Myth and mythology have more than one meaning.
In typical conversation, they are dismissive terms used to discount something you don’t want to believe. You refuse to be accountable to it. As literature, they are essential to understanding the worldview of those who adhere to said mythology. In more human terms, they are the essential structure of our identity. The are the ground from which we sprout intellectually. It is damned hard to break away from the mythology of your youth in the sense your very thoughts are built on them. There is a vast ocean of unconsidered, unconscious reference material that restricts your mental processes in the sense you can’t start from nothing.
The path to breaking out of a mythology is making it all conscious. You have to study what it does in those other senses not normally used in conversation. You have to go back and rebuild that foundation and this is no small task. We get some part of this when we do counseling, but too many counselors refuse to be ready for a deeper plunge. Most counselors love counseling, but aren’t searching for truth; they just say they are. Even psychotherapy is mostly baloney, because it continues to build on the same old mythology, just emphasizes a different set of stories within that mythology. At best, psychotherapy simply exposes to people a better understanding of the mythology under which they’ve been operating the whole time. This, while assuming it’s altogether holy and righteous.
Precious few people who make the radical choice are fully aware, so their choices tend to be less radical. They settle for whatever is labeled “radical” among their own kind, still building from the same mythology. I can’t settle for that. Everything I write constitutes a call to go back to the very foundation of our existence.
In doing so, I recognize the absolute necessity of having a mythology. It is not possible for humans to float in space above all mythologies. You can pick a different one or attempt to build a new one, but you must have one or you can’t think. The brain is hard-wired that way. To pretend you can bypass that necessity is to adopt a very bad mythology. I chose to examine the Hebrew mythology; actually, I’m convinced it chose me. To avoid it was madness. The call was my sanity. This is why I don’t have time for lambasting pagans and secularists who describe something of the same process, of fleeing whatever madness held them into whatever felt like freedom for them. Tell me it’s your sanity and I’ll take your word for it. If I can’t find that element of sincerity in your choice, I’ll always suspect you didn’t try. It’s not for me to choose for you, but respect has to be earned, and it’s earned by manifesting some element of sanity from a very badly broken default.
So my sanity is the mythology of the Ancient Hebrew people, often best known in the form of the Bible. I call it “the Word of God” in the sense I cannot build on something which is foreign to it. A critical part of that choice is shedding all the talk, and the very thoughts behind the talk, of “propositional truth.” Truth can’t be a proposition; truth is above that level. Truth comes at the level of presupposition. If you start from nothing you go nowhere. If you acknowledge your starting point, then you are somewhere already. I don’t struggle with making myself accountable to Scripture. It’s assumed in the broader sense that it functions as my mythology, my frame of reference, my intellectual foundation.
My justification for this is, so far as anyone can show me, that Jesus did it that way. You can come up with a thousand other “Jesus” figures for whatever is your mythology, but if you talk of moving away from the Bible, you aren’t following the same Jesus. Don’t pretend we are brothers and sisters on the intimate level of spiritual fellowship. We can be pals, friends and respect each other, but you are cutting yourself out of some things when you make that choice. I’m not attacking your choice; I’m pointing out the implications. You would be utterly wrong if you think I’m choosing to cut you out, because I don’t see any choice. This is a foregone conclusion, a presupposition, before we get to the conscious discussion. It’s part of the mythology upon which my very soul is built. We call this “conviction” in the sense of something binding from a source above reason and choice.
You may feel you have no choice, too. Go for the gusto, buddy, but don’t be surprised if it creates a barrier to fellowship.
