Today we started Mythology in my class, and I have been asked to blog about three more questions. The questions I will be attempting to answer are "What are the most significant contrasts between ancient worldviews in modern Western worldviews?, How can understanding a culture's basic worldview help us better understand or interpret its history?, and how would I define mythology?" So here are my answers to these questions.
There are many contrasts between ancient and modern worldviews, so I will try to only hit the highlights. One of the largest differences is the time and technology difference. Today people think they are their own creation or that they craft their own stories, but in more ancient times people served "gods" and some devoted their entire lives just trying to please their "gods." People back then knew there was a God, but simply went with the religion that they grew up with, but today people are beginning to wonder if their even is a God, and if there is one, does He care about the people on Earth. Another difference is that people back then did not worry about things like Twitter, Facebook, or the latest way to have "friends", or any other technology for that matter. Because they didn't have to worry about their image, People could spend more time on what they loved to do. These are the two largest differences between these two worldviews to my knowledge. I know there are many other differences, but I believe these two sums all of the major differences.
This next question is a fairly simple and straightforward one to answer. The cultures basic worldview will help put things into perspective when you read about what they do throughout history.
The last one is a bit more complicated, so I'll try not to make my view on mythology too lengthy. Mythology can be taken two different ways; ancient myths, and modern myths. I'll start by describing ancient myths. Ancient myths deals more with a culture's beliefs about a certain religion. The best example of this is arguably Greek mythology. Almost everyone has heard of Greek mythology at one point in time, and therefor its is known as mythology because it is widely known and no one thinks it true. The other is modern mythology. This mythology is more of ideas that are told that are thought to be true, but aren't proven. The best example I can think of is that you have to wait 30 minutes before swimming if you have just eaten.
I have done my best to answer these 3 questions, and I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog
-Daran
A very important general distinction between ancient worldviews and modern western worldviews, is that the ancient worldviews are profoundly supernaturalistic, whereas the modern worldviews are largely materialistic.
ReplyDeleteAlthough mythologies are not bound by fact, they do point to some essential truths about the cultural worldview that produced them. They can give us clues regarding how cultures perceive nature and humanity, the relationship between humanity and the divine, and which types of behavior given cultures might value.
Be certain to blog your definition of aetiological myth and provide an example of such a myth from the Theogany.
ReplyDelete