Morality and Mythology

We spoke about how mythology usually exists as a medium for conveying moral messages.  Almost every ancient culture had a mythology, which could serve to instruct those in the culture about how to live their lives.  In modern culture, however, the number of people who choose to live their lives without the aid of a guiding mythology or religion has been steadily increasing.  Is this a bad thing?  Without the help of mythology, how can people know how to live morally?

I think that mythology is not the only medium for morality.  Those who choose to think about and construct codes of ethics based on philosophical discussion seem to do at least as well, in general, as those who gain their morality from religion or tradition.  It is, I think, simply a difference in type, not quality.  Gaining morals from mythology is comparable to getting morals from fiction; gaining them from philosophical discussion and real life is comparable to getting them from nonfiction.  Both ways are valid, and can be effective.

Better as Fiction

In class, we discussed the idea of reading the Bible as fiction with grains of truth, in the form of messages relevant to real life, running through it.  In addition to preventing the sort of fanatic fundamentalism that has led to such unpleasant organizations as the WBC, I think that interpreting the Bible as fiction can actually provide more instruction to its readers than taking everything it says literally.  After all, much of the Bible is not reasonably applicable to modern life; as a result, most people who are not crazy dismiss those parts which seem unreasonable to them, and mainly ignore them.  If such people read the Bible as fiction, a novel with embedded moral messages rather than an instruction manual, they might instead seek to find the reasons that the Bible's writers included the outdated parts, and update the ideas to apply to modern life while still trying to keep the spirit of the original intentions of the writers.

Response: Mythologizing Historical Figures

In response to JonDavid's post "The Gospels: "Jesus Facts"" (February 16, 2012):

I think the Chuck Norris analogy is a good one - the main difference between Chuck Norris and Jesus, mythologically speaking, is that no one believes that Chuck Norris can actually do those things, whereas some people believe that Jesus really did perform miracles.  However, Jesus is not the only historical personage who has grown over time into a mythological, or perhaps legendary, figure.  Even such relatively recent lives, such as that of George Washington and the other founders of the United States, have become somewhat shrouded in the mists of legend.  That popular story about George Washington and the cherry tree, while not as widely believed as Jesus' miracles, still has a following of people who do not know it is fiction.  It seems that admirable people, despite being sufficiently impressive in reality, tend to take on supernatural attributes after death.

Response: Open-Minded Investigation

In response to Rebecca Ryan's post "The Jesus Biography" (February 11, 2012):
The last sentence in this post - "Unfortunately, it's difficult for me to be close-minded about these things." - made me think quite a bit.  I have not heard close-mindedness referred to in a positive sense before, and it caused me to consider if there is such a thing as being too open-minded.

I concluded that the answer depends on one's definition of open-mindedness.  If one considers it to be a state in which one makes no decisions and develops no opinions, then yes, one could indeed be too open-minded.  If, on the other hand, one defines it as a state in which one thinks about and considers every possibility prior to discarding it, then I believe the answer would be no.  Avoiding thinking about something because one is afraid that doing so will change one's views is not a good thing.  If one thinks fully about something and concludes that it is the right view, then it most likely is.  If one thinks about something and decides that it is not the right view, then at least one can defend one's decision adequately against critics.  Simply ignoring the possibility that one might be wrong can (and has) lead to some of the worst events in human history.  So, in response to your worries, I do not think that reading even something which might be challenging to your views (which I do not think the Crossan book is) is a bad thing - it will either lead to to change your views to better ones, or will reaffirm your belief in the views you already held.