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Mythology

It is said that life in the universe began with the word, a story, and this word created humans, and so the story goes. God created humans in his image, and all was well until humans ate from the tree of knowledge and descended into sin. You may recognize this story as your own. It’s a widely accepted creation story and it is true in that it is an organizing principal for our brain and central nervous system to understand the universe that we live in, and our place in it.

 

And so it is true that the word did create us humans. However, it wasn’t the word of God, but rather, the word of man. Human beings structure their lives through stories and myths. Most of the early knowledge of human kind was passed down through oral teachings of emotionally charged stories and myths. What wasn’t passed down orally was passed down through the cells, DNA, the brain and central nervous systems inherited from evolutionally successful ancestors. Our modern day to day existence is carved out of the stuff of old myths and stories.

 

A myth is an expression of spiritual insight, told in story form. Myths are metaphors, stories that point to deeper spiritual realizations, and help to guide us through life’s trials and tribulations, giving us a sense of purpose and meaning. Myths help us to structure and create the great societies of the world, and help us to find our place in it.

 

Human beings have been using the same stories, myths and symbols that we inherited from our ancestors, for hundreds of thousands of years. There seems to be a limited lexicon of underlying symbols that make up our mythical stories. These are what I call the elemental building blocks of myth. These elemental building blocks make up the underlying structure and organization of the human brain, psyche, central nervous system, and from there, society itself. Once you begin to detect these symbols, they are fairly easy to see, especially in others, whose religion, society, or culture is different from our own.

 

We make only slight modifications to the basic elemental forms, combining them in unique ways that depict stories that appropriately explain the environment, living conditions, customs, rules and laws of our particular group, tribe, town, country, or society.

 

Each individual believes his or her creation stories, religious stories, economic stories, and familial stories to be the right Truth, and everybody else’s stories to be the wrong stories. The society and the individual is unable to recognize that what they believe as truth is really no more than just another brain structuring story. Furthermore, not only are they unable to see that their hard held belief is really created out of fundamental building blocks that create larger myths and stories, they also take their story as “The Truth”.  The final word. Absolute reality. The word of God.

 

And so, for hundreds of thousands of years, human beings have been killing one another because their myths, that have been taken as absolute reality, are brought to those who don’t believe. If the non-believers accept “the truth” then they are admitted  into the in group, and if they don’t, they must be destroyed.

Additionally, if a myth contains within it a part that says go out and spread the The Word, The Truth, then that myth is sure to collide with another that has the same kind of objective, and before long, human beings are waging wars of myths, wars of Good versus Evil. You see this today with our wars of mythologies being waged by Christians and Muslims. Both have the edict by God to proselytize, and so it is inevitable that these great religions collide in war.

 

Individuals, cultures, and religions have a nearly impossible time detecting that their truth is composed of basic elements of story. In fact, for the most part they use regurgitated stories. Ones that have been used over and over and over again. The underpinnings of our culture are based on the same building blocks of stories that have circulated for thousands of years. We file off the serial numbers, change the characters slightly, and BOOM, we have a new myth, a new story, a new religion, a new reason to wage war.

 

Stories of death and rebirth, love, family, duty, society, honor, sexuality, the afterlife and beyond have been told for thousands of years. The essential building blocks of the story are the same, and fairly easy to see, once you are tuned into them.

 

All stories have a moral to them. They all help us to determine what is good and what is bad for ourselves, our families, our communities, our societies, our countries, and ultimately, our God. All stories share the same elemental component of being one place, and having to get to another place. Typically the first place is a physical condition, and the latter place is a metaphorical, symbolic condition that has to do with spiritual insight,  moving ahead spiritually, to the mythological idea of enlightenment, and ultimately, the mythological place called heaven

 

Old Testament myths have lots of rules and laws and tell us explicitly that we are born of sin and are living in sin. They say that this world and things of it are bad, and that if we follow the rules and laws, we are good and will be let into heaven at some point in the future. Everybody who doesn’t listen will burn in hell. The elemental components are the same. This way is good, godly, and that way is bad and evil. If you believe in my way, then you are good, and if you don't then you are bad and you will die a horrible, painful death, and burn in some mythical image place called hell.


Our world is in need of a new myth. A myth that reflects the times that we are actually living in, not the times of our ancient ancestors...

If you bought a house where the plumbing was 7000 years old, you would think twice about using that plumbing, or even buying the house. Plumbing needs to be replaced on a regular basis, certainly every 50 years or so. Mythology is like our internal plumbing. We are using 7000 year old plumbing and wondering why it isn't working for us...

Part II to follow...

 

To be continued…