no proof of monsters?

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by truthontheloose
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

if every culture described all of these creatures in ruffly the same way independently of each other in they must have be on the something

That something being that we are all the same species, and we all have similar imaginations.

but look how peoples beliefs about other things are so different the reason that people who have totally different religions and cultures could describe the same thing is if they were really seeing something

reply to post by truthontheloose


If you apply the same broad and general criteria to "other things" that you apply to "monsters" then people's beliefs are almost identical.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

but look at how different cultures are from each other

reply to post by truthontheloose


Hello and welcome to ATS.

I will speak from personal experience, as a person who has traveled all over my country looking for such myths and legends. I'm from Greece and we have a very long list of folk tales that include vampires, fairies and other such creatures.

The truth is that there is no actual proof. I have seen an alleged vampire grave in Crete and along with friends we have witnessed a weird creature/spirit/person in Olympia. In my time i have seen some crazy stuff and i have come to the conclusion that most of the legends have some truth in them (and that we live in a very weird world). Someday, when i will stop being very lazy, i will write about them.

vampires in Greece

On the other hand they are not animals. These are intelligent creatures. So if we assume that the folk tales are 100% true and they were being pursued by the humans, they probably learned how to hide themselves and not become a target.

Originally posted by truthontheloose
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

but look at how different cultures are from each other

you're just not getting the point - if you choose a broad set of criteria that makes all monsters from different cultures look pretty much the same then you must apply a similarly broad set of criteria to determining just how different cultures are - and when you have a broad set of criteria mist cultures are remarkably similar.

That's what broad criteria gets you - everything is essentially the same - whether it be monsters or culture.

reply to post by Phantom traveller


agreed

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul

Originally posted by truthontheloose
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

if every culture described all of these creatures in ruffly the same way independently of each other in they must have be on the something

Human descriptions are not independent of each other - we are all the same species, and we all have similar imaginations, and our cultures all originated in the same place and we almost certainly have more recent connections in prehistory that are simply not known. Each "new" culture brings with it stories from whatever it "split off" from in the distant past

and not all monsters are described in similar ways at all except in the most general of terms - eg flying, or eating humans, or changelings, etc.

don't you think if the ancients made it all up they would have said so i mean look at our fiction we have records to show it was made up in 500 years no one will think we believed in superman they will be able to tell he was a comic book character but the ancients believed in monsters and took them really seriously

edit on 27-6-2013 by Aloysius the Gaul because: (no reason given)

reply to post by truthontheloose


don't you think if the ancients made it all up they would have said so i mean look at our fiction we have records to show it was made up in 500 years no one will think we believed in superman they will be able to tell he was a comic book character but the ancients believed in monsters and took them really seriously
sorry that was part of the qoute i took from you