Revision 714604 of "Folklore, myth and religion" on metawiki

This page is for discussion of [[w:folklore]], [[w:religion]], and [[w:mythology]].

=== Use of the words 'Myth', 'Mythology', etc. ===hi,k

The word 'myth' has several meanings in the English language.  Probably the best place to find out these meanings is to consult [http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=myth a dictionary].  One meaning, roughly, has it that a myth is "a story that express the religion, beliefs and morals of a culture" and another meaning is roughly "a story that is false or made-up".  The boundary between the two meanings is unclear.

Some argue that only relatively rarely is "myth" used in such a way as not to imply or suggest that the stories of a culture are in any way dubious.  They argue that typically, the "myth" is used specifically to suggest that the stories are not to be relied upon as true, though, for all we know, they might be true. Other people disagree with this, and say that "myth" is frequently used ''without intending to make any judgement about the truth or falsehood of the myths,'' although sometimes the mistaken impression is given that such an intention exists.

In English, we normally reserve the terms "myth" and "mythology" for the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions (such as those of Greece or Rome), which have few or no followers today. Except in some academic and critical contexts, we generally do not call the stories of Judaism, Christianity or Islam "myths" or "mythologies."  Many people, though maybe not all (e.g. Hegel seems to consider Christianity different because of its resemblance to "philosophy" and Nietzsche, especially in ''Birth of Tragedy'', seems to consider Christianity worse or more degenerate; see also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_to_avoid Words to avoid]), think that from a religiously neutral point of view the stories of these extant religions are not a fundamentally different phenomenon from those stories that we do call myths.

Seven options have been proposed so far, by various people, for using the terms 'myth', 'mythology', etc., on Wikipedia:

=== Use of the words 'Myth', 'Mythology', etc. ===

The word 'myth' has several meanings in the English language.  Probably the best place to find out these meanings is to consult [http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=myth a dictionary].  One meaning, roughly, has it that a myth is "a story that express the religion, beliefs and morals of a culture" and another meaning is roughly "a story that is false or made-up".  The boundary between the two meanings is unclear.

Some argue that only relatively rarely is "myth" used in such a way as not to imply or suggest that the stories of a culture are in any way dubious.  They argue that typically, the "myth" is used specifically to suggest that the stories are not to be relied upon as true, though, for all we know, they might be true. Other people disagree with this, and say that "myth" is frequently used ''without intending to make any judgement about the truth or falsehood of the myths,'' although sometimes the mistaken impression is given that such an intention exists.

In English, we normally reserve the terms "myth" and "mythology" for the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions (such as those of Greece or Rome), which have few or no followers today. Except in some academic and critical contexts, we generally do not call the stories of Judaism, Christianity or Islam "myths" or "mythologies."  Many people, though maybe not all (e.g. Hegel seems to consider Christianity different because of its resemblance to "philosophy" and Nietzsche, especially in ''Birth of Tragedy'', seems to consider Christianity worse or more degenerate; see also [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_to_avoid Words to avoid]), think that from a religiously neutral point of view the stories of these extant religions are not a fundamentally different phenomenon from those stories that we do call myths.

Seven options have been proposed so far, by various people, for using the terms 'myth', 'mythology', etc., on Wikipedia:

=== Option 2 ===

Call the stories of both the ancient polytheistic religions, and of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, "myth". Explain clearly that we are using "myth" here 

PROS:
* Does not discriminate between ancient polytheistic religions, and Judaism, Christianity and Islam, nor show bias towards the latter
* Shows clearly the similarities, and allows easy comparison, between stories of the different religions, both polytheistic and monotheistic
* People will be expecting to find the stories of the ancient Greek and Roman religions under the name "mythology"
CONS:
* Some people may be offended by calling the Jewish, Christian and Islamic stories "myth". Even if we explain that we are using "myth" in a neutral sense, without intending to say anything about the truth or falsehood of the stories, or the rationality of the people who believe these stories, the word "myth" still has connontations of falsehood in most people's minds, connontations that may be impossible to avoid

=== Option 3 ===

Avoid use of the words 'myth' and 'mythology' altogether. Refer to the stories of both groups of religions as simply 'religious stories' or some other term.

