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Heroes Community > Other Side of the Monitor > Thread: The Hero Scale
Thread: The Hero Scale This thread is 2 pages long: 1 2 · NEXT»
artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 23, 2013 11:35 AM

The Hero Scale

The Hero Scale of Lord Raglan is quite famous, I've first heard of it while I got interested in structuralism. Later, it was course material in the collage too. Since this is the Heroes Community and it has members from all over the world who knows about their own folkloric heroes, I'd say it would be interesting to add mythical heroes to the list. Lord Raglan had 22 entries in his structure:

1. Hero's mother is a royal virgin;
2. His father is a king, and
3. Often a near relative of his mother, but
4. The circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. He is also reputed to be the son of a god.
6. At birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or his maternal grand father to kill him, but
7. he is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster -parents in a far country.
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future Kingdom.
11. After a victory over the king and/or a giant, dragon, or wild beast,
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor and
13. And becomes king.
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully and
15. Prescribes laws, but
16. Later he loses favor with the gods and/or his subjects, and
17. Is driven from the throne and city, after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death,
19. Often at the top of a hill,
20. His children, if any do not succeed him.
21. His body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. He has one or more holy sepulchres.


In this link, you can see how some of the mythical characters, historical or not, fit into his scale. I didn't count but one of the missing ones, Anakin Skywalker would make a high score on this list. Any other candidates?

The link provides detailed clicky, without the clickies, the heroes and their score are:

Mithradates VI of Pontus (22) / Krishna (21) / Moses (20) / Romulus (19) / King Arthur (19) / Perseus (18) / Jesus (18) / Watu Gunung of Java (18) / Heracles (17) Mohammad (17) / Beowulf (15) / Buddha (15) / Czar Nicholas II (14) / Zeus (14) / Nyikang, a cult-hero of the Shiluk tribe of the Upper Nile (14) / Samson (13) / Sunjata, the Lion-King of Ancient Mali (11) / Achilles (10) / Odysseus (8) / Harry Potter (8)

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 23, 2013 11:49 AM

Btw, I noticed the clicky on Mohammed displays a picture of Mehmet The Conqueror, but since it was Mohammed  himself who forbade (his) pictures being taken, he can't complain now, can he.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted June 24, 2013 05:38 AM
Edited by Elodin at 05:40, 24 Jun 2013.

Of course the claim of anti-theism that Jesus is a myth based on pagan traditions has been completely debunked but it keeps rearing its ugly head because anti-theists in general are uninterested in the actual truth and merely interested in the attacks on religion they attack. Most are very unfamiliar with the sacred writings of the religion they attack. I am reminded of Christopher Hitchens in a debate not knowing the the Bible says Jesus will one day return and yet he loathed religion and made attacking Christianity a favorite hobby of his.

Here is a website that points out some of the common false claims that are told both in the anti-theistic presentation of Jesus and of pagan "saviors."

This is just a brief quote of the information. Each pagan "savior" is examined and common falsehoods exposed.

Clicky

Quote:

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors?

This "parallel pagan" argument or "copycat" thesis is found on a number of web sites critical of Christianity (mainly hyper-skeptical or atheist sites), and several Christian apologetics responses are available as well (see sources and links below). One of the early "sources" of this argument is the 19th century pseudo-historical work of Kersey Graves The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors (35 pagan gods or religious leaders are listed in chapter 1, several of them overlapping Flemming's list) :

   "These have all received divine honors, have nearly all been worshiped as Gods, or sons of God; were mostly incarnated as Christs, Saviors, Messiahs, or Mediators; not a few of them were reputedly born of virgins; some of them filling a character almost identical with that ascribed by the Christian's bible to Jesus Christ; many of them, like him, are reported to have been crucified; and all of them, taken together, furnish a prototype and parallel for nearly every important incident and wonder-inciting miracle, doctrine and precept recorded in the New Testament, of the Christian's Savior. Surely, with so many Saviors the world cannot, or should not, be lost." (Kersey Graves, chapter 1 "Rival Claims of the Saviors" also here)

