Origin of mythology
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
There are two widespread views about the origin of mythology.
- Evolutionists typically believe that mythology originated in fictional stories attempting to explain the world.
- Creationists typically believe that mythology originated through the corruption of the memory of historical events which actually occurred.
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Cargo cults
To understand the creationist view, let's consider an instance of modern mythmaking. After World War II, many Pacific Islanders were seen making walkie-talkies, airports, and landingstrips out of coconuts, and straw. They were seen talking into the "radios," asking for things like food, rain, or cures to illnesses.
The reason for this odd mythology was this: During World War II, many natives of Pacific islands came into contact with modern technology for the first time, when Americans and Japanese set up bases on islands to support their war efforts. During that time, they saw Americans and Japanese calling for supplies over walkie-talkies, and then saw planes land with those supplies at airports. Because they were not able to understand what the radio was or how it worked, after the Americans left, they tried to imitate what they had seen by making a likeness (or idol) of the radio, airport and landing-strip, and imitating what they had seen the Americans do.
This is a creationist view of mythology. Mythology is viewed not as a fiction arising spontaneously, but as a distortion and perversion of the memory of actual events. The creationist does not see the member of the cargo cult and wonder, "Wow! What a remarkable creative imagination these islanders have for fiction!" He sees him and says, "These people must have seen supplies brought by radio, airstrip, and airport in order to believe that these straw radios could do them any good."
Application of the model
Given the observed fact that men behave this way, we can ask further speculative questions:
- Why did every ancient society on Earth have a story of a Global flood in which one person saved himself, his family, and animal life in a boat? Is this a widespread fiction, or a memory of historical events that has been corrupted through the years?
- Why did every ancient pagan society on Earth create images of particular gods, believing those gods to have power? Is this simply a widespread fiction of ignorance, or a widespread and distorted memory of powerful beings (perhaps the Bene Elohim) that had once been able to grant their wishes?
- Why did every ancient pagan society on Earth believe that these gods demanded sacrifices in order to grant their wishes? Is is simply a widespread fiction of ignorance, or a widespread and distorted memory of powerful beings (perhaps the Bene Elohim) that demanded sacrifices?
- Why did every ancient society on Earth describe the gods (or Bene Elohim) as corporeal, having bodies, and being able to marry and have children with humans?
- Why did every ancient society believe that humanity had been created from above, rather than evolving from below? Is this a widespread fiction of ignorance, or a widespread memory of a historical creation event?
The evolutionist is left to answer these questions:
- Are there any observed examples of people inventing purely fictional myths that were then taken as history? Can you provide a single instance of something that can be proven to be fiction being taken as fact? How does this compare with the numerous examples of myths developing from a distortion of history?
- Why are there so many common themes among myths, where societies as far apart as the Inca and Babylonians all believed in corporeal gods who demanded sacrifices, and a global flood? Are these mere coincidences? Did these ancient societies invent the exact same idea independently? Or are they all simply remembering events they all experienced?
Differentiating mythology and history
- Main Article: Hermeneutics
The question we are left with is, "How can we distinguish between mythology and history?" Obviously, there is no clear answer, because we cannot observe the events ourselves. We are stuck with some ambiguity. We can, however, look to a literary analysis of history and mythology to determine what genre a particular account belongs to. We can also consider whether certain beliefs have been falsified by science (For instance, the ancient Hindu belief that the Earth rested on the back of a Turtle). Finally, we can study the myths themselves, in an effort to slowly improve and clarify our picture of the events they were all trying to remember.
