The academic definition of the word according to Leonard & McClure “myths are ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large?” (Leonard & McClure, ) My own personal definition to the word myth is human attempts to answer everyday questions that have a basis of truth that but has had its story changed over time. • Why do myths from different cultures around the world address such similar or universal themes?
However, there are so many mysteries in the world that science cannot explain that many people believe something, a much larger force, must be behind it. As a result, many theologians have attempted to prove the existence of God. One of the strongest arguments for the existence of God is the Ontological position. Ontological arguments are “derived from some source, other than observation of the world, so from reason alone.” The first and best-known Ontological argument for the existence of God was proposed by St. Anselm of Canterbury in the 11th Century. Anselm’s argument is based on the idea that anyone who hears about God or thinks about God, has an idea of who God is.
“Why do I exist? What created the universe? Does God exist?” questions which have challenged philosophers for many years. The cosmological, design, and ontological arguments attempt to answer these questions. Throughout this essay I will share with you the ways that the cosmological, design, and ontological arguments are the same yet different from each other.
Creation myths of any culture, arise out of curiousity to experience and understand the world. They are not intended to explain how the universe came into being, but offer symbolic insight and meaning of a realm that lies outside intellectual understanding. [1] By examining the Greek, Near Eastern and Biblical ‘creation myths’ and associated ancient sources, I will seek to explain common elements between them, accounting for their differences, in order to reveal the significance of these narratives, for the people and culture at the time they were created. Fundamental to all types of myths, is the importance of the oral tradition, as they were often intitially performed and have been told and retold over the centuries, each time being reinterpreted and recreated to suit the culture of the time, which reveal details about a particular people, society, politics, societal structure and religion. In the Greek creation myth, The Theogony “is a mythical account of how the Greek gods came into existence and of the relationships and conflicts bewtween them, which led to a divine monarch under the ruler Zeus.”[2] Features include, a polytheistic worldview, with gods being part of the natural environment and personified, to the extent of having male and female sex characteristics.
In what concerns religion, the greatest paradigm shift was monotheism. In previous centuries, most of humanity believed in more than one god: polytheism. Gods were used to explain nature and phenomena not yet understood – the mysterious laws of nature. The unknown was always attributed to the gods. Yet, Different cultures had different gods.
Is there millennial generation myth? Critique essay In “The Myth of the Millennials” Edward W. Koc very eloquently raises the question: are the behaviors associated with this generation a myth? In reading this article, it is evident that Koc is critical of the theories raised by other researchers. He methodically points out many of the myths and effectively uses transitions to systematically analyze and debunk the characterizations that lead to those myths. This article clearly tends to make the reader consider non-traditional explanations of Millennials attitudes.
History can be a very subjective thing and many historical facts have changed over time based on new and more substantial evidence. When ancient philosophers thought the earth was in the center of the
The Problems Humans Encountered After They Lost Their Innocence Including extracts from Genesis, Georgics, Metamorphoses, and The Consolation of Philosophy It is natural for people to ask questions about the origins of humankind and the events that led to the current state of society. Thus, many written examples appeared to give answers to those questions. The Holy Bible, Virgil’s Georgics, and Ovid’s Metamorphoses are all vivid illustrations of how life started and what our role was back then. All of these aetiological texts have both similarities and differences, especially on the accounts of Earth’s creation, the following age of innocence or Golden Age, and the progress people made after the “Fall.” The
Comparative Essay A myth is an unrealistic story, that’s passed down through an oral tradition for entertainment, teaching of moral lessons and beliefs and/or why/how things are the way they are. It explains how the earth was created. In different stories, people had a different way of how the earth was created. Two myths that can relate to this are Genesis and Iroquois. In both myths there was a variety of similarities and differences.
For many centuries philosophers have been conducting deductive arguments to prove God’s existence and answer the question: “Where did we come from?” This question has sparked countless philosophical debates. The most hotly debated theory on the creation of the universe (including us) is the existence of a higher being, or god (or Allah in Arabic, Deus in Latin, and Theos or θεός in Greek). This “god”, who resides somewhere in the heavens, created and now oversees the universe and all who resides in it. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, explained in book 12 of his Metaphysics that there must be something that moves everything in the universe, but does not move itself or something that caused or causes everything except itself. This is known as the “first cause”.