dado

apologies, but i'm not clear on what you're saying. myths drive culture, and culture is reality. myths feed imagination and imagination is prime driving force in unearthing new knowledge. seems to me myths are firmly connected to reality.

am i missing your point?

Ion

No, I don't think that culture is material reality.

Material reality is science uniquely, regardless of cultural beliefs:

1.) science devises -with scientific "... imagination..."- human models that interpret the nature, by using data independent of cultures;

2.) science validates the models that are proven to ensure empirical reproducibility of the matter;

3.) the cultural beliefs in models of fiction and myths doesn't ensure provability in empirical reproducibility of data, it is unproved imagination.

For example, the Christian belief of Easter, when allegedly the personage Jesus Christ -described as miracle prone in the Bible- died to resurrect later on, is fiction since the empirical reproducibility of the data is unproven historically.

('unproven historically' in the unlikely act of a resurrection, in the lack of historical artifacts and in testimonies made of contradictory hearsays)

As a cultural belief it has some value in a philosophical moral outlook in life, but in material reality the existence of the miraculous Jesus Christ didn't happen.

dado

forgive me, i'm still having trouble understanding what you're getting at. whether or not the easter myth has a historical basis is a different question from whether or not easter exits empirically. the myth can exist without the truth of the myth existing. easter *does* exist - those who live amongst x'ians experience it every year - and that existence is not dependant on the historical veracity of the underlying myth.

this is what i mean when i say myths are tangible: whatever the truth of the underlying, they impact our culture and society in empirically demonstrable ways.

Magdlyn

I will add, Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, a science, equated the deeper, esoteric meanings of myths with the workings of the human brain.

http://www3.bc.sympatico.ca/st_simons/arm03.htm

dayton

Actually, I didn't reconvert.

My position on atheism is explained here

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=88299


Dayton

dayton

The myth still does not have any empirical or historical evidence to support it, so it is technically fiction. The myth does "exist", it's validity is still another question entirely.

I agree with you here. Whether or not the myths are true, they still impact society.


Dayton

Magdlyn

We just need to remember Jewish and Chrisitan myth is just that--myth. Just like the sacred scripture of any other culture.

The problem is, the Xtians have put out the idea their myth is literal and historical fact, which of course, is not true.

But denying the power of myth, insisting it has no value and only rationality and science does, is not going to get rid of literalism, IMHO.

Joseph Campbell tho, a mythologist, along with his collegues, Jung and Spong, just might!

from a fundie anti-Campbell site, quotes that bother him from Campbell's DVD the Power of Myth:

http://answers.org/CultsAndReligions/Campbell.html

etc.

winstonjen

What about letting people in heaven but not forcing them to worship him?

Magus55

He doesn't force people to worship Him. Those in Heaven want to worship Him, or they wouldn't have sought forgiveness and salvation from Him.

Starboy

So everyone gets into heaven no matter what?

Starboy