One of the most important Greek gods is Apollo who rode the skies in his chariot of fire. ibid.
Norse legends record the triumphs of great warriors with advanced weaponry, sophisticated combat techniques and navigational prowess. Like the Greeks, Norse mythology recounts supernatural beings, other worlds and powerful gods. ibid.
Such similarities are not limited to the Greek and Norse myths. In India the ancient epic of the Mahabharata describes visitations from God who possess the advanced technology of space travel. ibid.
But technology was not the only characteristic these ancient deities had in common. According to legends the gods enjoyed intimate relations with humans. If aliens chose human women as their sexual partners, what was their motivations? And what was the outcome of these very close encounters? ibid.
Some of the oldest accounts of gods and humans interbreeding can be found in ancient Hindu texts. ibid.
In the early 1800s local legends passed down by the Paiute Indians told of a race of Giants who were exterminated by their tribe. ibid.
Are the Nevada bones evidence of a race of Giants? ibid.
An enormous flying creature born out of a raging inferno. A vicious three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hell. And mysterious sea serpents terrorising mankind. Are such monsters merely mythical creatures of fantasy or did they actually exist in the ancient past? Ancient Aliens s3e2: Aliens and Monsters
‘You look at these Wangina [aboriginal] figures in the cave art – these figures look exactly like grey aliens.’ Ancient Aliens s9e8: The Wisdom Keepers, Childress
Aboriginal artefacts found in Egypt; hieroglyphs found in Australia. ibid.
The Rainbow Serpent – this divine being is said to have come out of the sky at the beginning of time. It held in its belly all of creation. ibid.
There was no ancient Israel. Israel is an intellectual construct. In other words these people were not re-thinking their past, they were inventing their past. They had no past. So the Bible is a myth, a foundation myth told to legitimate a people who had no legitimacy. William G Dever, University of Arizona
The further back you go in the Biblical texts the more difficult it is to find historical material in it. The patriarchs go back to Genesis. Genesis is for the most part a compilation of myths, creation stories, things like that, and to find an historical core is very difficult. David Ilan, Hebrew Union College Jerusalem
Stories about a Lileth-type character always existed from the first firesides. Lilith takes the mythological space of the evil woman; which is a space that exists in almost every series of mythologies – part of it is the discomfort with sexuality; and part of it is the human imagination creating devils, demons, all sorts of difficulties to explain evil in the world. Rabbi David Wolpe
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, contrived and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. John F Kennedy, June 1962
In this film I will reveal how Greek’s myths of their battling gods was shaped by the minds of people from a particular place, living at a time that has been described as a dark age. Professor Robin Lane Fox, Greek Myths: Tales of Travelling Heroes, BBC 2010
The Ashmolean Museum ... Here I always reflect how Greek art, philosophy, politics, are at the roots of our Western world. And at the heart of their legacy lie the Greek myths. ibid.
Ruling over them – Zeus himself, the father of gods and men. The most exiting of these myths are the stories of wars of the gods in Heaven. I believe we can understand their roots. ibid.
And in their travels I believe the Euboeans encountered landscapes and stories that inspired new myths. ibid.
Myths were never fixed. They evolved and mutated. ibid.
The pagan Greeks had no scriptures; they had many gods who never died. They never expected mercy from them. They prayed to them as if they were great aristocrats in heaven. Unpredictable in their favours to mortals. And unpredictable in their quarrels. ibid.
Of course the story of Aphrodite is connected to much grander stories in Heaven – When Father Heaven is castrated of course, blood and white sperm flies everywhere. And according to the Greeks when the sperm falls down into the sea somebody very significant is born from it ... Aphrodite. ibid.
Long before Christ, Mount Ida was a sort of pagan Bethlehem. Because of its role in the myth of the Greek’s supreme God – Zeus. That myth begins with Zeus’s father Kronos, who had castrated his own father Heaven. But it was prophesied that Kronos himself would be overthrown by his son. So he swallowed his babies at birth. ibid.
At Delphi a prophetess would predict the future as an oracle. Her prophecies were made here at the Temple of Apollo itself. In response to petitioners’ questions she would enter a trance, and her garbled words were later translated into elegant hexameter verse. ibid.
Mount Cassius was a holy mountain for the Hittites. The Hittites’ old empire had fallen around 1,200 B.C. four centuries before the Nubians settled here. At its peak it had ruled over a vast swathe of land. ibid.
The stories we know from other Hittite texts about the many battles and fights of the Hittite gods for control in Heaven. Most remarkably, these Hittite myths share many details with the Greek myths of how their ruling gods came to power. The myths are so similar. Did the Hittite one influence the Greeks? ibid.
One of the stories we have of the Hittite snake monster is that at first it defeated the storm god Tarhunda then stole his eyes and heart, which he hid in a cave. In later Greek myth, Zeus too is defeated at first by the snaky monster – in Greek Typhon. On Mount Cassius itself we’re told. ibid.
Away at the furthest edge of the Greek world – In the mid-8th century B.C. the Euboeans founded settlements on the island of Sicily’s eastern shore. And every day dominating the view was the great volcano Mount Etna. ibid.
Homer was composing I believe around 750 B.C. ibid.
Across a vast expanse of sea, Euboeans linked the evidence they saw and made sense of it through myth. ibid.
They live still vivid in our world. ibid.
A myth is, of course, not a fairy story. It is the presentation of facts belonging to one category in the idioms appropriate to another. To explode a myth if accordingly not to deny the facts but to re-allocate them. Gilbert Ryle, The Concept of Mind, 1949
In one sense, myth is an idea that, while widely believed, is false – does not correspond with reality. In a deeper sense ... a myth serves as an orienting and mobilising story for people ... The focus is not on the story’s relation to reality, but on its function ... A story cannot function this way unless it is believed to be true in the community or the nation. It 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. Professor David Ray Griffin, 9/11: The Myth and the Reality
I am not a myth. Marlene Dietrich
Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description. D H Lawrence
We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply with those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a ‘resource’. This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet. Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth
cf.
Myths are fun, as long as you don’t confuse them with the truth. Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality 2012
The Bible myths are given a special privileged treatment. Richard Dawkins, interview Nicky Campbell, Big Questions: Is the Bible Still Relevant Today? BBC 2011
A major component of the western myth is the belief that myth is a primitive and mistaken way of thinking about the world that has been replaced by science. Commonly, the word ‘myth’ is now used to mean an illusion or a lie ... Enlightened moderns are accustomed to looking at the queer beliefs of the Mayas or the Tasaday and seeing them as mythical. But we look on our own belief systems as rational and rooted in the realities of politics and economics. As Joseph Campbell says: ‘Myth is other people’s religion.’ Sam Keen, The Passionate Life 1983
Myth is the system of basic metaphors, images, and stories that informs the perceptions, memories, and aspirations of a people; provides the rationale for its institutions, rituals and power structure; and gives a map of the purpose and stages of life. ibid.