Project Reason is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation devoted to spreading scientific knowledge and secular values in society. The foundation draws on the talents of prominent and creative thinkers in a wide range of disciplines to encourage critical thinking and erode the influence of dogmatism, superstition, and bigotry in our world.
The Mythicist Position: Go Beyond the Endless Theist vs. Atheist Debate
I would like to recommend the Reason Project have a thorough look into the mythicist position as a powerful bridge between the endless, burned out theist vs. atheist debate.
The Value of Mythicism
“Mythicism has much to offer to those who find it difficult to believe in the gospel story as “history” but who wish to know the deeper meaning behind the story. Indeed, the mythicist position importantly serves as a bridge between theism and atheism, as it does not seek to discount or denigrate the long and exalted history of thought concerning religion and mythology, dating back many thousands of years, as manifested in the religious and spiritual practices of man beginning millennia ago and continuing since then. The pinnacle of mythicist cultures—more specifically those based on astrotheology—can be seen in the massive and mysterious civilization of Egypt, for example. Rather than being ignored and dismissed, such wondrous creations should be explored and treasured as unique and glorious contributions to the overall human accomplishment.”
I thought this comment was a fantastic point to make - all theists are mythicists when it comes to all other religions.
”...what is more “absurd,” accepting the fabulous fairytales of a particular culture as being “historical” without a shred of credible, scientific evidence, or suspecting these tall tales to be along the same lines as those of other cultures, such as the Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Roman, which are currently accepted as being myths? When it comes to the gods of all other cultures, including those of the ancient religions and extending to those still in currency in “modern” faiths such as Hinduism, Christians and mainstream non-Christian and atheistic scholars alike are in agreement that these entities are myths. Hercules, Zeus, Athena, Neptune, Diana, Ganesha, Hanuman—these are all myths. Therefore, as concerns the non-biblical characters in religions globally for eons, Christians and mainstream scholars are mythicists. It is only the biblical figures who receive special consideration and pleading. In reality, in dismissing mythicism, Christian believers are in effect negating themselves.”
Here is why I now take the mythicist position as my own:
“Again, mythicism allows us to step outside the theist-versus-atheist box and to value the vast human creation of religion and mythology, without being either antagonistic toward it or believing it as dogma. Mythicism goes beyond the ceaseless theist-atheist debate, in fact, which is in the end futile, since cases for both perspectives can be and have been made ad infinitum, under a variety of circumstances, and since experience shows us that this discussion will never be resolved—except, indeed, in the mythicist position, which neither believes nor dismisses but which understands and appreciates humanity’s longstanding interest in religion and spirituality. The mythicist position does not necessarily accept religious traditions as being based in third-dimensional reality and history. Nevertheless, mythicism itself is rooted in reality and is an end product of freethought and scientific endeavors as well as the recognition of profound human imagination and creativity. The mythicist position allows us to create greater harmony by acknowledging and enjoying the similarities and differences in religious traditions founded upon valid evidence grounded in natural phenomena.”
“The lost language of celestial allegory can now be restored, chiefly through the resurrection of ancient Egypt; the scriptures can be read as they were originally written, according to the secret wisdom, and we now know how history was first written as mythology.”
- Gerald Massey, The Natural Genesis (Vol. 2 p. 378 ff.)
“Mythology is the ground-work of all our theology”
Here’s an examiner article about Dr. Robert Eisenman, a well-known Bible scholar, who has summarized ‘The Christ Conspiracy’ in the Huffington Post. He concedes Jesus to me a myth in a National Meeting of The Society of Biblical Literature, which he terms “the premier organization in this field.”
So here’s a biblical scholar acknowledging that Jesus is a myth i.e. the Mythicist Position.
A commenter at examiner says:
“I wonder if people realize the significance & gravity of a very well respected biblical scholar giving a speech at the National Meeting of The Society of Biblical Literature, which Dr. Eisenman terms “the premier organization in this field” and flat out telling them that he takes the mythicist position. The ramifications of where that could lead is infinite. It’s about time the mythicist position be taken seriously and given it’s due recognition.”
The Mythicist Position is embraced in my “Alternative to Bars and Churches” idea. The library of this yet-to-be-created facility would ideally have readable texts of any of the religions which have such texts. (anyone offended that their belief system was not represented would be invited to contribute a text). I agree that we need not throw out the baby with the bath water. Knowing who we are, in terms of cultural inputs, is impossible without knowing how Buddhism contributed to modern psychology, how Christianity contributed to modern law and on and on.
