Wannabe Yogi
Well-Known Member
then how come it doesn't make more sense?
For example, if the ancients didn't understand that Earth revolves around the Sun, why invent a fantastic notion of a gian Scarab beetle moving it about? Why not simply admit ignorance on the subject and try to understand it through observation and applied reason? If I were an ancient, I wouldn't understand that Earth moves around the Sun, so instead I might make the erroneous claim that the Sun revolves around the Earth.
Sure it's wrong, but it fits limited observation... later cultures may then think, "Ah, I see why they came to that conclusion...".
I see this In a whole different way.
The term "myth" today in popular culture is used to refer to a false story. In the 19th century western scholars believed that science made myth obsolete. Mythology is just a primitive cultures ( the language it self reeks with white supremacy and colonialism ) idea of an explanation of the cosmos.
When we understand science any right minded person will drop mythology.
In the 20th century this all changed.
Great thinkers like Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Claude Levi-Strauss and Mircea Eliade all started to believe that Mythology is more about patters of the mind, finding transcendence, and creation of mental health then primitive science. The same Ideas in mythology shot up all over the world it is a part of the human thought process. By getting rid of myths we make ourselves a little less human.
In fact many like Mircea Eliade attributed modern man’s anxieties to his rejection of myths and the sense of the sacred. Non-impacted indigenous cultures have a lot less problems with mental Health then we do.
Joseph Campbell believed that insights about one’s psychology, gained from reading myths, can be beneficially applied to one’s own life.
Just as an example if you look at Indian Mythology you will find very complex ideas of morality and philosophy explained in the most simple way. An uneducated village peasant could grasp the most difficult and complex philosophy that college graduates in philosophy can have problems with understanding.
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