have the story of Christ, willing to die for us. Jesus told us what to see, even in his execution. 

And if that is a myth, a later reinterpretation of the historical facts, it's still a truth that we must cling to, or else expect a milieu of unending conflict until we destroy ourselves. 

Indeed, that is the inevitable "reasonable" crime perpetrated by Hitler and the Nazis. Racism is a broadcast postulate that some people are less worthy of living. Indeed, Hitler has taken the place of Satan in the popular mind, and the Nazis - and their equivalents - are the demons that continually plague us.

Part Four: 

But that is why we need mythology, and a real religion, like Christianity, because it's the glue that holds secular Humanism together, and makes it all fit into a coherent framework. Humanism alone cannot explain everything, nor give us any direction or meaning for our aspirations. How, without religion, can we declare, "what a piece of work is man, little less than the angels," unless we acknowledge that we are created by a higher being? 

But we can't accept just any religion. It has to be one that pushes us forward toward a brighter future, expanding our prospects for living more joyous, gentler, hopeful and loving lives. It can't be one that locks us into the kinds of poison that we have always suffered from, institutionalizing the oppression that we struggle to escape. It has to validate our hopes for change, and promise a better life in this world. 

We need God to make sense of everything after the Neolithic revolution. Both civilization and philosophy need some underpinning to hold our vision together, a vision of humanity being more than just another animal. Without God, we are just some strange anomaly, a peculiar self-domesticated parody of intelligence and reason, waiting for our self-inflicted doom. We have grown beyond what Nature would have made of us, and now we have a struggle between our new "spiritual" aspirations and our old evolutionary imperatives. 

It is God, and religion, who tells us what we are, and what we can be. However, we need to be discerning. Try to imagine the kind of world that your religion would point us towards. Is that something, where everyone could find comfort and sanity? Would a real God (who wants us to live by Love, Truth, Freedom and Wisdom) really approve of our evolving societies as we go there? If so, then follow it with all your heart. If only we have such a faith to live by, God will understand.