Apparently Kersey Graves himself accepted the historicity of Jesus Christ (unlike Flemming's DVD); he was not a strict "mythicist":

   "....Graves's hypothesis [is] that these various godmen were all 'historical personages' who patterned themselves after this archetype...." and "....[Graves] was an evermerist, i.e. one who believes that these various crucified saviors and godmen were 'real people' who were deified with fairytales and myths added to their biographies. He was therefore not a mythicist...." (pages 1, 7 of The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors, in the forward by Acharya S from the Adventures Unlimited Press edition, 2001; see also his chapter 15 "The Saviors are Real Personages").

It should be noted that professional skeptic and historian Richard Carrier (featured in Flemming's DVD) has disavowed Kersey Graves as a reliable source and doesn't think much of the "parallel pagan" gods in Flemming's list. The supposed "parallels" either post-date Christianity's founding, or there is no good historical evidence in support of the "copycat" idea, or the "parallel" is simply mistaken. (Carrier suggests two more promising candidates -- Inanna or Ishtar of the Sumerians, and Zalmoxis of the Thracians -- not mentioned by Flemming).

   "The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors: Or Christianity Before Christ is unreliable, but no comprehensive critique exists. Most scholars immediately recognize many of his findings as unsupported and dismiss Graves as useless. After all, a scholar who rarely cites a source isn't useful to have as a reference even if he is right....In general, even when the evidence is real, it often only appears many years after Christianity began, and thus might be evidence of diffusion in the other direction." (Richard Carrier, Kersey Graves and the World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors)

Brian Flemming has agreed "Kersey Graves is full of ****" (see Beddru) and says he will produce a "second edition" of the DVD with the unreliable material and errors removed. While Flemming rejects the idea his DVD has anything to do with Kersey Graves' book, nevertheless the pagan parallel thesis is the same: "Just like the other savior gods of the time, Paul's Christ Jesus died, rose, and ascended all in a mythical realm." (Flemming from "The God Who Wasn't There" DVD, followed by a quote from Hebrews 8:4 which will be discussed in Part 2). And Robert Price from the DVD: "There are other similar savior figures in the same neighborhood, at the same time in history: Mithras, Attis, Adonis, Osiris, Tammuz, and so forth. And nobody thinks that these characters are anything but mythical. And their stories are so similar, most of them in fact having some kind of resurrection or another...."
....


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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted June 24, 2013 06:06 AM
Edited by Elodin at 06:20, 24 Jun 2013.

Below is a link to two you tube videos which also debunks these claims. Near the first part of the video an atheist historian speaks to the issues and rejects the claims. The video goes through the claims and debunks them one after the other and gives a lot of details about the pagan "saviors."

Clicky

Part 2


Here is an article directly related to "the Hero Scale" which seems to be the newest version of the "crucified savior" thing. This is the first I've seen of "the scale."

Clicky

Quote:

I have been talking to a number of Jesus mythicists lately and they have been putting forth something called the Raglan scale.  This is a scale that puts together all sorts of categories common to mythical heroes.  The idea is that the higher a person ranks on this scale, the more likely they are mythical and the lower they rank, the more likely they are historical.  In the link above, Jesus is ranked as 19 (out of 22), which would put him clearly in the mythical category.  For a person to be historical, you would want them to be 6 or lower.  There are all sorts of problems with this scale, but for the sake of argument, let us take it as it is.  I decided to not just accept the score but to actually put Jesus as we find him in the gospels (and not as later church tradition interpreted him) through this scale to see how he did.  Here are the categories:

