“The distinction between myth and reality: I’m here using myth in two senses; in one sense a myth is an idea that, while widely believed, is actually false and does not correspond with reality. In a deeper sense, which is employed by students of religion, a myth serves as an orienting and mobilizing story for a people; a story that reminds them who they are and why they do what they do. When a story is called myth in this sense (which can be called ‘myth’ with a capital M) the focus is not on the story’s relation to reality, but, on it’s function. This orienting and mobilizing function is possible because, Myth in this sense has a religious overtone, it is the sacred story. Note: to say that a story functions as a Myth in the religious sense is not to say anything about it’s truth–a story can not function in this way unless it is believed to be true in the community or the nation–the truth of the story is not a matter of debate. If some people have the bad taste to raise the question of the truth of the sacred story the keepers of the faith do not enter into debate with them; they ignore them or denounce them as blasphemers …”
— David Ray Griffin
To believe that a myth is literally true is to embrace delusional thinking … being that a myth is a story widely believed to be true which is actually false … making it a belief held with strong conviction despite superior evidence to the contrary … a myth typically contains implausible, bizarre or patently untrue content.
To believe that a Myth is literally true is to surrender one’s mind to delusional thinking … being that a Myth is a story that insists upon being held with absolute conviction–not changeable by compelling counterargument or proof to the contrary–in spite of the Myth’s impossibility or falsity of content.
In Bertrand Russell’s classic work The Problems of Philosophy he states:
“We may believe what is false as well as what is true. We know that on very many subjects different people hold different and incompatible opinions: hence some beliefs must be erroneous. Since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as true beliefs, it becomes a difficult question how they are to be distinguished from true beliefs. How are we to know, in a given case, that our belief is not erroneous? This is a question of the very greatest difficulty, to which no completely satisfactory answer is possible.”
The determination of false belief, delusion, is not as easy as one might hope … the best we can do is hold to a principle of open-mindedness while applying critical thinking skills to the subject belief, or, myth … open-mindedness and critical thinking are especially important when sorting out what may be Myth from what is reality …