Comment by idcollapse Ra on March 1, 2011 at 9:42pm

'' I cannot see any difference between those early myths and contemporary religions '' this was my answer to in an exam I took 6 years ago on a subject called '' Readings in culture '' , I was a muslim at that time so that answer was only a means to get a good mark and mess with the teachers mind !!

 maybe that was the best answer I have ever given !!

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 1, 2011 at 9:44pm

I just found it interesting how the different elements got incorporated into the myth.  I read the bible when I was young and could hardly believe how little it contained of the dogma and mythology I had been brought up on.

Comment by idcollapse Ra on March 2, 2011 at 5:28pm

Sorry ; I am not sure I got your meaning !! I am not a native English speaker and your English is elegant!

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 2, 2011 at 5:44pm

Well your English seems excellent to me, but I know how meaning can be lost when reading a second language.  I just meant that when I was growing up I was told a lot of things about God and Satan, and then when I read the bible I was surprised that it didn't contain the things that I had been told.  For instance, I was told that the devil was red, had horns and hooves, and that he often carried a pitchfork - but none of that was described in the bible so I always wondered where those parts of the story had come from.

Comment by idcollapse Ra on March 2, 2011 at 5:58pm

Thanks for the compliment and for your elaborate answer , I can assure you that I went throug the same experience although with a different religion , islam in my case, but the myths , I think are shared by all the religions we see today ??

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 2, 2011 at 6:40pm

Well religion is based upon myth - which is what I think gives it it's power. If a religion based itself on pure fiction, fabricating the entire story, then it would have a hard time finding followers. Religions take 'common truths' or 'ideas of an age' and use them to create a new myth. It isn't a work of fiction, for fiction is fabricating within a single mind. It isn't fact, because 'common truths' are really just beliefs and 'ideas of an age' are typically just loose concepts that are very popular. These stories, when combined, make for a powerful 'myth' that contains many elements that really touch a lot of feelings and inner beliefs in a lot of people. With each element that was incorporated into the myth of Satan, the story opened itself up to being more easily absorbed by a wider range of cultures.

Comment by idcollapse Ra on March 2, 2011 at 7:08pm

yeah I totally agree , christianity for example shares a lot of crap with judaism , the latter paved the way  for christianity  ; islam too is not an exception for muslims believe that both judaism and christianity were messages from god and at some point  were ruined by the intervention of man who edited the message ; that's why ,  according to islam , god sent his last messenger Mohamed to deliver his message through islam ; that's why we see that muslims believe in all the messengers before Mohamed like Jesus and Moses and so on ; recently I made a research about the origins of islam and came across a text titled '' the origin text of Koran' and how islam evolved from judaism and christianity , a complete work of man ... I wonder if you ever watched a video about the origin of these religions ? unfortunately I cannot remeber the link , but it shows that they all derive from the ancient myths of greek and how they take advantage of their religious symbols to make their claims easy to believe

Comment by Heather Spoonheim on March 2, 2011 at 7:25pm

I don't know if I've ever watched a documentary that covered all three religions.  I've seen some showing how Judaism incorporated a lot of already existing traditions into their oral dogma, and then incorporated some more when they developed the written form of their oral tradition.  I recently watched one that showed how Alexander the Great even influenced later Jewish writing.  Of course Jewish tradition is incorporated into Christianity, but it seems that plenty of Roman mythology got into the mix as well.  I've never read the whole Koran, but I've been told by many Muslims about how it follows in the line of Judaism and Christianity, just assuming that some human authors inaccurately transcribed those stories.  For me, this is why myths create such perfect stories - they don't fabricate the 'known elements' but they do create new interpretations of 'already known truths'.  When those 'truths' are myths in and of themselves that makes for an incredible new myth.

Comment by Paul Sheppard on March 2, 2011 at 7:31pm

brilliant series and thanks for pointing them out.

Comment by idcollapse Ra on March 2, 2011 at 7:33pm

personally; I liked some greek and other ancient myths like Herculis  and I am willing to read them again and again  ,,,, I liked the artistic part of them especially when the text is empowered with images of the deities ... but I can assure that I will never ever read any other ' holly book'' , never !! I already regret the hours trying to learn the Koran by heart.

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