1. The hero’s mother is a royal virgin
2. His father is a king and
3. often a near relative of the mother, but
4. the circumstances of his conception are unusual, and
5. he is also reputed to be the son of a god
6. at birth an attempt is made, usually by his father or maternal grandfather, to kill him, but
7. He is spirited away, and
8. Reared by foster-parents in a far country
9. We are told nothing of his childhood, but
10. On reaching manhood he returns or goes to his future kingdom.
11. After a victory over the king and or giant, dragon, or wild beast
12. He marries a princess, often the daughter of his predecessor and
13. becomes king
14. For a time he reigns uneventfully and
15. Prescribes laws but
16. later loses favor with the gods and or his people and
17. Is driven from from the throne and the city after which
18. He meets with a mysterious death
19. often at the top of a hill.
20. his children, if any, do not succeed him.
21. his body is not buried, but nevertheless
22. he has one or more holy sepulchres.

Here are my results:

1. No indication that Mary was royal.
2. Assuming you are talking about Joseph (otherwise this would overlap with 5) he was not a king.
3. Father was not a near relative of the mother.
4. Definitely unusual.
5. Described as the Son of God.
6. No attempt by father or grandfather to kill him.
7. Was spirited away.
8. Was not reared by foster-parents.
9. We are told something about his childhood.
10. He does not seem to have his own kingdom at manhood, he preaches the kingdom of God but it is not his.
11. I’m not sure what victory over a dragon is being referred to here. While that was later attached to what Jesus did at the cross and his resurrection, that is absent in the gospels.
12. Jesus never got married. Sorry Dan Brown.
13. Is Jesus a king? In a sense, although he has no kingdom in this world which is probably what is being referred to here. I will give this to you but I am being generous.
14. I do not see any uneventful reign in the gospels.
15. Jesus does not proscribe laws. He enters into the conversation of interpretation that the other Jewish leaders were involved in but that is very different from proscribing.
16. He does lose favour with the people.
17. Driven from a throne? Where in the gospels? He is not even driven from the city.
18. A mysterious death? Nothing mysterious about crucifixion. Thousands of people died this way.
19. I will give you the hill.
20. No children.
21. His body was buried.
22. He had a tomb but I would not call that a holy sepulchre. The later church may have done that but it is not found in the gospels.

How does Jesus do here? By my count, Jesus scores a 6 on this scale based on what we find in the gospels. I believe that is the range in which a historical figure is expected.  This is very interesting.


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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted June 24, 2013 06:22 AM
Edited by Salamandre at 06:32, 24 Jun 2013.

Quote:
Of course the claim of anti-theism that Jesus is a myth based on pagan traditions has been completely debunked


Not much. At any moment in history there are historians and writers, and it happens that none of them mentions him. Of course, one writer who didn't mention Jesus means nothing. But, when dozens of writers from the period in question fail to mention anything about Jesus (or the Gospel events/actors), this argues against historicity.

Philo Judaeus wrote many books about Jewish religion and history, living in Alexandria, and visiting Jerusalem. Philo was contemporary with Jesus and Paul, yet he does not mention any Jesus.

Seneca wrote many philosophic and satirical books and letters in Rome, he also wrote a great deal on many subjects and mentioned many people. He was a Stoic, a school of thought considered sympathetic to Christian teachings yet he does not mention Jesus.

Plutarch  wrote many works on history and philosophy in Rome and Boetia and also wrote about influential Roman figures, including some contemporary to Jesus, about Oracle, on moral issues as well as on religious and spiritual issues. Guess what, he does not mention Jesus.

Justus of Tiberias wrote a history of jewish Kings in Galilee in late 1st century. It is surprising that a contemporary writer from the very region of Jesus's alleged acts did not mention him.

To illustrate this extraordinary absence of Jesus Christ literature, just imagine going through 19th century literature looking for an Abraham Lincoln but unable to find a single mention of him in any writing on earth until the 20th century. Yet straight-faced Christian apologists and historians want us to buy a factual Jesus out of a dearth void of evidence, and rely on nothing but hearsay written well after his purported life. Considering that most Christians believe that Jesus lived as God on earth, the Almighty gives an embarrassing example for explaining his existence. You would think a omnipotent Creator might at least have the ability to bark up some good solid evidence.

