What Mythology is Subjectively Better

[warpus]

Yet 21st century humans feel the need to declare life in the ancient world a myth without any observable evidence? Archeology is hardly a full blown observation. One would have to erase the current bias of life before ever attempting to judge the past, and that may be nigh impossible.

Did you just say that the study of human history is impossible? And in the same paragraph wonder why people studying the past require a certain amount of evidence to back up their claims with?

 

[timtofly]

No, I said declaring things a myth is nigh impossible, but people take the prerogative to do so.

 

[warpus]

No, I said declaring things a myth is nigh impossible, but people take the prerogative to do so.

You're thinking about things backwards. You start with regular history, and attempt to elevate certain stories to myth-like status, if the evidence is there. If it isn't, no myth for you.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Not seeing why you repeat this absurd statement. At any rate the actual (even if in critiques by a century or more later) views on natural phenomena were not myth-based at least since the early 7th century BC and Thales. And half a century later there are multiple accounts/views about who first built solar-clocks and examined time through the trigonometry of the sun-dial's cast shadow (eg Anaximander of Miletos or Pherecydes of Syros). Want to compare that to the north of Europe and the whitewalkers?

Because when I said 'ancient' I was thinking much further back than 7th century BC. I wasn't trying to offend your Greekness, just pointing out that whatever myth someone wants to use those who believe it will provide observational evidence for it, so saying 'if there is evidence it isn't a myth' is clearly erroneous. I often refer to Zeus and lightning because I happen to like him better than Thor, but if you keep taking offense I'll switch.

 

[timtofly]

You're thinking about things backwards. You start with regular history, and attempt to elevate certain stories to myth-like status, if the evidence is there. If it isn't, no myth for you.

A myth is an idea or story that is not true. I agree that I look at things backwards. How do we have the evidence to tell if something is true or not? Past history is not observable, but through small windows into left over scraps of evidence. It is speculation at it's best. I am not the one who declares past history as mythology. I am very skeptical of those who do.

 

[Kyriakos]

Because when I said 'ancient' I was thinking much further back than 7th century BC. I wasn't trying to offend your Greekness, just pointing out that whatever myth someone wants to use those who believe it will provide observational evidence for it, so saying 'if there is evidence it isn't a myth' is clearly erroneous. I often refer to Zeus and lightning because I happen to like him better than Thor, but if you keep taking offense I'll switch.

Do please switch, old chap

 

[warpus]

A myth is an idea or story that is not true. I agree that I look at things backwards. How do we have the evidence to tell if something is true or not? Past history is not observable, but through small windows into left over scraps of evidence. It is speculation at it's best. I am not the one who declares past history as mythology. I am very skeptical of those who do.

It's not speculation, and by saying that you are essentially casting doubt on the study of human history, which most historians would find incredibly offensive, if not hilarious.

What you do is you start with a blank slate, and you go from there. If there is enough evidence that an event happened, such as WWII, it's now officially a part of history. Events that do not have enough evidence, such as the Romulan invasion of Klingon space, or the power struggle between Zeus and his sons, is not.

What you want is certain events being elevated to "fact", for no reason.. just because. It doesn't make any sense.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

The paradox of mythology:

Q: When is a myth no longer a myth?
A: When you recognize that it is a myth.

 

[timtofly]

Starting with a blank slate is not mythology either. The argument is not even what is or what is not mythology or fact for that matter. It is the re-writing of what humans had already accepted as history. A historian is not one who writes history. A historian is one who studies history. When they write about it, they are not writing history, but a speculative report. Artifacts, manuscripts, and any bits of information that is gathered is what was written at any given moment of history and that is the "historical" record. An attempt by a historian to piece these together into any form is not writing history, but writing a speculative history, and the only difference between that and a myth is the historian does not sit down to write an obvious lie. They have no way to prove what they write is a lie or not.

If I wrote an account that claimed that the city of Chicago experienced a fire that burned down the whole city on Oct. 8th 2014, and 500 years later some read that as an historical fact, that would be considered a myth. If there was no other forthcoming evidence that it did not happen, then it would be accepted as fact, even if is was a myth. It would always be considered a myth until it could be proven that it was fact. It is not normal for humans though to write down events that do not happen. They do record events that happen all the time, that may be construed as myths far after the fact that they can be refuted as so.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yet 21st century humans feel the need to declare life in the ancient world a myth without any observable evidence? Archeology is hardly a full blown observation. One would have to erase the current bias of life before ever attempting to judge the past, and that may be nigh impossible.

There are many ways to figure out the past, and searching for artifacts is just one method.

It is not normal for humans though to write down events that do not happen. They do record events that happen all the time, that may be construed as myths far after the fact that they can be refuted as so.

I have several thousand books in my personal library that refute the bolded part of your post. And those are just the acknowledged fiction books that include a variety of genres. I also have a few shelves of reference books, some of which include bibles and reference works on mythology. People have been writing down events that do not happen for a very long time.

 

[timtofly]

I have several thousand books in my personal library that refute the bolded part of your post. And those are just the acknowledged fiction books that include a variety of genres. I also have a few shelves of reference books, some of which include bibles and reference works on mythology. People have been writing down events that do not happen for a very long time.

I explained that as fiction. I was talking about historical events. Made up history is fiction. History that does not happen, does not happen, why would people write about it? There are events that happen that no one writes about. There are events that get written about from word of mouth. There may have even been fictional events that humans think actually happened, but no one writes about an event that did not happen, while it is not happening.