wordy

In his book "Maps of Meaning", Jordan Peterson try to explain how myths works in religion. He was one of the critics of Dawkins in a TV Ontario Agenda show.

www.tvo.org/

At this Uni of Ontario Canada site he has a summary of his views on myth.
http://psych.utoronto.ca/~peterson/summary.htm

I searched for threads about Peterson here in IIDB but failed to find them.

Don't we all, I mean as atheists say that religion is untrue just becasue they are myths and therefor not worthy of our considerations.

Here Jordan Peterson a Psychologist at a Uni say that just because they are myths makes them important and something worthy of of our consideration and he says that Dawkins is wrong in his dizzing of myths. Dawkins don't get it if I get Peterson.

So what do you say about his views. I say that both could be right. They are on different hieararchical agenda? Science are about facts and myths maybe could be helpful when dealing with strong emotional search for meaning in life?

When it goes wrong is when myths get taken literally and that is what fundies do and that is what Dawkins criticize in his books and public appearances.

Peterson seems to not take that part seriously enough but Peterson could be right about that many of us atheists should at least look into myths so we know how politically powerful they could be.


Take the war in former republic of Yugoslavia. Was not the motivation they spinned to get people willing to fight in the war very much myth-making of national identity and that is very much about myths about their cultural identity.

Myths are political tools of persuasion.

wordy

I have not read Peterson, I use him as a bait to get us atheists talking about myths. Almost all religions use myths don't they?

Myths are political tools of persuasion.

That is my take on the power of myths. Myths seems to be written drama that call out for action, often ritual action and public action as an evangelistic propaganda tool of reaching out.

From rhetoric we learn that pathos is very important. That the isterner and seer see the actors as make-believe to be an honest representation of the gist of the message.

Thus follow that myths is set up that way to talk to the heart more than talking to the head of the listener or reader or participator of thesecret or private or public rituals of the myth.

Rituals have the power to make a myth "experientially" true to the participator. Sometimes even bystanders get persuaded to be converted by the action they passively see and hear. But rituals acting out a myth works more strongly on the participants. It feels real to them.

So they are not scientifically true but seems to have the power to make myths socially and culturally? true.

That is my atheistic naturalist take on myths. It is also why I am against buddhism. The meditation that buddhism suggest is a kind of myth acted out and powerful to persuade the doer that they see truth in the act an experience they get out of it.

John the Baathist

Religion is not true because it's not based on facts, because this and that just didn't really happen.

Ritual observance of a myth doesn't imply that the participants believe it to be "just a story" but more likely something that actually took place.
The communal activity enforces their belief that it is true and any people with contradicting facts can be ignored since they are outsiders.

Myths in itself aren't worthless as long as you take them for what they are, just stories from a certain culture.
Wouldn't the English culture be poorer without the story of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream or Milton's Paradise Lost?
Even though they're both clearly not based on facts.

Myths as fictional stories usually help shape or define a form of cultural identity, telling us something about the people who the myth originated from, like Romulus and Remus explain their perception of the founding of Rome.

Of course people are drawn to some myths because of how they can relate to certain characters or get an emotional response from the story.
So a myth like anything else can be abused to gain support when you don't want to state your actual cause.

It is when fiction and fact get confused that trouble results...

Peter Kirby

"The media is corrupted by a liberal agenda to skew and to bias the news."

This is a political tool of persuasion. It is, arguably, false. But is it a myth?

In the way that Adam and Eve, Noah, Arthur, and William Tell are myths?

If "not exactly" is your answer, what is left out of the description of "myth" as a political tool of persuasion? It can be that, but what are the fully necessary components of something that is classed as myth?

John the Baathist

They are both myths but in a different usage of the term.
According to a slightly trimmed definition on Wikipedia:

Adam and Eve, Noah, Arthur, and William Tell are myths in the sense of the first usage.
While the corruption of the media through a liberal agenda could be considered a myth in the sense of the latter.

An definite example of a myth by definition of the latter would be the Dolchstosslegende which was prevalent in the Weimar Republic.

wordy

Yes maybe me trigg or rigged for this OT thing by mentioning political usage of myths.

To be on topic this thread is about how religion use mythical texts by acting them out.

They act them out in rituals and preaching and praying and communion and person to person talk as bible study where you together with other believers acts your interpretation of that religious text. Your the believer or doubter or the apologist or friend or Jesus or totally in love with Jesus as your savior.

Religious rituals often or always declare the facts of the participants faith. That is how I read Roy Rappaport in his "Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity". Not sure of his exact words but the ritual makes publicand as a social fact what the ritual signifies.

Not a physical fact or scientific fact but a social fact. So John the Baathist, where do you get that view from that rituals don't work the way me suggests.

Maybe I found confusing words for it. Have your read Roy Rappaport? As far as I know he is among the top scientist trying to get what a ritual signify. He was President of the Anthropology Society in US or was it the world?

Which anthropologies has more researched views on ritual roles than Rappaport? Yes error of referring to authority but he has good arguments for it too. And field participating results and I fail to remember that anybody has come up with challenge that others saw as an improvement on Rappaport. He wrote that book close to 1997 or so. Paperback version 1999. I have one myself. Too technical text for my taste but his reasoning seems flawless.

Even me as a strong atheist find no better way of explaining what he takes up.

And I have tested his theories on myself by visiting religious services and made amateur field participation and felt it myself. Jesus became very real even to me who have no faith at all in Jesus. I almost hate the guy. So rituals acting out myth is very powerful if your open to the message and the feelings they are supposed to instill or inspire you to feel.

John the Baathist

I didn't disagree with you when I said this.
The confusion is because I used the term facts as in scientific fact without defining it as such.

Yes, in the way that their rituals display the characteristics of their faith, for example;
- It isn't a (scientific) fact that you're eating the actual body of Christ when you take part in the Catholic communion rite.
- But it is a (social) fact that Catholics believe they are.

Yep, I agree completely.

I don't see how a ritual would convince anyone if they were not already predisposed to the concept it was trying to relay.
To me it only seems to enforce the existing beliefs of the people who already take part in the religion's ritual.

I can't think of many public religious rituals either, except for the Hare Krishna mantra, but I don't see how it would convince any outsiders of the actual existence or greatness of Krishna. Are there any kind of religious rituals in existence specifically aimed at convincing a non-believer that the tenets of their faith are actually true?

Because I can understand that some aspects of rituals, like the Pope's expensive hat, would make an impression on the unwashed heathens but how would it convince them of his religious beliefs?