PROS:
* Does not discriminate between ancient polytheistic religions, and Judaism, Christianity and Islam, nor show bias towards the latter
* Does not suffer from any unavoidable negative connontations that the word 'myth' may have, when applied to the stories of either set of religions
CONS:
* People will be expecting the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions to be listed under 'myths'. The use of non-standard terminology may confuse people, and may make it hard for people to find what they are looking for.
* English lacks a simple, clear, and easy to use alternative to the word 'myth'. 'Religious stories' is a mouthful, and does not clearly refer to what we are talking about (many Christian novels, for instance, could be called 'Christian religious stories', but only literature like the Bible, and some other sources, is really comparable to polytheistic mythology)

=== Option 4 ===

Call the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions "myths" or "mythology"; do NOT apply the words "myth" and "mythology" to the sacred texts of modern religions; DO apply the words "myth" and "mythology" to certain relevant non-sacred stories that are linked to religious themes or traditions. For example, compare [[Christian mythology]] and [[Bible stories]].

PROS:
*Few people are likely to be offended by calling the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions "myths" or "mythology".
*People will be expecting to find the stories of the ancient Greek and Roman religions under the name "mythology".
* Does not apply negative connotations to anyone's current religious beliefs.
* Still allows consideration of non-sacred stories as myth.
CONS:
* Treats ancient religions and modern religions slightly differently.
* Some people may be offended by the implications of any word structure that puts "Mythology" next to "Christian."

NOTE: This option is a variation on option 1 above; maybe we could we merge the two?

=== Option 5 ===

Call the stories / myths "legends."  This word has almost the same denotation as the first definition of "myth" listed above, but does not have the negative connotation.

PROS:
*The word mostly lacks the negative qualities of "myth."
CONS:
*Possible difficulty for people looking for "myths," although redirects could be used.
*Although the negative conontations for this word are not as strong as for "myth", it still has some negative conontations, and thus some people might still be offended if we apply it to their religion. ''Huh?  I've never heard of "Legend" being used in a negative way.  Ever.''
:Calling something a 'legend' or 'legendary' can also give an implication that it is false, although the implication is not as strong as it is for 'myth'. Legend in some usages is a synonym for 'myth': see e.g. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, sense 3 "Any wonderful story coming down from the past, but not verifiable by historical record; a myth; a fable." [http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=legend]

::Right, but a synonym does not necessarily carry the connotation of the original word, as in the case of legend.  The whole point of the word "legend" is to be something upon which people can agree, provided they have no axe to grind (<i>i.e.</i> that they are not dedicated to using the word "myth" to imply falsehood and that they are not dedicated to the word in question implying absolute veracity) --[[Alex Kennedy]]

=== Option 6 ===

Call the stories "Fooism Mythology and <Religious> Stories", and include both stories Fooism believe to be true and stories Fooism believes to be false. Let the reader decide which they think are false and which are true. Do not include stories directly from scripture unless there are mythological beliefs as well, outside the scripture itself, and then discuss the mythological aspects. IOW, consider scripture outside of mythology (as in 4 above).

PROS:
*No implication is made about any individual story's truth or falsity. Few people are likely to be offended by acknowledging that all religions have some "mythology" in the pejorative sense, as long as we don't call any particular story a myth.
*Usage is true to convention for Greek Mythology, etc., with two extra words added.
*Does not perpetuate bias against any group.
*Allows you to compare and contrast the stories on their historical and literary qualities without involving their truth except as side notes as to who believes them, staying npov.

