I recently saw a news item about an atheist group that wanted to put up a billboard in a Jewish neighborhood in New York City that read, in English, Hebrew, and Arabic “It’s a myth…and you have a choice.” Next to the Hebrew version the billboard in large Hebrew letters has the divine name, YHVY. There are Arabic letters next to the Arabic version that I suspect, but don’t know for sure, spell out Allah in Arabic. So far the billboard hasn’t gone up. It is of course profoundly offensive to Jewish and Muslim believers, and therefore to me as well, to have professed atheists bandying about the name of God from their faith traditions; but I had an additional reaction to the billboard as well. My reaction was: Yes, I know it’s a myth and that I have a choice. I choose to accept it precisely because it is a myth.
I’m sure that reaction requires some explanation. The atheists who want to offend Jewish and Muslim believers with this billboard (that the billboard will offend them is so certain that we can conclude that its sponsors want to offend them) are using the common, popular definition of the word myth. In common parlance myth has come mean something that people think is true but that is not actually true. In the popular understanding the primary characteristic of a myth is that it is false. I am quite sure that the atheist group behind this billboard means to convey to Jewish and Muslim believers that the beliefs of their faith traditions, especially belief in the reality of God (whether known as YHVH or as Allah) is false. That they believe in something that isn’t real. That they believe in something that isn’t true.
The problem here is that the popular definition of myth as something that people believe is true but that isn’t true isn’t what myth actually means. At least in the world of theology that isn’t what myth means. In the world of anthropology that isn’t what myth means. When the great Joseph Campbell did his groundbreaking work on human mythology he didn’t take myth to mean something that humans think is true but that isn’t true. When Carl Jung studied mythologies from around the world and developed his theory of archetypes he didn’t take myth to mean something that humans think is true but that isn’t true. When Paul Tillich, the greatest theologian of the twentieth century, said that all religious language is necessarily symbolic and mythic he wasn’t taking myth to mean something that humans think is true that isn’t true. All of these profound thinkers understood that there is a different definition of myth, a definition of myth that is truer to the way myths function in human culture.
That definition is this: A myth is a story that people tell in order to say something humans can comprehend about that which absolutely transcends human comprehension. A myth is a story the purpose of which is not to convey mere factual truth but to point beyond itself to a spiritual reality that is deeper, more profound, and ultimately more true than any mere fact. True myths, Carl Jung and Paul Tillich teach us, are not merely made up stories. They are stories that, like the symbols that they often contain, arise from the human unconscious, from the depths of the human mind where are connection to the spiritual dimension of reality is found.
Consider these examples. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a story. It’s a really good story. It isn’t factually true, but it isn’t a myth. It didn’t arise from anyone’s unconscious mind. It serves no function other than to be a good story. The seven days of creation story of Genesis 1:1 to 2:3 is a story too, but unlike The Adventures of Tom Sawyer it is a true myth. It resonates with the human psyche at the unconscious level, or it will if we’ll just let it. It doesn’t seek to convey mere factual information, which it of course does not do. Rather, it points beyond itself to profound realities, to the realities of God as Creator and of the goodness of God’s creation, to the realities of the spark of the divine in human beings and the equality of men and women as both created in the divine image. That first creation myth in Genesis continues to resonate in the human soul precisely because it is a true myth. It is a story that vibrates with divine truth, that hums with the power and the truth of God.
So why do I choose to live my spiritual life within one of the great human religious traditions, in my case Christianity? Because Christianity is a myth, and I have a choice. Myth gives life meaning. Science never can. Myth speaks of right and wrong. Science never can. Myth connects us to the depth dimension of reality, science can connect us only with what is material; and what is material is superficial. Yes, religion is a myth. Religions are systems of myths and symbols, and it is precisely as systems of myths and symbols that they have their power, that they convey their truth. Yes, it’s a myth and I have a choice. Thanks. be to God.
