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Forums - General - Most Influential Mythology?

 

Most influential myth for you?

Greek! 41 56.94%
 
Roman! 3 4.17%
 
Norse! 10 13.89%
 
Other myths 13 18.06%
 
No1currs 1 1.39%
 
See results. 4 5.56%
 
Total:72
kurasakiichimaru on 02 August 2011
Immortal said:
You seem to only be talking about popular culture, in which case Norse mythology is probably more influential. When considering ancient mythology or even modern day religions, though, I'd say that the ideology behind them and the significance of the moral lessons that they teach are far more important than the actual stories, characters and deities, which are hailed by popular culture. It's not, for example, supposed to be a fun story about a viking god who throws his eye in a well, but rather, you're supposed to see the significance of sacrificing important things to gain wisdom. Therefore, when you're considering influence, it would be best not to count the number of movies made on Greek gods, but rather to see what ideas that Greek mythology suggested that are still accepted today.
Not by any analysis or other scholarly means, but just by intuition, I'd probably say that Egyptian mythology would outrank most well-known mythologies as far as influence is concerned simply by predating them. That's because they all are very similar in more than one sense and the earliest religions probably influenced everything that followed anyhow.

Yeah, totally forgot about egyptian myth.



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Mr Khan on 02 August 2011
thetonestarr said:
kurasakiichimaru said:
sapphi_snake said:
Kasz216 said:

I'd go Greek. Seems more prevelant then norse... and roman though different... came from greek,(and a little norse.)

Also, don't be surprised when people ruin the thread and take it into a waaaay oftopic religious warfare thread the moment someone votes other and says Christianity.

Why would that be off topic? Christian mythology should be eligible, just like any mythology. Don't think it's the most influential though.


I think Christianity, Islam and other religions are very influential but religion involves faith while mythology does not. So adding religions to the poll about myth is off-topic.

No, the ancient mythologies all were faith-based religions as well.

 

The difference is whether or not people still follow them. For all intents and purposes, Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are deceased religions. Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc, all may have things as wild and fantastical as the deceased mythologies at times, but they're still widely practiced religions.

It's somewhat incorrect to assert that. Some modern religions are really based on "belief," moreso than the old mythologies are, in that you have to really "believe" the religion for it to impact you; namely Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Confucianism and Daoism are more philosophies than religions, while Shinto, Hindu, and, i would argue, Judaism, are more mythological in their focus (though Hinduism and Judaism have adopted more elements of the "faiths")

With the three "faiths" (Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to a point), it was about "the way to eternal salvation has been revealed to mankind, and ye shall participate in it or risk eternal damnation," the Chinese religions just make the simpler claim that "this is the best way to live in harmony with the world," and the "mythological" religions are more like "this is how the world and the cosmos are," and are more impersonal and based on a perceived cosmological history

Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies were very much like Hinduism, Shinto, and Judaism, Judaism just being unique in that its mythology bred two of the big revelatory religions, where Mohammed and Jesus made competing claims regarding how man shall receive the favor of God, whereas Judaism doesn't really address salvation or even promise much about heaven or hell (note also that Judaism in ancient times had no provision for conversion into the religion, Judaism was bound to the Jewish ethnicity strictly), and really "Christian mythology" is really just a subset of Jewish mythology, that this guy existed who was the son of Yahweh and who was crucified, died, and rose again, but the "myth" of Jesus is not what being a Christian is all about, as it's about knowledge and participation in the divine philosophy that Jesus preached.



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Scoobes on 02 August 2011
thetonestarr said:
kurasakiichimaru said:
sapphi_snake said:
Kasz216 said:

I'd go Greek. Seems more prevelant then norse... and roman though different... came from greek,(and a little norse.)

Also, don't be surprised when people ruin the thread and take it into a waaaay oftopic religious warfare thread the moment someone votes other and says Christianity.

Why would that be off topic? Christian mythology should be eligible, just like any mythology. Don't think it's the most influential though.


I think Christianity, Islam and other religions are very influential but religion involves faith while mythology does not. So adding religions to the poll about myth is off-topic.

No, the ancient mythologies all were faith-based religions as well.

 

The difference is whether or not people still follow them. For all intents and purposes, Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are deceased religions. Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc, all may have things as wild and fantastical as the deceased mythologies at times, but they're still widely practiced religions.

Not to mention that certain stories in the old testament are near identical to those found in Mesopotamian myths.




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MARCUSDJACKSON on 02 August 2011

love Greek Myth but aren't all religions Myth?

i hate Christian myth and all the sub affiliations with it like Baptist, Apostolic, and Pentecostals



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yo_john117 on 02 August 2011

Geek is probably the most influential.



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thetonestarr on 02 August 2011
Scoobes said:
thetonestarr said:
kurasakiichimaru said:
sapphi_snake said:
Kasz216 said:

I'd go Greek. Seems more prevelant then norse... and roman though different... came from greek,(and a little norse.)

Also, don't be surprised when people ruin the thread and take it into a waaaay oftopic religious warfare thread the moment someone votes other and says Christianity.

Why would that be off topic? Christian mythology should be eligible, just like any mythology. Don't think it's the most influential though.


I think Christianity, Islam and other religions are very influential but religion involves faith while mythology does not. So adding religions to the poll about myth is off-topic.

