Mythical world

A myth, is a story that makes sense of everything. Myths - unlike "fairy tales" are not "invented". They come from somewhere else. Sometimes, the exactly same myth - appears on the other side of the planet. Just do a search for creation myths or flood myths.
These are not "though about". Like "let's make a myth with these details". It would not work. Myths are not "thought", they are "felt".
Does not matter "real or not" . Beyond this. Why ?

See here :
Myths over Miami

That sense of mission, writes Harvard psychologist Robert Coles in The Spiritual Life of Children, may explain why some children in crisis -- and perhaps the adults they become -- are brave, decent, and imaginative, while others more privileged can be "callous, mean-spirited, and mediocre." The homeless child in Miami and elsewhere lives in a world where violence and death are commonplace, where it's highly advantageous to grovel before the powerful and shun the weak, and where adult rescuers are nowhere to be found. Yet what Coles calls the "ability to grasp onto ideals larger than oneself and exert influence for good" -- a sense of mission -- is nurtured in eerie, beautiful, shelter folktales

Ensuring that their truths survive regardless of their own fate is a duty felt deeply by these children, including one ten-year-old Miami girl who, after confiding and illustrating secret stories, created a self-portrait for a visitor. She chose a gray crayon to draw a gravestone carefully inscribed with her own name and the year 1998."

As you can see, free people create myths. Go back - to the time when everything around was mythical. As a child I can remember that. It was not something "invented" or something to be scared about. Just - by instinct we are seeking our own sense in all this.
Also search for Joseph Campbell. With no myths, we are dead. We are pieces of matter fighting for a while for some numbers on paper, then we disintegrate. We have nothing. With nothing to feel beyond this world - we are easily controlled. I am not talking about "religion". Or about "inventing a fantasy world".
Forget everything, the world is as you see it.

Carl Jung

I then realized on what the "dignity," the tranquil composure of the individual Indian, was founded. It springs from his being a son of the sun; his life is cosmologically meaningful, for he helps the father and preserver of all life in his daily rise and descent. If we set against this our own self -justifications, the meaning of our own lives as it is formulated by our reason, we cannot help but see our poverty. Out of sheer envy we are obliged to smile at the Indians* naivete and to plume ourselves on our cleverness; for otherwise we would discover how impoverished and down at the heels we are. Knowledge does not enrich us; it removes us more and more from the mythic world in which we were once at home by right of birth.

[edit on 29-3-2010 by pai mei]

Could it be that a lot of Myths have been brought about from people who have been taking Drugs?

I don't mean it in a derogortory way, I mean it as a more sensible way to explain it.

The Indians were well known for smoking Drugs and eating certain Mushrooms to bring on their Hallucinations.

Maybe myths start of as an Hullicination and then it becomes a Myth?

Or could it be that these myths really are stories of factual events that have been oraly passed down through various generations, until they were recorded, albeit somewhat distorted?

Could it be that these myths contain elements of fact, that if we bothered to look properly we would actually find that they had basis in fact.

All ancient societies on earth have a "flood" story... they can't have all spontaneously developed such a story.

All ancient societies on earth have a "creation" story, that all share major elements.

I could go on all day.

A great premis in the OP though. I like the ideas.

Myths are stories that people believe are true with out any real evidence.

For most people much of science is mythology. People believe it without any understanding.

why i believe that myths serve human understanding better the relegious doctine:

the mind is a malleable thing - perception and beliefs are relative and evolve from culture to culture, person to person, day to day.

myths take into account the morphus nature of knowledge, and yet sincerely seek to understand the way of things.



i could ramble on, as the topic is an inspiring one to me (check out my name) but i suppose i'm just trying to say, "groovy thread OP. thanks for the info".

cheers.

PS: Joseph Campbell ranks high on my list of swell humans.

Originally posted by Idiot232
Myths are stories that people believe are true with out any real evidence.

that is not entierly true, as evidence quite often is in the eye of the beholder

myths certainly use colorful imagery to describe concepts and events, but whether one says that in the begining there was a dragon of chaos named tiamat, or that in the begining there was the big bang, both are saying that there was a load of cosmic things going down back in the day.

I view myths like a an allegorical tale. the events dont really matter its the passing of old wisdom that does. jesus used metaphors and stories to pass understanding to ADD peasants so why cant every other spiritual helper :]