Mythology or Religion?

[_mistresspoppy_]

It always bothered me that the stories of Greek and roman deities are considered "myths" but the bible is considered the truth. Is it more believable that a "virgin" mysteriously gets knocked up and has a kid, who later is killed, then comes back to life, then disappears into thin air, and has waited for 2000 + years to come back to earth, while thousands of people have killed each other over disputes about the existence of various god/desses. OR, that the goddess of weather hooked up with the god of the underworld, had a kid, then got into a custody battle that resulted in the goddess of seasons being sad for half the year (causing winter) and happy the rest of the time (causing summer)? Both of these sound like stories written by someone with a lot of weed and a lot of time to kill. Who has the right to say "we are right and they are wrong"? "Our religion is better than yours" or "Only our outrageous stories are true"? Who gets to say whats right? personally, i think its all mythology, designed to comfort those who are lonely and sad, to explain away things that science hasnt yet explained, and give the people who spout such nonsense power over the people who believe them. Everyone runs to the man who claims to have all the answers, but that man is usually a bigger idiot than anyone else. Now I'm just rambling... but id like to hear your take on it.

 

[amapola]

The supernatural aspects of any religion are generally not considered "truth" by anyone outside of the religion and likely taken with a grain of salt by many people within them. A larger part of the current population of the world has the bible as a book of their faith than Greek and Roman deities, so way more people today think that the former is true.

The bible was also written about events which took place only 2,000 years ago. There is lots of supporting evidence that characters in it actually existed and some events actually occurred. I doubt this can be said for any of the ancient Greek and Roman myths.

 

[Sweet P]

It's all mythology, as far as I'm concerned.

Why should I believe in the Judeo-Christian God as opposed to, say, Apollo?

 

[Pythagoras]

You'd have a hard time persuading a New Testament, or Patristics scholar that there is no historical facts or artifacts in the NT, however I think most Classicists would agree that stories from the |Greek and Roman Pantheons are mythopoeic (therefore not historical).

All that said the only reason I could think of as to why you would believe in the Abrahamic God, rather than Apollo is that the former is a living religion, whilst the latter forms part of an extinct religion.