Thanks for alerting me to this position.
I have in the past found the mythicist position interesting to consider. Over the years, my experience leads me to conclude that mythical images are representative of the images the right hemisphere of our brains seems to want to use to express itself. People who are highly visual have the experience of being able to see a pun, and how to render that in a painting, rather than being able to hear a pun in a sentence. Mind research already shows that our brains have two separately functioning personalities, one in each hemisphere, and that oratory language skills are predominant in the left hemisphere. But it is difficult for me to believe, and indeed I do not experience, that the right hemisphere personality is subjugated to the left, listening-only, never taking initiative, and having no active interest in its own life. The model that the right hemisphere is slaved to the master-left makes no sense to me. So, the more reasonable assumption I think is to start with the premise that the non-oratory-languaged right hemisphere is actively participating in its life.
How does that manifest if seldom through words?
I am visual enough to have the experience of seeing puns that I cannot express in a sentence. I think many other people are like this too. Together with this level of visual expression of insight and thought is the experience of there being vocabulary in images: building blocks as it were.
In another artistic field, dance, there are recognized building blocks and there is recognizable “grammatical” structure in a good performance.
What if images communicate in grammatical structure, too? That would be sufficient to give our right hemisphere personalities access to non-oratory language. It would also explain some of the global popularity of religious and mythical imagery.
Indeed, Joseph Campbell has certainly been instrumental in examining religions from the mythicist perspective and he’s mentioned several times throughout the book Christ in Egypt too. Here’s a great explanation of the mythicist position:
“Mythicism represents the perspective that many gods, goddesses and other heroes and legendary figures said to possess extraordinary and/or supernatural attributes are not “real people” but are in fact mythological characters. Along with this view comes the recognition that many of these figures personify or symbolize natural phenomena, such as the sun, moon, stars, planets, constellations, etc., constituting what is called “astromythology” or “astrotheology.” As a major example of the mythicist position, it is determined that various biblical characters such as Adam and Eve, Satan, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, King David, Solomon and Jesus Christ, among other entities, in reality represent mythological figures along the same lines as the Egyptian, Sumerian, Phoenician, Indian, Greek, Roman and other godmen, who are all presently accepted as myths, rather than historical figures.”
- Christ in Egypt page 12
As a former saved, baptized Christian of many years gone atheist - I can honestly say that it was the works by those as Joseph Campbell & D.M. Murdock (Acharya S) that helped me really appreciate religion once again for what it really is ... mythology, astrotheology etc. I don’t feel the need to hate or stamp out religion because I feel like I finally understand how the origins of religious belief are rooted firmly in natural phenomena. And that reality is FAR more fascinating to me now even as an atheist. I have no interest in militant atheism either - I take the weak/negative position and it fits perfectly with the mythicist position like hand-in-glove.
The mythicist position is as reasonable & logical as it gets but only a few are even aware it exists. That’s why I posted here. I hope that Sam Harris and the board members will consider it as a worthy project to promote since it is a bridge between theism & atheism. I’d love to see D.M. Murdock on the board working with the Reason Project on something to help promote the mythicist position.
A major hurdle is that even academia denies the mythicist position and refuses to take it seriously - when it comes to certain religion like Christianity or Islam. That needs to change before these two religions blow us all up.
Earl Doherty emphasizes the academic point:
“Why is it that no individual scholar or group of scholars has undertaken a concerted effort in recent times to discredit the mythicist position? (The brief addresses that have been made to it in various publications are outlined in my Main Article “Postscript”.) In the heyday of the great mythicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a few valiant efforts were offered. However, both mainstream scholarship and the mythicist branch itself have made dramatic leaps since then. Biblical research has moved into bold new territory in the last several decades: unearthing a wealth of ancient documents, arriving at a new understanding of elements like Q, the sectarian nature of early Christianity, the Cynic roots of the great Gospel teachings, and so on; an almost unprecedented “critical” dimension to New Testament scholarship has emerged.
And yet the mythicist position continues to be vilified, disdained, dismissed. We would condemn any physicist, any anthropologist, any linguist, any mathematician, any scholar of any sort who professes to work in a field that makes even a partial bow to principles of logic and scientific research who yet ignored, reviled, condemned largely without examination a legitimate, persistent theory in his or her discipline. There are tremendous problems in New Testament research, problems that have been grappled with for generations and show no sign of getting closer to solution. Agreement is lacking on countless topics, and yesterday’s theories are being continually overturned. There is almost a civil war going on within the ranks of Jesus study. Why not give the mythicist option some serious consideration? Why not honestly evaluate it to see if it could provide some of the missing answers? Or, if it turns out that the case is fatally flawed, then put it to rest once and for all.
