October 26, 2018 Friday
Bedtime Story
Myth as Religion's Backbone
This led to the creation of moral panic in
the society leading to witch-hunts, pseudo trials and lynching of women the
most famous and well-popularized example being the Salem Witch Trials of 1692
of colonial Massachusetts and Connecticut.
This is a good example of a religious story
that no one would label as a mythology and yet most religious stories clearly
appear as mythologies to people of other religions.
For instance no matter how appealing the
ideals of Buddhism may be to its followers and even to few of its non-followers
such as the average Pan narrans, the story of Buddha being conceived by a white
elephant holding a white lotus flower when his mother Queen Maya was fast
asleep is impossible to believe.
So it is a myth to me as surely and
certainly it is to the non-Buddhists.
For the same reason the parting of the Red
Sea as described both in Exodus (the founding myth of Israelites) and in Surah
26 of Quran, Muhammad’s Night Journey “to the farthest mosque” and from there
his ascension to heavens and lastly the most popular one of Resurrection of
Jesus must sound patently irrational both to Hindus and Buddhists alike.
These events not only contradict the
fundamental laws of physics (specially the conservation laws which very aptly
the whole narrative is all about) but also our daily experience of reality that
we go through every day.
Those past bygone years were no special
than today.
If religions and mythology were not
confusing enough, there enters yet another entity known as theology which makes
the water muddier so to speak by seeking some kind of rationality to both the
above.
Theology though is a subject is many
universities it is truly speaking a sophisticated attempt of believers to
explicate or illuminate their faith is a more intellectual manner.
Sincere and truthful theologians would of
course realize what various religions are all about.
It would not be too difficult for them to
grasp the reality of the mythical backbone that all religions are propped up
with.
Theologians who deal with comparative
religious studies would find that religious mythologies often share some common
features that include:
(1.) Preexisting paradise much before the
creation of the universe that support human apes and which is the ultimate
temptation for all humans to vie for and die for.
You might be surprised to now that the
origin of the word “paradise” is not from Greek or Latin which of course engineered
in its evolution to its present form but old Iranian language paridayda- which
means “walled enclosure”.
As per the Christian and Islamic understanding,
Paradise is a place where one attains paradisiacal relief which quite
ironically even the Story telling chimpanzee agrees in a strange sort of way
for he considers the dead ones to be lucky and those never born the most
fortunate.
(2.) Creation myths – the most common and
appealing one being the creatio ex nihilo.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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