We are in a renaissance of Myths in the western cultures.
Going back in time we realize that this is just another blip in the history of human proclivity to self-destroy societies.
I does seem that we have not learn that much after 10,000 years of organize living communities. We just enjoy killing against any tenet we proclaim. We continue to self-justify what is not convenient at the time.
Zoroastrians lived for five thousand years in a reveled series of myths gave us the Code of Hammurabi and eventually all this codified power and religious zealotry became their destruction.
The Sumerian and Mesopotamian societies died due to the induction of religious intolerance. This was, projected from their leaders for self-enrichment purposes, ending in a tremendous black period of humanity. At the same time Babylonian kings where trying to salvage the damage in they kingdoms Egyptian mythology thrived.
Egyptians under even strictest codes, including how their Gods were to be please every hour of the day. Egyptians were strict in enforcing laws, in which they believed ferociously. Egyptians controlled how any object or person should be represented for any public purpose. Egyptians formalized the system of religious leaders by forming laws in their mythology, they had a two thousand years leadership that was their own destruction when they codified religion and social behavior and monetary greed went rampant.
Egyptians codified who was allowed to talk in righteous way of their Gods or who was a channel of their Gods. Egyptians went as far as codifying how the social leaders must be dusted with powder when portrayed in any public event.
The Egyptians kept a control of every aspect of their society for thousands of years. Egyptians had a proclivity to subjugate and slave any person they encounter along their path. Behavior they learned from Mesopotamian and it carried over to our present times.
By looking at a piece of art from the early Pharos period versus one thousand years later, the changes are imperceptible for the non-expert. One might think Egyptians were just a blip in history and all they know was to paint or cave straight lines and curious symbols so Egyptologists could make a living. All was a series of well crafted series of laws to control their citizens and still they destroyed their society and became a sand path forgotten for another thousand years. Time is not kind to abusers and destroyers of humans.
The Greeks took over from Egyptians and refined what the Egyptians learned from their social process and government controls. Greeks did realized the need of supporting their Gods and reduce the process of interpretation by religious arguments, as they arrived to their own decline due to grandiose omnipotent behavior, greed and subjugation of other people with abusive methods, very similar to their ancestor the Egyptians. This occurred in a much sorter period than the self-destructors predecessors. When the time for Greek theorists and elites arrived to feel the pain of the decline of their society, many moved to what we know now as Italy and build on what they thought was a better society.
Rome started to replicate what the Greek thinkers and military professionals learned from their past and started to accelerate their raise as leaders.
They also copied and tinker with religious and social myths, by the time Rome declined and was obliterated. The cycle of using religion to arise populace feelings was accompany by the used of horrendous spectacles, that made the Taleban soccer game intermissions of stoning people a dance ball. Rome had become a large corrupt monetary market, and religious orders were created to control production and taxes. When all ingredients of destruction of societies were in place, greed and religion did the job to destroy Roman society at a tremendous pace. We entered a dark age of seven hundred years. The rising of Arabian influence in Southern Europe, settle some of the regressions the destruction of Rome carry over hundred of years.
Suddenly, the east was having another raising start in Alexander, and the cycle continue with rise and declines accelerating. We all are familiar with the latest two thousand years of destruction and reconstruction.
The latest one, prior to the present cycle, was the European war, this process lasted just two Popes. The embattled industrialists using religion to induce radicalism and those who totally repudiated both premises, ended in a massacre that we all know it well. Up to day, the largest holocaust induced in any society.
This latest self-destruction by humans can be the biggest disgrace that we have to carry today.
But have not learn much.
Today, we have emerging greed driven mass murders as the Hutus and Tutsi situation or present Somalia. These two conflicts use religious connotations to obtain monetary greed and kill millions of people.
Myth is wonderful tool to manipulate populace by their educated leaders. Build myths has not other purpose that sue concepts of pseudo-simplicity to make the understanding pleasant with the purpose to extend fanaticism.
Now is time to see what the American Heritage dictionary says about the definition of MYTH:
1.a. A traditional, typically ancient story dealing with supernatural beings, ancestors, or heroes that serves as a fundamental type in the world view of a people , as by explaining aspects of the natural world or delineating the psychology , custom or ideals of society: the myth of Eros and Psyche; a creation myth. 1.b. Such stories considered as a group: the realm of myth.
2. A Story, a theme, and object, or a character regarded as embodying an aspect of a culture.
3. A fiction or half-truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology.
4. A fictitious story, person, or thing.
From Webster’s collegiate and Thesaurus:
Myth. A traditional story of ostensibly historical content whose origin was lost,
legend, mythos, allegory. Related to, saga, fable, fabrication, fiction, figment creation, invention.
From the dictionary of Cultural Literacy:
Mythology is the body of myths belongings to a culture. Myths are traditional stories about gods and heroes. They often account for the basic aspects of existence-explaining, for instance, how the earth
Was created, why people have to die, or why the year is divided in seasons. Classical mythology- the myths of the ancient Greeks and Romans- has had an enormous influence on European and American culture.
If we self reflect, and look around us we have a lot of work to find a better path.
Myths are dangerous and we are in a rising tide of myths becoming fanaticisms.
