Deconstructing Religious Myths

The book examines the relationship between religious myths and religion and does a very good job doing just that. Just some of the things it covers include the role of myths in religion, what myths do, symbolism, allegory and metaphor and the perpetuation of religious traditions.

Deconstruction is the critical examination and analysis of narratives. You critically examine the myths and try to do so from a fresh perspective.

A person looks for commonalities among myths such as so many places having flood myths which would indicate something real happened in a variety of places. (Science has become involved her in trying to determine if there was some kind of impact on the Earth that caused tsunamis and other things which caused flooding in various areas.)

The author notes that doing this helps in establishing interfaith dialogue. He also notes that religious myths have various parts including symbolic, allegorical and archtypical parts.

Myths also can have a supernatural basis and include gods and goddesses, heroes, a world beyond the ordinary and an effort to explain why certain things happen.

Creation is a common subject as is death and what happens to a person after they die.

Rituals, customs and practices can be influenced by the myths.

Myths arose from the human need to explain the unexplainable.

What we know of myths comes from oral memories, written records and artistic representations. (All of this can change over time, though, due to some people who forget the oral memories or the loss of written records over time.)

Myths can also influence moral values such as The Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do to you. This is reflected in a Wiccan code, An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will.)

The book goes into all of this and even more. It's extremely thorough and it also makes sense and is understandable.