The Essence of Myth - Essay Example

What is a myth' A myth can be said to be a story with a purpose, which tries to explain the way the world is.Through myths, a relationship between human being and god can be explained. In most cases, myths send a message that has got an important religious or social meaning to people, even though the events might be impossible. Myths can as well be used to explain other things such as the customs or behavior of certain group of people or even explain the nature. Through told stories, myths helped to teach human beings behaviors that enabled them to live well with fellow human beings. According to Campbell, myths are not lies or tall-tales. They are however imaginative, symbolic stories that people of virtually all times have told as a means of expressing their deepest feelings and insights of the ultimate reality1 . Therefore it is not possible to suggest that a myth means only one thing. With time, it is easy for a story to loose its concrete localization, or even become associated with a different story or hero altogether. This implies that a myth can go into a number of directions with time, acquiring new associations or losing the old ones. In many performances, mythical stories that are familiar to certain people were used to catch the attention of the audience. Self conscious collection in a body becomes very important when it is found that the common body of knowledge within a certain culture has started to fade away. However, some people perceived myths to be for those people who are weak and had undergone psychoanalysis and thus needed only to see through their superficial covering of the past incidents2. Myth is so enduring that it does not easily vanish with the increased complexities of life. The changing global economic and political situation has had little effect in causing the myth to wither. Myths appear at all levels of social life although it has been felt that it is important at the primitive social life. Therefore, a myth can be taken to be a sacred form that can explain how for instance the world and mankind came to be. A myth can be used to give an explanation of something that extends beyond human mortal beliefs but has certain meanings. This can be based on what many people refer to as sacred beliefs/life. However, some scientists have argued that a myth is not based on sacred traditions or collective rituals. In this perspective it is also a fact that modern human beings are products of non-mythological world's way of thinking. It is however true to claim that myths have been highly coiled around many sacred socio-historical settings, which might seem to be more of traditional and less technologically oriented modern people. However, putting the myth stories from one society with another that are related can make a person to understand more of what happens and why such things happens. It also helps people to live harmoniously in the society. According to Billias, myths helps to human beings to know their true selves by creating a world that all the people can live in with the surrounding community3. Literal Vs Metaphorical Interpretation of myths In interpreting mythical stories, they can be taken to be literally or metaphorical. When talking about literal interpretation, it is assumed to represent factually true statements or false, depending on the case. Metaphorical interpretation is taken to mean merely poetical language or existentially significant. Therefore, literal language is simply cognitively meaning while the metaphorical language expresses attitude and commitment4. The literal and metaphorical interpretation can be applied in the case of incarnation of Jesus. As Gill explains, "that Jesus was God the son incarnate is not literally true since it has no literal meaning, but it is an application to Jesus of a mythical concept whose function is analogous to that of the notion of divine sonship ascribed in the ancient world to a king", (Para 11)5. Literal and metaphorical meaning depends on the authors or narrators implicit use of narrow empiricist interpretative of knowledge. In this case it can help one to make a distinction between fact and theory. Therefore in the case of incarnation, it can be treated as a theoretical interpretation of God's revelation in Christ, but not the incarnation itself as part of revelation6. God's activities can be reconciled without having to necessarily imply a historical incarnation as such. It has to be understood that by God's activities in human life in itself is an interpretation. The western world has consistently portrayed religious reality according to the realm model. They developed classical thoughts around the notion that reality was essentially dualistic, i.e. the natural world and the world of divinity. The traditional Christian has held to the notion of dualistic view. The difficult with the modern Christian way is that it has tried to set aside the dualistic interpretation without first of all removing the realm model which the model is based upon. It would be very odd to however say that unless the meaning of a certain passage or phrase exists independently of the words and grammar, then it is nothing more than words and grammar. The meaning of writing is usually beyond the words and grammar arranged in a certain form. In the same way, incarnation can be through historical dimension. This meaning can be asserted without having to necessarily ponder on the question of how did Christ leave the divine world and enter into the natural world. In essence incarnation can therefore be taken as a paradigm of mediation. Incarnation can be considered to be a mediational phenomenon. This is because the meaning is neither factual nor merely mythological. The divine dimension usually embody in the human dimension without being exhausted by it. The discernment of this meaning can go beyond Jesus' historical life. The human knowledge of these issues is explicit, while on the other hand, the knowledge of incarnation is tacit7. Therefore, talking about incarnation does not need to be straight forward explicit or couched merely into poetic phrases that are only debunked as being bogus. For along time, the western language and other languages in the world, including the talking about God, was in search of trying to understand and provide the mirror of reality. Language in modern time has been taken to have diverse functions and religious language in particular has become to be understood to be symbolic so as it is not classified as being non-factual thus loosing meaning. Human Mythological Issues Since the time of enlightenment, it has been assumed that thinking about life mythological, is the way of the past, and that the current science owes nothing to the irrational institution of mythology. But it has become apparent that any speculative or imaginative thinking in any field is an inherent feature of mythical thinking. Therefore, mythical thinking is never absent in trying to understand the universe, however rational or empirical it might just seem to be. In this case, it can be very vital to see on the contemporary way which non western, and the early people have been seeing the universe. Human beings have undergone a very long way in evolution changes and as well as the technological changes, since the time of the hunters and gatherers, up to the present life human life. The various changes that have been experienced in the all aspects of human life have got different myths that have accompanied the changes. The planet earth is one of the changes that have been viewed on different perspectives with the changing times of humanity. The earth was first viewed from outside its atmosphere in 1961, and later men saw and photographed it as a globe in 1968. These events completely changed the outlook of the human culture concerning the planet earth. According to Engdahl, "this is far less a matter of the situation knowledge gained than of our self image, hopes and fears; Feelings that are expressed most fully in our mythology,"8. These changes have led to what has been mostly referred to as space age. In the space age, the perception of human being about the earth has completely changed especially from looking at it from the space. The space age has created thin implication of looking out towards the newly accessible universe9. Human beings have been able to learn and know about the space age due to exploration. The view point of exploration is a mythology that is very much alive, and others are still seen to be emerging. For instance, the technologies that are centered at 'looking in' the earth from outside10. The older mythologies were however, not capable of doing this. There are however inseparable feelings that are part of human culture towards the reaction of the space age. These feeling are also being increasingly mythologically expressed even though in a different myth than those those were evoked by looking out11. There are many different ways in which the space age has been mythologically expressed. One of the ways is through the mass media science of fiction. According to Engdahl, the other means is the "veneration of Earth as mother Gaia: a myth with roots in ancient mythodologies, grafted upon a scientific hypothesis which it has so far been outstripped"12. When a person is attracted to one of these myths, then they tend to reject the other myth. When these ideas are however taken together, they encompass a single body of mythology that constitutes different viewpoints. These mythologies are hence forth pluralistic, unlike the former mythologies. In this case there are no clear cut divisions that can indicate how we view the planet earth in the space age. With fictitious mass media, the future is expected to have very aggressive movies that show how human beings would like the planet earth to be in terms of technology. BIBLIOGRAPHY Campbell Joseph. The Power of Myth Video or the Book, New York Doubleday, 1988. Engdahl Sylvia. The New Methodology of Space Age, retrieved on 14th Dec. 2007 from http://www.sylviaengdahl.com/space/myth02.htm Gill H. Jerry. Myth and Incarnation, retrieved on 14th Dec. 2007 from http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp'title=1200 Leeming A. David. The World of Myth: An Anthology, ISBN 0195074750, Oxford University Press, 1992. Biallas, J. Leonard. Myths gods, heros and saviors Mystic CT: Twenty-Third Publication 1986. Read More

 

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