Not that it is important if he existed or not, as the content of Christian teachings do not lose its value in both cases, but to say "was completely debunked" is much exaggerated.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted June 24, 2013 06:38 AM

Here is another interesting article on the "hero scale."

Clicky

Quote:

Sceptics sometimes appeal to the work of the amateur British scholar Lord Raglan in an attempt to discredit the accounts of the life of Jesus with which the Gospels furnish us. Their argumentation goes roughly as follows: the life of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels contains motifs and patterns similar to those found in the biographies of many other heroic figures from different cultures; therefore, the Gospel writers must have been making most if not all of their material up.

This was almost certainly the implication that Raglan himself wanted his readers to draw from his work: he was by no means a devout believer, and the present Lord Raglan is a leading member of the National Secular Society.

The most obvious response to this sort of argument is that the person using it is seriously risking scoring an own goal: if the patterns detectable in Christian revelation and doctrine echo those found in other religious traditions, the claims of Christianity are thereby strengthened, not weakened: on the contrary, it would be worrying for us Christians if the teachings of our faith were strange and aberrant and did not chime with what we know of the general religious consciousness of humanity, since it is the same God Who has created us and Who reveals himself to us (all of us, albeit to different extents and in different ways).

The content of non-Christian religious systems has often been seen as a 'preparation for the Gospel': a praeparatio evangelica or praeparatio evangelii, to use the technical terms, which are taken from the Latin translations of the title of a work by the early Church Father Eusebius (c.260-340). This view is adumbrated in the Bible (Rom. 2.14-16 being the classic proof-text) and has been well-known among theologians throughout Church history. In our own times, it received expression in the document Nostra aetate promulgated by the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, the Raglan schema doesn't prove what it is often used to prove even on the sceptics' own terms. To begin with, it is not unlikely that Raglan had Jesus in mind when composing his schema. For me, the motif which gives the game away is that which has the hero die 'at the top of a hill'. The sceptical argument exposes itself to the charge of circularity (though I must admit that, while doubtless logically fallacious, circular arguments can sometimes have a certain intuitive persuasiveness). It is, moreover, beyond dispute that many of the features of Jesus' life corresponding to Raglan's motifs did actually happen: Jesus' teaching ministry, for example, his rejection by the authorities, his execution and his alleged coming forth from his tomb.

Even so, however, the motifs which Raglan postulates don't match the life of Christ with particular exactitude: he at least wasn't so foolish or malicious as to stack the deck too blatantly. Raglan adduced 21 heroic lives in support of his schema: all allegedly involve some kind of combat and victory (though I find Raglan's claims convincing here in only 19 cases), all have the hero becoming a king (I have reservations in 4 cases, notably that of Elijah), 16 have him marry a princess and 11 make his father a 'near relative' of his mother.

These are just four example of motifs which can't be applied to Christ's life: we might also note that (for example) Jesus' father or grandfather should have tried to kill him in his infancy (Herod, the only man who tried to do away with the young Jesus, cannot possibly be seen as a paternal figure).

The problems mount up. Raglan doesn't choose his words with particular precision: motif 4, for example, requires that 'the circumstances of [the hero's] conception [be] unusual'. What does that mean? Anything and nothing. (Actually, convincing examples of motif 4 turn up in fewer than half of the stories which Raglan collects anyway: comparable criticisms about his schema's lack of empirical support may be made of e.g. motif 15, which makes the hero a lawgiver.) Motif 18 reads: 'He meets with a mysterious death'. Again, given that heroes are by definition unusual, superhuman and frequently even supernatural figures, this sort of generality isn't very useful.