CONS:
*Some people still might be offended by the use of "mythology" in reference to *any* stories, but this seems unlikely as long as we make sure the set of stories includes some they consider false or legendary (e.g., Holy Grail myths for Christians).
*It's a bit wordy

=== Option 7 ===

Sometimes there is a well-defined English standard.  Greek mythology is called Greek mythology by pretty much everyone, and in fact Greek religion means something somewhat broader.  Further the term is not inaccurate in anyone's book, since ''myth'' doesn't necessarily imply falsehood (Tolkien, a devout Christian and linguist, had no problems with calling the resurrection a myth).  We shouldn't be in the business of revising the language, we should be in the business of informing people about the topic, so when such a standard exists we should simply adopt it.
:Tolkien never called the resurrection "a myth". He called it "the true myth" unique amoung mythology (Tolkien saw all mythology as having "shards" of truth) in that it actually happened in history -- [[Asa Winstanley]] - ''Yeah, I know.  Being the true myth makes you a myth.''

CONS:
*This option seems a bit ambiguous. It doesn't seem to clearly answer the question "What should we call the stories of the Bible? Should we call them myths or not?"

=== Discussion ===

Option 4 provided by [[Cayzle]] (By the way, thanks, Simon, for making this page!)

My preference is also for option 2; this encyclopedia isn't supposed to be written "for" any particular cultural group, and that includes Christians. I see no reason to give their myths special treatment compared to other equivalent stories and/or beliefs just because there are more of them online at the moment. Failing that, I'd accept option 4. I don't like option 3 but I could live with it if the alternative is endless edit-wars, and I ''really'' don't like option 1. - [[Bryan Derksen|BD]]

My preference is obviously for option 5, since I wrote it.  I disagree that using "myths" for everything religious would make the 'pedia NPOV.  I think this would promote an atheist point of view (which is not the same as a neutral point of view) --[[Alex Kennedy]]

Heh. [[English]] is an enormous and akward [[Frankenstein's monster]] of a [[language]], but every once and a while that huge lump of vocabulary comes in handy. "Greek Legends" sounds reasonable to me. - [[Bryan Derksen|BD]]

My preference is six, since I just added it. Failing that, 2, 3, 4. --[[Dmerrill]]

My first preference is still option 2. I'd be okay with option 5 if it involved calling both polytheistic and Jewish/Christian/Islamic stories "legends" -- I'm concerned though that calling Christian stories legends may still offend people, for the term has some negative conontations, although they are not as bad as the word 'myth'. My next choice, after 2 and 5, would be option 3. Options 1, 4 and 6 would be for me my last choice -- I think the three options are fundamentally identical; the only difference is that options 4 and 6 recognizes that there are some Christian stories, (e.g. King Arthur, St. George and the Dragon, etc.), which are probably safe to call 'myths', since few people believe them today. Also, option 6 seeks to separate myth from scripture, but how can we do that in the case of the Greeks or Romans? They didn't have what I would call scripture, so then option 6 isn't really different from option 4, it just has slightly different terminology. Alternatively, maybe we can consider the works of Homer, Hesiod, Vergil, etc., to be scripture -- but in that case many of the stories we commonly call mythology would fall under scripture, not mythology. I'm not exactly sure what option 7 involves (the wording of the option above doesn't clearly answer the question "should we call the stories of the Bible myth or not?"). The main principle that I think ought to be followed in this is: being NPOV is a more fundamental value for an encyclopedia than either clarity or avoiding offense.

I think its a good thing that people have added options in addition to the three I originally provided, but I think we should try to prune the options available down from 7 to a more manageable number, to help us decide more clearly. I would propose merging options 1 and 4 together, and removing option 7 (unless its author wants to try to make clearer exactly what it proposes.) -- [[SJK]]

:Option 7 was actually intended more as a constraint on what our options are, then an option in and of itself.  The whole ''stories from the Greek religion'' thing was silly, firstly because there were several Greek religions, but more particularly because Greek mythology is the almost universal name for those.  Whatever are standards end up as, we want to call them myths, because that is what they are called - even to the point of inconsistency, I'd say.

