Myths are an immense part of our life, they shape the way we live, think and believe. When we are young we grow up with various myths that shape our childhood. For example, we grow up believing in Santa Clause, we believe that naughty kids will receive coal and nice kids will receive presents, which is a great way to conditions kids to behave. Life would not be as exciting if we did not have myths to believe in, as I mentioned before, growing up believing in Santa Clause is a great experience for kids, Christmas would not be as exciting without it. It would just be people giving each other gifts, but there's something special about watching the kids set cookies and milk out for Santa Clause and waiting for him to come down the chimney. This
Myth: The word myth comes from the Greek word 'mythos' which means 'to tell a story.' Myths can help to explain nature, history, cultural customs, and provide a form of entertainment. Myths often carry an important message for a culture, and help to convey belonging, shared religious experience, and teach moral lessons. The main characters in myths are usually Gods, Goddesses, or supernatural humans often portrayed as heroes. Myths were traditionally passed through the oral tradition (spoken word).
Myths are based on religion, supernatural beings or creators/gods or demigods, and explaining natural phenomena.
Myths have always played a part in society. They not only entertain the reader, but the mythological story also plays a major role in corroborative cultural beliefs. David Bidney writes “The function of a myth is thus held to be one of validating or justifying cultural beliefs and practices.” The mythical tale reiterates the moral practices and beliefs that a culture needs to succeed. A myth is a story, which can by written or spoken, that has four purposes for being told: it expresses humanity's fear of nature, it helps to explain the creation of the universe, it gives the reader moral guidelines that should be followed, and finally, it instructs the reader on how to cope with challenges that might arise during the day. Because the Old Testament offers stories that expresses explanations for mankind on dealing with crises, humanity's fear of nature, and moral guidance, they clearly fall into the category of a myth or mythological story.
A significant reason we so easily believe in myths is because of our brain’s predisposition to make things simpler. Our hectic lives distract us from distinguishing what is meaningful and what is not. This allows our minds to “trick” us into thinking something with absolutely no meaning at all has all of the meaning in the world. This is called patternicity and most likely comes from an evolutionarily, adaptive tendency. An example would be if someone was to eat a specific food and then get sick soon after. They would relate the sickness to that food and avoid it for some time. It doesn’t matter if the food was the actual cause of sickness or if it was just a coincidence. This comes from Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning and is called stimulus generalization.
...ide to them. The mythical side is present because a culture or society does not want to believe the facts that are known in an attempt to give reassurance to ones inner self. A modern example of a myth is the belief that one cannot achieve a pregnancy upon the primal intercourse experience. Research has proven that this is not true, but many believe or are told that this is the case. These types of myths are used today to create reassurance for those believing them. The word myth has been defined by scientific evidence throughout history. As scientific evidence has become clearer, early myths have become less clear to the present day human being. Even though early myths are becoming obsolete, they are still being studied to teach all aspects of life and culture past and present. Also, modern myths are being studied just as well to teach the aspects of the world today.
When it comes to myths, there are so many simple, everyday events or objects to be presented in different ways depending upon who is telling them. Depending upon what culture a myth comes from, there can be thousands of explanations of how the Earth was created, why the sky is blue or why the sun comes up every day. Each culture portrays their ideas of why the world works the way it works in order to understand our time on Earth.
Myths play an influential role in all cultures and societies. Back when communication was not easy, stories were told among family and friends to help spread lessons. Values to help children to learn about how to live a blessed life are made into these stories. One may not notice the same thing that happens today. Stories told of Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and creatures alike who reward those for being balanced.
What are myths? Myths are traditional stories explaining natural phenomenon in the universe. Greek came up to these myths because they want to explain things logic can’t explain and of what they can’t understand. In general, most myths include gods/goddesses/heroes that teach a moral (lesson) or to explain how things came to existence. Myths also help provide order in situations where no other explanation is apparent. For how humans were created on Earth, a myth was made for that.
The function of a myth is to explain natural phenomena. As we are young, we are ambiguous. Every single day, we see the sun, moon, sky, stars, etc and it just leaves us with such curiosity of how things are the way they are. We may not be curious about it everyday, but once in awhile it really makes you think. In a myth, it introduces you with an idea/result of how the world may just came about, not