Mythological Language Essay

Mytho logical langu eon raises very difficult if not impracticable problems. Discuss this statement by examining both verification and falsification.A myth is a symbolic approximate expression of truth, which the humans mind cannot perceive sharply and completely, but can only glimpse vaguely, and consequently cannot adequately or accurately express. Millar Burrows.In the context of religion, myths can be taken to compressed stories about God which entertain vital meanings for an individual, a community, a nation or the cosmos. Myths embody and express claims which cannot be verbalised in any other focusing.Myth is the most complex suit of symbolic quarrel because it uses symbols, metaphors and imagery. They use them to beg off the unexplainable and to give insights into human existence.Mythology does not convey information that isnt genuine. They convey concepts that go way beyond the true/false descriptors. They express stories that are other temporal. They allow hum ans to gain insight into two very beta misgivings the cosmological question about the meaning of life and the existential question about emotions, feelings, believing etc.Mythological language was utilise a lot by the biblical writers. They defecate been included in the ideas a great deal(prenominal) as creation, the fall and the flood. Within the script myths as well as attempt to explain the mystery of human origins and human nature. at that place clear been a bald-faced set of people over the last forty years, who have elect to say a lot of religious statements are myths which has challenged existing beliefs.There are of row many examples of religious myths and there are point ways in which the word myth can be used in religious language* The myth could be a humbug which isnt true, but has some other value. Braithwaite believed that they were inspirational as they conciliate us motivated.* It could be a literary device. Ineffable, i.e. beyond language, unexplainab le.* A method of interpreting ultimate reality. They open up like symbols, they have new levels of reality or as Randal argues their purpose is to bind communities together.scriptural stories which seem meaningless to scientists are more insureable if you think of them as another language. Myths are extremely powerful in their metaphor or symbolic meanings. If you dont take a literal view, and you rate the tidings is supposed to be recording hi fib or scientific discipline then yes, a lot of the Bible is false.For example, can you calculate the age of the world from the Bible? Yes, if you take it literally, but that would be wrong because scientists have enough evidence to prove that the world is much older than that. What 1 does, if we interpret the Bible in a fab sense, is side abuse the facts to make them more meaningful i.e. the world is a few cat valium years old, could just simply be saying God do it.So referring to the statement, fabulous language raises very diffi cult if not impossible problems It is clear that even more than symbols, myths seem outdated. In the 19th century, D.F. Strauss suggested that we have to shift the focus of myth from the grade of a miraculous occurrence, to the story of a miraculous occurrence. This basically means in the first case, it is fictitious that an butt true narrative about a miracle is being expressed, in the second, that an embodied religious truth is being conveyed in a story form and isnt necessarily true.Another critic of the use of mythological language was Rudolph Bultmann who said that we must not take myths literally. The Bible should be seen as a myth and only by reading the Bible as mythological text can we fully understand it. The Bible was written in a pre-scientific age when mythological language had a lot of meaning, i.e. the three levels of Hell, Earth and Heaven.Now that the world view has changed we have got to strip the Bible of its myths so that we can understand it again. Bultmann doesnt mean cut them out, he means re-interpret them, demythologise them. He believed that it is impractical for man in modern times to believe such outdated stories It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern health check and surgical discoveries and, at the same time, to believe in the New testament of demons and spirits.The real point of a myth is not to give an objective world picture what is expressed in it, rather is how we human beings understand ourselves with the world.Bultmanns main example of a myth was Lukes comment of Jesus being born in a stable. Strip forth the myths and you see that its saying God can be give in the most humble and excluded parts of the world. Also the resurrection, he suggests is display the re-invention of the people as they become Christians.Bultmann claims myth made it harder to grasp the biblical truth. However, if you start doing this, then you end up saying that mythical language is meaningl ess, which is wrong because you shouldnt underestimate myth and its power.However it undermines their status as true accounts and events. Yet some believers take them to be true which of course gives them meaning.Another philosopher to agree with the statement is Richard Dawkins, who commented in The God Delusion, much of the bible is just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled-together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted and improved by hundreds of anonymous authors.. He could also have added that this was put together during the course of many centuries.Significantly the conflict between Bultmann and Dawkins is that Bultmann still maintained that there was truth to be extracted from the mythological narrative once the myth was stripped away.However, those who are in deport of myth, claim that, since religious language is anti-realist, it is not concerned with making true or false statements. J.W. Rogerson wrote Because m yths have their birth not in logic but in intuitions of transcendence, they are of value to traditions that seek to describe the legal action of the other worldly in the present world.So in conclusion, it is definitive to understand how myths should be interpreted rather than being concerned to wee-wee what the facts of the matter actually are. We have to remember how these stories were heard, i.e. in the context of wide people. This was a language they could understand and images and pictures that related to ordinary readers and listeners to religious works. This allowed the key meanings to be absorbed without needing a great education.