Something similar may be said of motifs like 5 ('he is also reputed to be the son of a god'): mythology is littered with sons of gods, but if we compare Jesus with (say) Perseus, whose mother was fertilised by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold, or Erekhtheus, the legendary Athenian king, who was conceived when Hephaistos spilled his sperm onto Mother Earth, the differences between the various different 'godsons' may well strike us as more significant than the points of contact.

Raglan's schema had been prefigured by the work of several other (more competent) scholars. Von Hahn, who published in 1876, had restricted his schema to the Indo-European world, but included several motifs reminiscent of Raglan: illegitimate birth to a princess and a god, acquisition of kingship, etc.. Hahn's archetypal hero, moreover, was fratricidal and incestuous.

Hahn's schema was modified by a man called Nutt, who added elements such as combat with monsters, and his work was in due course followed by that of Lessmann, who collected analogues to the story of King Cyrus of Persia, and Schmeïng, who worked on stories involving princesses.

In 1909, the Freudian scholar Otto Rank analysed 34 European and Near-Eastern hero-stories and compiled a theoretically sophsticated archetypal pattern of which the most conspicuous feature was the hero's patricidal violence (though in my opinion this motif doesn't occur nearly as often as he claimed). He actually included Jesus as a case-study, but I honestly can't see how our Lord can be made to fit Rank's pattern, except insofar as his birth may perhaps be seen as having followed his mother's failure to conceive normally.

In 1927, Luria offered another schema, along with 16 hero-stories which seemed to correspond with it. Once again, Christ isn't a very promising subject: there is an incestuous element in 8 of his tales, for example, and they all involve various deeds of violence like unto nothing at all in the Gospels. The whole schema, moreover, revolves around the figures of the alt König (old king) and junge Prinz (young prince), who can only with difficulty be identified with Jesus and His Father (the king, for example, is typically warned that his son is going to kill him).

If we leave aside the work of Vladimir Propp, who worked solely on Russian folk-tales, it is at this point that we reach Raglan. In 1934, he published an article outlining his schema, then shortly afterwards included it in his major work, a book-length study of myth entitled The Hero.

Now, The Hero is an impressive work, given that its author was not a professional scholar and that it was written without the benefit of a properly-equipped research library. Most of the assumptions and conclusions found in it, however, have long been discredited: most notably, Raglan bought into the old idea, which originated with the Presbyterian theologian William Robertson Smith, that myth can be interpreted as a script for ritual.

This doesn't necessarily invalidate Raglan's hero-story schema; it is worthwhile remembering, however, that his work in general tends to be regarded as problematic, and that he cannot be regarded as ever having worked at the cutting edge of scholarship.

The hero-schemas didn't stop with Raglan. Shortly after he had published his findings, a scholar called Rees adapted his schema to the biographies of Celtic saints, and in 1949 Joseph Campbell published The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a quasi-Jungian attempt to see in the myths of different cultures various recurrent episodes (the journey into the magical unknown, the encounter with the Goddess and the Father, the 'apotheosis', etc.) relating to the inner life of the individual.

In more recent years, Campbell's work has been taken up by David Adams Leeming, who has offered a schema of his own (the central innovation of which seems to be the introduction of the category of the 'quest', which creates all kinds of problems which I don't have time to discuss here).

Campbell's book must count as one of the most overrated works of popular literature of the Twentieth Century. It is not without merit - indeed, it is at times both stimulating and informative - but it suffers from such an excess of free-associative speculation and such a lack of methodological discipline that I cannot understand how it ever won the following that it did. In my opinion, all that Campbell has ultimately succeeded in doing is adding his own myth to the pile without explaining the true meaning and significance of those which he cites.

In 1954, Jan de Vries devised yet another schema, the final and significantly amended version of which was published in the early 60s. De Vries' work is rather disappointing and contains several clear errors (he confuses Perseus with Peleus, for example). Once again, there are major difficulties with applying it to Christ - de Vries' hero typically fought with monsters, won princesses et cetera - and in any case some of his motif-definitions are as loose as anything in Raglan (the hero's father doesn't even have to be a god, for example - he might just as well be bestial, incestuous, etc.).

