Ryan Roberts - Myth Become Fact?

    Hello again! I was, once again, looking for something to write about when I stumbled upon "Myth Become Fact" and as the resident Atheist in the room, I felt it was my duty to share my perspective for why I think Christianity is a myth like anything else. (I am not trying to say your religion isn't valid. You opinion matters. This is mine tho.)

    I think my perspective on religion is decently unique. I view all of them as, in the nicest way possible, fancy fanfiction. What I mean by that is that to me, it looks like a writer took an existing character or archetype, changed them slightly, and put them into a story to explain a message or moral. As an example, take The Odyssey, one of my favorite stories ever. Do I think that Odysseus got help from Gods, fought a witch that turned people into pigs, and visited the underworld? No. Do I think that Odysseus was based on a real person? Yeah. More accurately, I think he he's based on a title (King of Ithaca), and a hero archetype and is given a new name so ancient copyright laws don't come to kick Homer's ass.

    But this is only one half of my perspective. I'm taking a class called "On Heresy" and it it, I've come to evolve my perception of religion. Broadly, I believe that every religion is someone's truth, and that it can be fact to them. However, this doesn't extend beyond the self. This is mainly where me and Lewis diverge. While Lewis argues that Christianity (and I'm guessing Judaism and Islam by extension) are fact because they use historical figures, I don't see it that way. The use of actual people does nothing to persuade me that an omnipotent and omni-powerful God split open an actual sea (which is between 16 and 220 miles across) to help his followers cross it, drowning the Egyptians who were tailing them without drowning the followers. I more see this as an exaggeration of how difficult escaping the Egyptians was, along with a freak flood possibly taking a lot of them out.

    Let's actually remove this from religion so I'm a bit more understandable. Marco Polo was an explorer on the Silk Road, and on his way, he exaggerated the features of some animals and gave them incorrect names so his book would be more exciting and profitable. As an example, he said Unicorns were "large, ugly creatures with a horn, hair like a buffalo, and feet like an elephant" interpreted to mean Rhinoceroses. He did this with a lot of other creatures too and tended to over-exaggerate the people of the countries he visited too.

    But I'm not saying that religion is all a lie. Not at all. I'm saying that it can be your truth, but certain religions aren't necessarily better than others. And deeming one to be complete fact while ignoring the many thousands of cultures that also use historical figures in their religious texts. Many of these are indigenous too which makes this look even worse. 

    Anyway, I tend to see religion as myths that can become truth for somebody else. Also, no religion is more superior to the other. Let's all just leave each other alone and not claim that someone is inferior because they don't believe in a certain religion. Have a wonderful day ♥.

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