DM> The question of myth as itself a leader and fountain of the human
 DM> experience seems unsimple as you would have it a phantom cat-eye in a
 DM> darkness.  When you use the term "myth" it seems often meant to mean
 DM> more than its literal meanings, almost a private sense of knowings that
 DM> reach out from a cavern on another side of time ....perhaps even from
 DM> another side of logic.  That _IT-just-IS_; and translating its split
 DM> functions meant both to guide *AND* be intellectually understood, does
 DM> hide between your lines.  You would have this known without having to
 DM> say it ...or perhaps I read a bit more than is there ........? Your mind
 DM> and "myth-world" have negotiated an understanding that you present in
 DM> many ways across your postings .......some I grasp and some that I think
 DM> pass me by..............
   It seems to me, David, that you are, perhaps unintentionally, obfuscating
the meaning of myth.  Old myths can lose their claims to be literally true
while continuing to demonstrate unmistakable existential truth.  People such
as Plato can create and use "conscious" myths in literary works for the
purpose of aligning them against a truth of existence experienced by
themselves.  This is the case with his famous "myth of the judgement" where 
e
is clearly referring to the degree of conscience possessed by an individual
under the question of whether a "soul is curable" or not.  The ancient myths
may be studied in Pritchard's _Ancient Near Eastern Myths_ or the more 
opular
Campbell's various books on the subject.  I am still trying to read and
understand Blumenberg's _Work on Myth_ which I'm ashamed to say I bought back
in 1986 and still have not systematically pursued.  Man is, for whatever
reason, a creature who makes myths and she/he/it continues to do so.
Moreover, Blumenberg discusses (often in somewhat obscure langauge for me
because he is such an intense scholar on the subject) how myths change as 
hey
are "worked on" from epoch to epoch.  I do know that the "Christ" experienced
around the time of the Fall of the Roman Empire differers substantially from
the Christ of the Renaissance as can be seen most clearly in the artistic
renditions as well as in intellectual and literary production.  
   I often use the example of "world peace" as an example of a modern myth
along with a world "free from want and fear" with which we're all familiar.
No one would object to arduous work on behalf of "world peace" and yet such a
term is surely mythical.  No one has EVER experienced a world at peace.  And
yet - it MIGHT be!  Only a small effort is required to think of other modern
myths under which we live.  They are NOT lies.  A lie is something else
entirely.  In fact with most of them we don't even ASK if they are "true" or
"false."  For the biblical scholar the first chapter of Genesis is a fifth or
fourth century priestly document referring to a central myth while the second
chapter is a circa-11th century Caananite myth of some vintage.  The rather
small amount of mythical material actually IN the "bible" are almost 
ertainly
refinements, re-worked to reflect differentiated understanding, of ancient
Sumerian and other surrounding myths (Gilgamesh-->Noah,etc). 
   I more and more attempt not to become entangled with literalists who seem
only to see meaning in such myths if they are literalized out of any genuine
spiritual or experiential context.  There can, frankly, be little real
dialogue if that is the situation.  But, at the same time, I can hear 
Amazing
Grace_ and relate with all of my soul to it because I sense in the work an
experiential movement of the soul toward transcendence under the 
ircumstances
of that particular life.  Such is not dealing with the literal "truth or
untruth" of a "birth in a manger while angels sing," but with something far
different and far deeper in cosmic proportions under the symbol of an
encounter of the human and the divine.  That churches are by and large civic
clubs for socially compatible families does not destroy the "verily I came to
throw fire on the earth" of a revelatory experience that Bergson tells us
evokes all manner of forces (like white corpuscles surrounding a wound) to
contain the explosive heat of the experience by containing it in "doctrine" 
r
"static religion" now mediated to the many who are not strong enough for
faith.  
   I have probably failed once more to explain what I mean.  It's "pandemic"
with me!!!
Sincerely, 
                                     Frank
                                                                              
                                                       
--- PPoint 2.05
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