In 1960, Dunn analysed 23 hero-stories from across the world and suggested his own set of motifs. Yet again, Jesus simply doesn't fit the pattern - he isn't exposed as an infant, for example, nor rescued by animals, and he isn't adopted into any royal family (though this motif in particular doesn't seem to occur quite as often in Dunn's test-stories as he claims).

In 1962, Claire Préaux published the resumé of a conference paper in which she had outlined a schema applicable to the lives of Greek kings. This is vaguely reminiscent of the work of Raglan and the others: notably, the king is typically 'capable de conqérir une princesse'.

Various work relevant to the present discussion was produced in the 1980s: Brian Lewis' study of the Sargon legend may be mentioned here, as may Lowell Edmunds' round-up of cross-cultural variants of the Greek myth of Oedipus. Neither would seem to be a particularly effective weapon against the Christian faith. The only other schema which I have encountered in the last few years (excepting Leeming's work, which I have referred to above) is that of the sceptical historian of Christianity Keith Hopkins, who in 1999 outlined a schema specifically applicable to the lives of religious heroes (without, however, seeking to demonstrate in detail its correspondence with the careers of specific figures).

Enough has perhaps now been said to show that, whatever Raglan's schema proves and whatever it is useful for, it is not the nail in the coffin of the Christian faith which its partisans too often perceive it as being.


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Zenofex
Zenofex


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
posted June 24, 2013 08:38 AM
Edited by Corribus at 13:28, 24 Jun 2013.

I can't find a single claim in that quote which doesn't mean "That's wrong because I say it's wrong, *****" - no evidences, no argumentation, nothing besides mentioning and twisting some compressed information, probably from wikipedia or another universally accessible source. I can bet the asses of a whole Texas church during the Sunday service that the author of the article hasn't read the vast majority of the books he quotes or probably none of them.

And since you're quoting this site for like the 100th time, let me give the right way to use the hyperlink:

What the web-site called Education and Apologetics Ministry says on the matter.

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The_Polyglot
The_Polyglot


Promising
Supreme Hero
Nuttier than squirrel poo
posted June 24, 2013 01:10 PM

@OP:Fehérlófia (A Hungarian fok tale hero, lterally '(the) son of (a) white horse') ties with Odysseus at 8 points by my count.

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 24, 2013 02:05 PM
Edited by artu at 15:26, 24 Jun 2013.

Elodin, whether Jesus actually lived or not isn't important here, we know for sure, Mohammed lived, he commanded armies and established a state, yet he is in the list too. Things like virgin birth and resurrection are definitely myths, will be treated as such by anthropologists and other social sciences. Studying mythological patterns with an analytical method has nothing to do with anti-theism, what you're expecting is actually special treatment for your religion. So before you turn, yet another thread into some propaganda for Christianity and endless religion debate, get along with it.

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Elodin
Elodin


Promising
Legendary Hero
Free Thinker
posted June 27, 2013 04:26 PM

Quote:
Elodin, whether Jesus actually lived or not isn't important here, we know for sure, Mohammed lived, he commanded armies and established a state, yet he is in the list too. Things like virgin birth and resurrection are definitely myths, will be treated as such by anthropologists and other social sciences. Studying mythological patterns with an analytical method has nothing to do with anti-theism, what you're expecting is actually special treatment for your religion. So before you turn, yet another thread into some propaganda for Christianity and endless religion debate, get along with it.


Yeah, sure. God definitely does not exist because you don't believe in God. Jesus definitely did not rise from the dead because you don't believe in resurrection. Same ol' same ol'. Condemn religious people for faith while having more faith than most religious folks.