No, the ancient mythologies all were faith-based religions as well.

 

The difference is whether or not people still follow them. For all intents and purposes, Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are deceased religions. Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc, all may have things as wild and fantastical as the deceased mythologies at times, but they're still widely practiced religions.

Not to mention that certain stories in the old testament are near identical to those found in Mesopotamian myths.

A whole variety of stories in the OT are near-identical to a variety across SE Europe, north Africa, and the middle-east in general. That point holds little to no credence in this discussion, though, nor does it take from or lend to the credibility of any such stories.



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thetonestarr on 02 August 2011
Mr Khan said:
thetonestarr said:
kurasakiichimaru said:
sapphi_snake said:
Kasz216 said:

I'd go Greek. Seems more prevelant then norse... and roman though different... came from greek,(and a little norse.)

Also, don't be surprised when people ruin the thread and take it into a waaaay oftopic religious warfare thread the moment someone votes other and says Christianity.

Why would that be off topic? Christian mythology should be eligible, just like any mythology. Don't think it's the most influential though.


I think Christianity, Islam and other religions are very influential but religion involves faith while mythology does not. So adding religions to the poll about myth is off-topic.

No, the ancient mythologies all were faith-based religions as well.

 

The difference is whether or not people still follow them. For all intents and purposes, Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies are deceased religions. Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Christianity, etc, all may have things as wild and fantastical as the deceased mythologies at times, but they're still widely practiced religions.

It's somewhat incorrect to assert that. Some modern religions are really based on "belief," moreso than the old mythologies are, in that you have to really "believe" the religion for it to impact you; namely Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Confucianism and Daoism are more philosophies than religions, while Shinto, Hindu, and, i would argue, Judaism, are more mythological in their focus (though Hinduism and Judaism have adopted more elements of the "faiths")

With the three "faiths" (Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to a point), it was about "the way to eternal salvation has been revealed to mankind, and ye shall participate in it or risk eternal damnation," the Chinese religions just make the simpler claim that "this is the best way to live in harmony with the world," and the "mythological" religions are more like "this is how the world and the cosmos are," and are more impersonal and based on a perceived cosmological history

Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies were very much like Hinduism, Shinto, and Judaism, Judaism just being unique in that its mythology bred two of the big revelatory religions, where Mohammed and Jesus made competing claims regarding how man shall receive the favor of God, whereas Judaism doesn't really address salvation or even promise much about heaven or hell (note also that Judaism in ancient times had no provision for conversion into the religion, Judaism was bound to the Jewish ethnicity strictly), and really "Christian mythology" is really just a subset of Jewish mythology, that this guy existed who was the son of Yahweh and who was crucified, died, and rose again, but the "myth" of Jesus is not what being a Christian is all about, as it's about knowledge and participation in the divine philosophy that Jesus preached.


I'm not sure what in my post you're trying to disagree with. I never said that any of the aforementioned religions weren't more heavily based on philosophy than anything else; nor did I say they base themselves on the fantastic stories they contain. Everything you just said fits fine with what I said; it just expands on the information that I deliberately left out since it didn't pertain to the point I was making.



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Mr Khan on 02 August 2011
thetonestarr said:
Mr Khan said:

It's somewhat incorrect to assert that. Some modern religions are really based on "belief," moreso than the old mythologies are, in that you have to really "believe" the religion for it to impact you; namely Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism. Confucianism and Daoism are more philosophies than religions, while Shinto, Hindu, and, i would argue, Judaism, are more mythological in their focus (though Hinduism and Judaism have adopted more elements of the "faiths")

With the three "faiths" (Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism to a point), it was about "the way to eternal salvation has been revealed to mankind, and ye shall participate in it or risk eternal damnation," the Chinese religions just make the simpler claim that "this is the best way to live in harmony with the world," and the "mythological" religions are more like "this is how the world and the cosmos are," and are more impersonal and based on a perceived cosmological history

Greek, Roman, and Norse mythologies were very much like Hinduism, Shinto, and Judaism, Judaism just being unique in that its mythology bred two of the big revelatory religions, where Mohammed and Jesus made competing claims regarding how man shall receive the favor of God, whereas Judaism doesn't really address salvation or even promise much about heaven or hell (note also that Judaism in ancient times had no provision for conversion into the religion, Judaism was bound to the Jewish ethnicity strictly), and really "Christian mythology" is really just a subset of Jewish mythology, that this guy existed who was the son of Yahweh and who was crucified, died, and rose again, but the "myth" of Jesus is not what being a Christian is all about, as it's about knowledge and participation in the divine philosophy that Jesus preached.


I'm not sure what in my post you're trying to disagree with. I never said that any of the aforementioned religions weren't more heavily based on philosophy than anything else; nor did I say they base themselves on the fantastic stories they contain. Everything you just said fits fine with what I said; it just expands on the information that I deliberately left out since it didn't pertain to the point I was making.

I guess we do agree in that case. I phrased my post poorly casting it as a disagreement



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Silver-Tiger on 02 August 2011
yo_john117 said:
Geek is probably the most influential.


That was intentional, right?



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yo_john117 on 02 August 2011
Silver-Tiger said:
yo_john117 said:
Geek is probably the most influential.


That was intentional, right?

xD I meant to say Greek. But Geek works pretty well to I guess lol.