I'm a Christian and I kinda favour 6. But i would prefer scriptures are refered to as stories, extra scriptual as myths and polytheistic stuff as myths (i understand this in the Tolkien way - containing elements of truth, that are ultimately looking forwards to the "true myth" - the life death and ressurection of Jesus Christ.). Failing those, 1. There is a huge difference between (e.g.) the Iiliad and (e.g.) the Bible. Hmm.. maybe merging 1&amp;4 will producing something good. We'll see - [[Asa Winstanley]]
:Asa, I can see how there is a huge difference between the Iliad and the Bible from the point of view of your personal religious beliefs -- but can you point to any huge and relevant religiously neutral differences (i.e. major differences, which are relevant to what we should call them, and which both a Christian and an ancient Greek who believed the Iliad could agree on)?  -- [[SJK]]

:Some people may be concerned that the term "greek mythology" is nothing more than Christian propoganda against polytheistic religions.  What is the origin of the term, anyway? -- [[hagedis]]

I guess you already know what I think about this.  I think most of these options are obvious nonstarters. --[[LMS]]

I have added "replies" under three points above.  I hope no one minds.  Feel free to reply to the replies, of course (that'd only be fair). --[[LMS]]

Someone added to my point about some saying that "myth" is used without the intention of implying falsehood that the some was "a minority of English speakers". You missed the point. Pick up a book about Greek myths. Is the message of the book going to be "These are all made up stories and you shouldn't believe in them unless you are stupid or irrational"? I don't think so. So even if the reader, when they hear the word "myth", may get the impression that we are saying "you are a fool if you believe them", most of the time that is not our intention -- our intention is to talk about the content of the myths. -- [[SJK]]

:However, part of the point is also that you will be a fool if you don't think that these stories have something serious to say (why we use the word "myth" rather than "fable", "folktale", "silly story", etc.)

::Simon, if you're going to attempt to make a Wikipedia policy page, be prepared for it to be generally edited; you don't control it.  I think you're misunderstanding the point.  The point is not that some people believe "myth" means "false story," pure and simple.  Notice that the definition says myths "are not to be relied upon as true, though, for all we know, they might be true."  This doesn't imply that people are fools to believe myths, but they certainly would be ''gullible'' to believe anything simply handed down by tradition, without further evidence.  Again, I am firmly persuaded that this is how ''most'' people understand what "myth" means.
:I don't own this page -- everyone has the right to edit it. But, IIRC, I originally wrote that sentence, and the addition of "a minority of English speakers" makes it say something different from what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that, in most serious discussions of ancient myths (as opposed to other uses of the word "myth"), the primary point of using the word "myth" is not to convey the idea that they are false or ought not be believed or are probably not true, but rather that they are stories with certain features. It is not a usage; it is an opinion about most people's usage in that particular context. Adding "a minority of English speakers" seems to me to be a misunderstanding that this represents a usage rather than an opinion about most people's usages -- [[SJK]]

Some may consider what I'm about to say non-contributory, but I think this whole discussion is a bit silly. Setting policy on acceptable word-use to avoid offending people is, in my mind, dopey. Anything that is written will offend somebody. Instead of worrying about what readers will think (since if they have a strong opinion, they can just edit the entries), just write what ''you'' think. Standards of this kind are, in my mind, unnecessary, misguided, and stifling. --TheCunctator
:Actually, I think now I agree with you Cunctator. I was so concerned about '''how''' this should be done, I didn't stop to consider '''if''' it should be done. Its not really needed. [[AW]]