Doing that would require one essential thing: taking it seriously, approaching the subject having an open mind that the theory might have some merit. Sadly, that is the most difficult step and the one which most critics have had the greatest difficulty taking. It is all in the mindset, whether of the Christian believer whose confessional interests are overriding, or of the professional scholar who could never consider that their life’s work might be fatally compromised.”
Here is a fantastic book review by a well known biblical scholar Dr. Robert M. Price
Christ in Egypt: The Horus-Jesus Connection by D.M. Murdock
Reviewed by Dr. Robert M. Price
Here are a few comments:
“The book is more extensive and encompassing than many dissertations I have read, containing over 900 sources and nearly 2,400 citations in several languages, including ancient Egyptian. The text abounds in long lost references many of them altogether new to English rendering, including de novo translations of difficult passages in handwritten German….”
“I find myself in full agreement with Acharya S/D.M. Murdock: we assert that Christianity constitutes Gnosticism historicized and Judaized, likewise representing a synthesis of Egyptian, Jewish and Greek religion and mythology, among others [including Buddhism, via King Asokas missionaries] from around the known world (p. 278). Christianity is largely the product of Egyptian religion being Judaized and historicized (p. 482).”
This is as significant as the post above concerning Dr. Robert Eisenman. More & more highly respected scholars are ‘coming out of the mythicist closet. This is very exciting indeed.
[ Edited: 05 November 2009 03:14 PM by Veronica95 ]
For those who may be interested there’s a radio show:
“New Astrotheology Calendar Radio Show!”
“On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, from 9:00-10:30 PM EST/6:00-7:30 PM PST, Acharya will appear on Thunder’s “Truth or Fiction” Blogtalk Radio show. Thunder and Acharya will be discussing her “2010 Astrotheology Calendar.” The program will include the great chat room and call in, so come on in!”
Whatever you need to make your life interesting I guess.
If this absolutely must have a name, I prefer “mythicism”. Joseph Campbell is just the most well-known of the many scholars of myth. Then, if the name starts to be used by some crazy cult, at least a good scholar’s name won’t be tarnished by the inappropriate association.
I would prefer it not to have any name that makes it look like the equivalent of a religion. The principles can be applied to any religion, as well as to cultural beliefs not specifically connected to a religion. In my opinion, cultural beliefs unconnected to religion can be even more dangerous than religious beliefs. For one thing, they can be more easily mistaken for scientific fact without actually having any of their hypotheses tested effectively.
nothing about identifying as either a theist or atheist (more “isms”...ugh) really prevents you from studying and appreciating mythology… maybe i’m missing something here.
I thought this comment was a fantastic point to make - all theists are mythicists when it comes to all other religions.
Here is why I now take the mythicist position as my own:
“Again, mythicism allows us to step outside the theist-versus-atheist box and to value the vast human creation of religion and mythology, without being either antagonistic toward it or believing it as dogma. Mythicism goes beyond the ceaseless theist-atheist debate, in fact, which is in the end futile, since cases for both perspectives can be and have been made ad infinitum, under a variety of circumstances, and since experience shows us that this discussion will never be resolved—except, indeed, in the mythicist position, which neither believes nor dismisses but which understands and appreciates humanity’s longstanding interest in religion and spirituality. The mythicist position does not necessarily accept religious traditions as being based in third-dimensional reality and history. Nevertheless, mythicism itself is rooted in reality and is an end product of freethought and scientific endeavors as well as the recognition of profound human imagination and creativity. The mythicist position allows us to create greater harmony by acknowledging and enjoying the similarities and differences in religious traditions founded upon valid evidence grounded in natural phenomena.”
Hi Veronica95,
My first impulse was to hit you with both barrels, but I have begun to notice that the variety of people at this web site is reduced because we(I) tend to mob people with opposing view points. So instead I welcome this change of pace. I am disturbed by some of your phrases (my wife thinks that I’m just disturbed). For example the phrases “Theist versus Atheist box”, “the Cynic roots of the great Gospel teachings”, and many more. I really don’t want to over whelm you with my disturbing critisms. I do have some questions:
What did you mean by those phases mentioned above?
How is mythicism rooted in reality?
Is mythicism based on observation and empirical data?
Do you think the Yankees will repeat in 2010 and win the World Series?
Except for the last question, could you provide answers with as little jargon as possible? (I am educationally challenged)
