Yesterday afternoon as I sat in my Anthropology class having post-modern ethics heaped upon me as usual at secular college I was struck to be frank by the arrogance in which the naturalistic world view was portrayed. Currently we are studying Islam and its effects upon culture and particularly women, good topic. What got my attention was the explicit manner in which the professor treated the validity of Islam, and all religion for that manner, she began to substitute the word "myth" for the word "religion" and showed quite clearly that at least in her estimation the two were one in the same. Are religion and myth synonymous words having the same meaning?
To the above I would emphatically say no. The difference between the two is that religion claims to based upon a revealed truth where as mythology is man made explanatory story. The difference may seem of no significance to the secular humanist but I think this is the root difference. Although I am not a Muslim Islam claims to be an inspired world view, Islam claims to exist by God's revealing Himself. Whereas in Greek mythology we read tales of Hercules, and Ares yet none of the tales make the claim that God revealed these truths. The same can be said for much of the Native American stories, they are stories bereft of any claim of divine inspiration explaining reality (ex: where trees came from). On the other hand men like Muhammad and Moses claimed to have truth about reality that was revealed to them by God.
The real problem is that upon subscribing to a naturalistic evolutionary world view anything having to do with God is categorized into myth and wish thinking. It becomes more evident in each of the classes I attend my Anthropology professor shares the view that the world would be a far better place if we cast off the carcass of religion and went with the objective truths of science and evolution. Not only would we have truth (that we came from slime that spontaneously generated billions of years ago on rocks from a mixture of UV rays and H2O wherever those 2 elements came from) but we would be even more moral without all these bents religion creates in devotees. The problem is that without God in the picture you can't have an absolute objective truth of any category, this is glaring in the realm of ethics and morals. Are there such things as right and wrong and where do they come from? The common humanist response is "yes they are social constructs" which only begs the question that if they are mere products of culture can they not be easily dismissed as irrelevant? If right and wrong are simply what society agrees to adhere to and it is subject to change as society changes, then there really is no such thing as right and wrong in an objective sense.
In a lot of ways it is becoming more apparent to me that science and the scientist have become a sort of god to many. If you can believe that the universe just popped into existence yet think it absurd to claim that a God created it you simply are not a rational person. Any and everyone that questions the idea of evolution is dismissed as an unscientific dogmatic wish thinker. While it appears to me that the believers in a "big bang theory" are at least equally dogmatic and wishful if not more because at the very outset of their theories God is rejected. I guess my this is my final point about the original issue of myth an religion and my professors' cavalier dismissal of all non naturalistic evolutionary worldviews. It seems every chance a professor gets to jab at Christianity they take it all I have to say is why? If it is so stupid and irrelevant to real life why does it need to constantly be berated? I think this brings us full circle to the reason why Christianity is still around to be bashed, and that is because it not only claims to be divinely created but unlike all of the other religions it claims that if a specific event did not occur Christianity needs to be dismissed as just another nice moralistic system. That event is the resurrection of Christ.
To the above I would emphatically say no. The difference between the two is that religion claims to based upon a revealed truth where as mythology is man made explanatory story. The difference may seem of no significance to the secular humanist but I think this is the root difference. Although I am not a Muslim Islam claims to be an inspired world view, Islam claims to exist by God's revealing Himself. Whereas in Greek mythology we read tales of Hercules, and Ares yet none of the tales make the claim that God revealed these truths. The same can be said for much of the Native American stories, they are stories bereft of any claim of divine inspiration explaining reality (ex: where trees came from). On the other hand men like Muhammad and Moses claimed to have truth about reality that was revealed to them by God.
The real problem is that upon subscribing to a naturalistic evolutionary world view anything having to do with God is categorized into myth and wish thinking. It becomes more evident in each of the classes I attend my Anthropology professor shares the view that the world would be a far better place if we cast off the carcass of religion and went with the objective truths of science and evolution. Not only would we have truth (that we came from slime that spontaneously generated billions of years ago on rocks from a mixture of UV rays and H2O wherever those 2 elements came from) but we would be even more moral without all these bents religion creates in devotees. The problem is that without God in the picture you can't have an absolute objective truth of any category, this is glaring in the realm of ethics and morals. Are there such things as right and wrong and where do they come from? The common humanist response is "yes they are social constructs" which only begs the question that if they are mere products of culture can they not be easily dismissed as irrelevant? If right and wrong are simply what society agrees to adhere to and it is subject to change as society changes, then there really is no such thing as right and wrong in an objective sense.
In a lot of ways it is becoming more apparent to me that science and the scientist have become a sort of god to many. If you can believe that the universe just popped into existence yet think it absurd to claim that a God created it you simply are not a rational person. Any and everyone that questions the idea of evolution is dismissed as an unscientific dogmatic wish thinker. While it appears to me that the believers in a "big bang theory" are at least equally dogmatic and wishful if not more because at the very outset of their theories God is rejected. I guess my this is my final point about the original issue of myth an religion and my professors' cavalier dismissal of all non naturalistic evolutionary worldviews. It seems every chance a professor gets to jab at Christianity they take it all I have to say is why? If it is so stupid and irrelevant to real life why does it need to constantly be berated? I think this brings us full circle to the reason why Christianity is still around to be bashed, and that is because it not only claims to be divinely created but unlike all of the other religions it claims that if a specific event did not occur Christianity needs to be dismissed as just another nice moralistic system. That event is the resurrection of Christ.
