Wikipedia Religion and Mythology standards

This page is for discussion of Wikipedia standards for articles on Religion and Mythology

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

The word 'myth' has two primary meanings in the English language. The first meaning is roughly "a story that express the religion, beliefs and morals of a culture" and the second meaning is roughly "a story that is false or made-up". The first meaning does not involve any judgement on the truth or falsehood of the story, nor on the people who believe in the story; the second meaning says the story is false, and can imply that people who believe it to be true are ignorant or foolish.

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. We generally do not call the stories of Judaism, Christianity or Islam "myths" or "mythologies", although from a neutral point of view they do not appear to be a fundamentally different phenomena from those stories which we do call myths.

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

Option 1

Call the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions "myths" or "mythology"; do not use this term for the stories of Judaism, Christianity or Islam.

PROS:

• This is the usage that most people will be expecting and familiar with
• Few people are likely to be offended by calling the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions "myths" or "mythology"; some people may be offended by the use of those terms to describe the stories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, even if we explain to them that we are using it in a neutral sense.
• People will be expecting to find the stories of the ancient Greek and Roman religions under the name "mythology"

CONS:

• This perpetuates bias in favour of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, against ancient polytheistic religions; perpetuating such bias would not appear to be NPOV
• Calling the stories of the ancient polytheistic religions "myths" may be interpreted as a judgement on our part that these stories are false or ought not be believed; whatever our individual views on their truth or falsehood, it is not the job of an encyclopedia to tell people which religious tales they are to believe or disbelieve
• Using different terms for the stories of ancient polytheistic religions on the one hand, and the stories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam on the other, may obscure the similarities between the two phenomena, and makes a distinction which may not have any basis in the features of the stories themselves

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.

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

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. - 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. - 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

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&4 will producing something good. We'll see - Asa Winstanley

/talk