::Well, we certainly don't need a "Wikipedia Religion and Mythology standards" page to discuss this tiny issue.  I'm insisting on the point mainly because I think it's very important what our joint understanding of what the [[neutral point of view]] policy entails--but also, indeed, because we shouldn't offend large important classes of Wikipedia writers and readers simply because we think it's sophisticated and clever to refer to Christian traditional stories as "myth."  My impression is that some people (not just Simon or the original author of [[Christian Mythology]]) are adamant about ''not'' going out of their way to accommodate views with which they disagree.  I am trying to encourage the view that we should do this as much as we can.  Even though I am not a Christian, I think it is extremely important that we do our best not to trivialize their opinions, and I think I've got excellent reason to believe that using the phrase "Christian mythology" uncritically, without deep discussion of the very meaning and import of the phrase, ''does'' trivialize their opinions.  Moreover, I am firmly persuaded that we can avoid trivializing their opinions ''without'' ignoring what happens to be ''my own'' opinion, that in fact, very many traditional Christian stories ''are'' little more than myths. --[[LMS]]
:I created a "Wikipedia Religion and Mythology standards" page because I thought this sort of discussion belongs on some form of meta page, not any particular article's Talk page, since it could touch several different articles. The inspiration for the name came from "Wikipedia History standards" -- possibly if we had this page here, people might be inspired to add other standards/guidelines/proposals/whatever to it. Secondly, calling Christian stories myths should not offend anyone if we make clear what definition of "myth" we are using when we do so. (Of course, some people may still be offended after this, but people like that aren't using their noggins.) I'm not trying to trivalize the opinions of Christians -- I'm an on and off Christian myself. This dispute has absolutely nothing to do with people's views about religion, it is about what meaning should we attach to the word "myth", a word which is used in two different senses (however much most people fail to clearly distinguish them). And I'm not too sure what deep discussion you need here -- explaining that "when we call a story a myth, we are not saying it is false or dubious or unlikely to be true: despite the popular usage to the contrary, we are merely saying that it is a story about events that it claims happened in the past, and which express the beliefs, morals, etc" of the people who believe it. Isn't that deep enough? -- [[SJK]]




From a lurker...

I think '''Option 4''' makes the most sense, with one modification.  I would take stories like St. George and the dragon, etc., as "legendary".  Why?  precisely because of the nuance that "legend" gives...i.e., maybe just a little more rooted in something historical.  By the same token, I'd want to put Gilgamesh under legend rather than myth...maybe.  It's  a fuzzy area.  Back to the main point, though -- It's perfectly sensible to discuss ancient myth vs. sacred texts.  First, there is a rich tradition in English-language scholarship that supports it.  Second, ancient religion, at least for the Greeks and Romans (and I think  for the Celts and Germans, from what we actually can prove) was about worship, NOT BELIEF.  Belief was not required, just the proper observation of ritual.  Third, one of the old standards of myth still holds -- most, if not all, myths, explain natural phenomena within the context of actions of gods and heroes.  With the exception of the creation story and the flood in the Bible, most of it doesn't fit that definition of myth.    --My $.05
:I'd be interested in some more detail on this "rich tradition" of scholarship that supports "ancient myth vs. sacred texts". Secondly, belief was, at least in some cases, required -- remember Socrates' trial on charges of atheism? Third, I admit that is a difference between most ancient myths and most Bible stories (but there are some differences), but even if that is true, and we shouldn't call those bible stories myths, stories like the Creation, Fall and the Flood are myths, and have a lot of analogs in other cultures (countless creation myths; lots of flood myths in that area as well; also quite a few cultures have explanations of how evil entered the world, e.g. Pandora's box). -- [[SJK]]
----
A lot of the problem has to do with word connotations.

Story
:Can easily be made clear through context whether it's a traditional tale, a modern composition by a named author; intended as fiction, history, etc.

Legend
:Works for old stories like Robin Hood. 

Myth (a) old story or (b) false story
:It's hard to apply ''myth'' to widely held current beliefs, especially religious beliefs. This usage offends or bewilders the faithful (like me). Exception: "creation myth" seems okay somehow (don't ask me why, it just does).

If anyone is worried about the wikipedia inadvertently endorsing a particular religious view (or even religion in general), we already have a way with dealing with that. There are many NOPV phrases such as:
:widely held
:no longer generally believed
:according to some
:hotly contested

[[Ed Poor]]
----
I wouldn't characterize those as NPOV phrases, but as vaguely qualifying phrases. 

... or as they're known in marketing circles, weasel words.


[[Category:Essays]]

I have the answer, and it is simple.  'Saga' can be used instead of myth (which does have certain connotations).  I don't find the same one with saga.