RELS 250 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Greek Mythology, Ancient Greek Philosophy, Reductionism
Document Summary
We can"t see myth as a thing of the past. You get defensive because other ideas try to undermine your own living myths. But these things are changing gender roles are changing, etc. We need those roots to provide consistency in the chaos of life because consistency is comfortable. Structural functionism eliade: myth serves a function for some people. Origins of the term: from the greek mythos, meaning (cid:532)speech(cid:533) or (cid:532)story(cid:533) (delivered by word of mouth) and possibly revelatory; homer believed that myths could teach morals, they"re not just for entertainment. Myth as a traditional story, valid or not it has a history. Myth as (cid:532)ideology in narrative form(cid:533: normalizes. According to thury, myth can be defined as a (cid:532)traditional narrative that is used as a designation of reality (cid:533: positioning some kind of reality, this story that has a history is telling us something about the world.
