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 several meanings in the English language. Probably the best place to find out these meanings is to consult [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. Others 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 frequently the mistaken impression is being 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 not all, think that 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 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; calling the traditional stories of extant religions "myths" is jarring.
• 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." (They won't expect to find Bible stories under "Christian mythology," for example.)

CONS:

• This perpetuates bias in favour of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, against ancient polytheistic religions; perpetuating such bias would not appear to be NPOV
  • Reply: this seems to me a misunderstanding of what "neutral point of view" means. Writing from the NPOV means writing so as not to make the text suggest that any extant views might be any more likely than any others, or in other words, letting people make up their own minds as regards extant views. Who cares what people believed 2500 years ago, if no one has such beliefs now?
• 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
  • Reply: this seems to be another misunderstanding of the meaning of "NPOV." Since no one does, in fact, believe those old religious tales, it is totally uncontroversial to let Wikipedia say imply, by the unqualified, straightforward use of the word "myth," that they're false.
    • Reply: Can you be certain that not one person today believes them? And it is not "totally uncontroversial" to imply them to be false -- I, for one, am strongly opposed to doing so, and I'm sure several other people are as well. An encyclopedia should not be in the business of telling people that religious beliefs are true and false -- that implies both to currently popular religious beliefs, like Christianity, and no longer popular religious beliefs, like the ancient Greek and Roman religions. And an encyclopedia should treat all religions equally -- it should not give Christianity special consideration just because many people believe it.
• Using different terms for the stories of ancient polytheistic religions on the one hand, and the stories of Judaism, Christianity and Islam (to say nothing of Hinduism or Buddhism) 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
  • Reply: the notion that there are such similarities is bound to be somewhat controversial for some. In any case, it's exceedingly obvious that the way to point out such similarities is not simply to use the word "myth" to describe both sets of stories, and let it go at that. It would be to investigate and report about what research has been done on "the mythology of extant religions." Surely there's no reason to oppose formulating the point about the similarities in such a fashion? Won't that make everyone happy?
• Presumably this option should be referring to any present-day religion, not just Judaism, Christianity or Islam? Probably practically any "myth" ever invented is still believed by somebody.
• There would be difficulties when the myths from "ancient polytheistic religions" have been incorporated into a present day religion, e.g., would the idea of the "great flood" need to be omitted from Sumerian mythology article to avoid offending somebody who didn't want it described as a myth?

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 - 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. - 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

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&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

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

/talk