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Did the Greek and Roman mythologists mean for their stories to be taken literally?

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Just poking my head in to say:

Despite the Bible stating that gays are supposedly unallowed, and all that, there is a notable number of people who are, well best to say, they'd be a member of the QUILTBAG group we have. And this includes a number of famous people to boot, including he frontman of Queen, as well as Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day.

I would personally believe that Chistianity should be changed, ever so slightly, to allow these kind of affections, simply because it would be unfair to people who would otherwise be model citizens, to essentially be told that they have to be straight, or they are an offense to God, and should burn


I'm saying this as a straight guy, just so y'all know.
 
Eon Spirit said:
Just poking my head in to say:

Despite the Bible stating that gays are supposedly unallowed, and all that, there is a notable number of people who are, well best to say, they'd be a member of the QUILTBAG group we have. And this includes a number of famous people to boot, including he frontman of Queen, as well as Billy Joe Armstrong of Green Day.

I would personally believe that Chistianity should be changed, ever so slightly, to allow these kind of affections, simply because it would be unfair to people who would otherwise be model citizens, to essentially be told that they have to be straight, or they are an offense to God, and should burn


I'm saying this as a straight guy, just so y'all know.
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Wrong argument. I would LOVE to go into detail with this, but this is about Greek/Roman myths and how they compare to current religions.

Speaking of which, here's a scary thought for the religious; in a hundred thousand years' time, your religion may become myth.
 
True, but to be classified as true myth, I think, the major consensus must be that it's just stories people long ago believed and has no relevance in today's society.

Half the world still shapes their culture around their respective religions, so not yet.
 
True, but to be classified as true myth, I think, the major consensus must be that it's just stories people long ago believed and has no relevance in today's society.
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"True myth"? To my knowledge "mythology" can refer to any set of traditional stories. Why would they have to be irrelevant?
 
Grimdour said:
True myth as in no one lives their lives according to it anymore. Anyone can say "lol ur releejun is meeth" but until that religion falls out of consciousness and cultures drop the rituals and overtones associated with it, it won't be a real myth.
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I've had a look around, and I don't know where you're getting this from. Wiki tells me that "in the study of folklore, a myth is a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form", which described the Bible pretty well, I think. I think there is a misconception held by a lot of people that myths must be old, because most of the ones you hear about growing up are (Greco-Roman, Egyptian, Norse, etc.). But that simply isn't true.

A quick google search is revealing. "Egyptian mythology" gets 700,000 results, "Norse mythology" gets 1.5 million, "Greek mythology" gets 6.5 million. "Christian mythology"? Over 13 million.
 
goldenquagsire said:
On a tangent: Classicists (and I know there are a few on TCOD), why is your subject considered distinct from mainstream History? I've heard arguments that because it's a holistic subject (i.e. it also involves elements of philosophy, languages and literature) it deserves a seperate discipline, but I would think that most modern historians consider these elements essential in discussions of their period of study?
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As somebody who identifies as a Classicist and who wants to study Classics at university, it's because Classical history is distinctly different from normal history in itself. The truth of the matter is that Classics isn't just the /study/ of the history that you do, but it is the study of the culture itself, the language itself, the philosophy itself. It combines ancient history, Latin, Classical Greek, ancient philosophy and ancient culture and is a look at all of them as one, as Classics. I didn't really express that particularly well, but there is a distinction.
 
Lorem Ipsum said:
As somebody who identifies as a Classicist and who wants to study Classics at university, it's because Classical history is distinctly different from normal history in itself. The truth of the matter is that Classics isn't just the /study/ of the history that you do, but it is the study of the culture itself, the language itself, the philosophy itself. It combines ancient history, Latin, Classical Greek, ancient philosophy and ancient culture and is a look at all of them as one, as Classics. I didn't really express that particularly well, but there is a distinction.
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So what you're saying is that Classical History doesn't just focus on names and dates, and what things happened where like ordinary history. You're saying that it studies the culture, general mindset, habits and beliefs of the 'little people' from the different periods in history, who are never spoken of in traditional history?

Or did I go totally off-track there?
 
Zoroark said:
So what you're saying is that Classical History doesn't just focus on names and dates, and what things happened where like ordinary history. You're saying that it studies the culture, general mindset, habits and beliefs of the 'little people' from the different periods in history, who are never spoken of in traditional history?

Or did I go totally off-track there?
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Oh god, please don't repeat the trite belief that history is 'just names and dates'. It really, really isn't.

What Lorem Ipsum was saying is that classics is the study not only of ancient history but of ancient literature, philosophy, languages, and so on. Which, I agree, sets it apart from history in general, but only insofar as someone decided that that particular period of history should get its own holistic study; there is no reason for classics to exist that can't also be used to justify the holistic study of a different time period.
 
opaltiger said:
Oh god, please don't repeat the trite belief that history is 'just names and dates'. It really, really isn't.

What Lorem Ipsum was saying is that classics is the study not only of ancient history but of ancient literature, philosophy, languages, and so on. Which, I agree, sets it apart from history in general, but only insofar as someone decided that that particular period of history should get its own holistic study; there is no reason for classics to exist that can't also be used to justify the holistic study of a different time period.
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I was merely asking for a clarification. As you've no doubt noticed from my mention of that trite belief, I have no knowledge of the discipline as a whole. I'm sure many others who join this debate won't either, so I thought the question was necessary.
 
Yes, I quite agree. And I think that actually, there are several holistic schools about other historical time periods - Oriental Studies, Egyptology, even looking at English Literary History with things like Beowulf and English heritage in terms of linguistics and culture there. Classics is just as big as it is because the seminal historical, philosophical and poetic texts were written in Ancient Greece and Rome, so it makes sense to study them.
 
I'm pretty sure they did. Myth comes in where science doesn't exist. And, for quite a long time, Homer's poems were the only trace of Greek history of that period we had.
 
I think I am right saying that everyone in that time believed that these gods exist, but not all did accept for example Homeros' stories. Indeed Platon and presumably Sokrates too despised these stories, because they showed gods as despicable as human beings. That was not possible because gods were perfect and perfect is not imperfect.

Oh yeah, the question. Yes, they did. These stories are comparable to gospels. They tell us information about godly happenings? wich cannot be verified but fit into to the beliefs of those it is meant to.

Now, I don't know if anyone is wrong or anyone is right. I don't know nothing. Infact, I am nothing. Please don't judge.
 
Given that discussion on this topic ceased in 2011, I'm gonna lock this thread. Please pay attention to how old a thread is before you bump it! If you're going further back than the first page, it's probably pretty old.
 
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