Our myths are to be more than treasured – "Science must begin with myths and with the criticism of myths", Karl Popper.

Most myths present themselves as authoritative and able to account for facts, no matter how completely at variance they may be with the real world. A myth gains its authority not by proving itself but by presenting itself. Remember too, a myth is a mental model with which people try to interpret reality and respond to it. Myths have value in enabling us to organize the way we perceive facts and see ourselves and the world.

Popper, I believe, is correct when he says, “Rationality as a personal attitude is the attitude of readiness to correct one's beliefs…In its intellectually most highly developed form it is the readiness to discuss one's beliefs critically, and to correct them in the light of critical discussions with other people.”

Western societies have cast aside many of the myths and institutions that had served them for hundreds of years. The great belief systems-the idea of a divine lawgiver; the sanctity of the family kin group, or tribe; the rituals, customs, conventions, ceremonies, and festivals that gave meaning and purpose to the smaller communities of earlier times-are mostly in ruins. But in the haste to throw off apparently outmoded burdens, people also lost the valuable side of those myths and institutions. Due to a lack of rationale (the second and important part of the Popper equation), people are left with nothing but the despair engendered by new myths that they do not understand.

The dogmatists, who can no longer speak in the language of myth, align with the following, "Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.", Andre Gide

"Western societies have cast aside many of the myths ... but in the haste to throw off apparently outmoded burdens, people also lost the valuable side of those myths and institutions."

relda, this reminds me of an old joke about the missionary and cannibals: He lived among them, and they found him useful, because he could forecast rain. Until somebody found out, that these abilities were due to his rheumatic leg. So they killed the missionary, ate him, and hung the leg in the window as a barometer. Are we, western moderns, not doing with religion and the for us acceptable offshoots of it, what the cannibals did with the missionary and his leg?

Yes George, I believe we do - in our ignorance.

The striking silliness about Peter's article is his need to point out that this particular Jesus was a wholly, living breathing, thinking and functioning body in the flesh. Surely it is funny peculiar to think otherwise but how one can then continue to explain "this bodily nature of his ascension" to be with teddy, his father, ... which is funny ha ha. To then say this particular Jesus will appear again as a "real coming in the flesh" is a scream ...... i.e. a superstitious screaming spasm of psychosis.

Whilst people may argue the physicality of all this Jesus magic, what is the teddy (god) message of this belief? i.e. ..... teddy invents pain....teddy invents humans who feel pain..... teddy sends to earth his possession, his only son who happens to be a human son (.... forget poor Joseph). He then gets nailed to a cross for a few hours. Whilst human son feels pain, does his father, teddy? Moral of the story ..... Teddy as a father owns his son as merely an instrument product to satisfy a sadomasochist mindset.

Is this everyone’s idea of how a responsible teddy should behave? More importantly, is this everyone's idea of how a responsible father should behave?

ps Does anyone know what this Jesus did and the formative influences on his life during his "wilderness years" (13 to 30)? Ridiculous isn't it? .... all the hoo haa of the baby Jesus in a manger and nobody has any idea of what he was up to for the greater part of his life.

Keiran's posting makes me want to repeat a comment I already made here some three months ago: You cannot have a serious debate about (science and) religion, reason and faith, if you insist on airing your most intimate religious, (or rather anti-religious) hang-ups. The same as you cannot have a serious debate about the man-woman relationship (biological, psychological or social) if you insist on airing your most intimate sexual hang-ups. There are namely two intimacies in the psychological make-up of a human being: a horizontal, sexual one, concerned with a partner (real or virtual, accepted or denied), and a vertical, religious one, concerned with a Creator (real or virtual, accepted or denied).

Kieran,
In your ‘hang-up’ you describe a deep-seated “teddy” or comfort factor prevalent, not only in such notable form found within Christianity but also, with subtlety, as expressed (sometimes poetically) by us ‘moderns’ - our wonder, despair, joy and sorrow have not been totally lost. The thoughts of ancient man, however, created great comfort through the myths of the ‘dying-and-rising god’ - this motif of concern with life and death became dominant. The myths, from Egypt, Phoenicia, Sumeria, Babylon and Canaan, show some significance.

Closely associated with ancient myths were elaborate customs and ceremonies - ritual evolved over a long period of time. Man danced and acted out what he believed to be his proper response to the living world, which contained him. The Egyptian myth Osiris is likened in one place to the seed which must be placed in the ground to die so that the new growth may shoot forth; and at the same time he is thought of as rising in the form of his son Horus who thus avenges the death of Osiris.

A myth probably having greatest influence upon the ancient people of Israel is that of Baal and Anat. This was a seasonal myth describing the death and resurrection of the vegetation god. The myth is not tied to an annual cycle and is much more concerned with the threat of periods of drought and the way to ensure the supply of the life-giving water on which men, animals and all vegetation alike depend. Consequently, when the death and rebirth of the vegetation was being described in a personal way, in the manner of myth, the same themes persisted.

In this quite striking way the ancient myths did full justice to the reality and finality of death on the one hand and to the mystery, on the other hand, of how death gave rise to new life. So, for a continued belief in a bodily Resurrection? Perhaps best summed up by a Christian ‘prophet’ (and theologian), of recent origin: “There are very few theologians today who believe the Resurrection actually happened.” - Reinhold Niebuhr