No, I don't want special treatment for my religion. Sadly you seem to enjoy making false statements about me. Sadly anti-theists constantly attack religion and religious people with blatant flasehoods. That is why there can simply be no rational discussion with anti-theists.
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Hobbit
Hobbit


Supreme Hero
posted June 27, 2013 10:38 PM

Elodin, come on - how does saying that all of these heroes have something in common make God and Jesus not present? Haven't you thought that maybe these myths (despite being truth or not - we're talking about science, not religious views) all come from the same source and therefore the Bible isn't less "true" in any way?

Artu provided some links that explained why this scale is more or less accurate, and you're calling us "anti-theists" and giving some links that just say "This isn't true" and aren't referring to anything but the scale itself (seriously, Mary and Joseph WERE relatives and had King David as ancestor - that proves points 1-3). What are you trying to prove if you're not discussing anything, but just giving us "facts" that are just some statements from religious point of view?

You're just against what Artu says without even reading his posts. Do you hold monopoly on truth about Christianity and if someone says "Maybe", you're here to make him look like a liar?
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JoonasTo
JoonasTo


Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
What if Elvin was female?
posted June 28, 2013 03:28 PM
Edited by JoonasTo at 15:28, 28 Jun 2013.

Please, reread the first post of this thread Elodin, then go and delete all your posts that are in the wrong thread on this page. Make a proper thread for them. Post them there.

Thank you.



Väinämöinen scores 6 on that scale btw. I believe he is the highest one on the scale from finnish Folklore.
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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 28, 2013 03:53 PM

@Elodin

For the hundredth time, science does not assume (a) God, because there is no scientific reason to assume one. If you are not deliberately ignoring this simple answer reminded to you many times and genuinely unable to understand such a simple concept, you are the definition of what they call blinded by faith. Besides, those mythological stories are not God, they are stories. If you seriously expect anthropology or comparative mythology to take things such as virgin birth, resurrection, dividing of the red sea etc etc as facts, you are not only clueless about scientific method, you are also clueless about the fact that these things are cultural beliefs while science is not based on culture. A Chinese anthropologist and an Italian anthropologist treat the story of resurrection the same way (at least while they are doing their job). Suggesting otherwise is indeed expecting special treatment for YOUR religion. Which myths should we include in your immunity list, in the end, most of them are part of somebody's religion.

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gnomes2169
gnomes2169


Honorable
Undefeatable Hero
Duke of the Glade
posted June 28, 2013 04:46 PM

Elodin: It's a simple formula present in almost every religion world wide. It does not claim that any religion is wrong, but notices that there are many similarity. Nor does it say anyone on the list is not real, and in fact states that real individuals can still fall under the categories of the Hero Scale, as it is the actions that are looked at and not the reality that may or may not exist. Srsly bro, no attacks have been made by the OP. Just an observation.
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Yeah in the 18th century, two inventions suggested a method of measurement. One won and the other stayed in America.
-Ghost destroying Fred

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 28, 2013 05:02 PM
Edited by artu at 17:03, 28 Jun 2013.

Gnomes, real people can also be in the list yes, but it only means something if their life was turned into a legend. Somebody real can literally die on the top of a hill, but that would have no significance to the study. The object of the study is to show patterns in myths and by doing that investigating how the human psyche works and to what level we can talk of a collective frame set in storytelling.

Think of this like the work of Freud on artists, pointing out a pattern on killing of the father in literature (Oedipus, Hamlet, Karamazov Brothers) and explaining it with the subconscious desire to want to do so.

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master_learn
master_learn


Legendary Hero
walking to the library
posted June 28, 2013 05:11 PM

Similarities and observations can also be analized and discussed and Elodin presents arguments why theists think this scale is showing disrespect to Christianity as well as other religions.

Don't get me wrong.I think JJ pointed out the fact,that even if one religion is right and other religions are wrong,there would be many myths/stories(for example the Greek ones),that are written with inspiration,but don't rely only on historic facts.

Take for example the war between Greece and Troy-it can be viewered as historic fact,which have many mythical elements surrounding it.
Or how Prometheus brings fire to people-it's a myth,which is based on the understanding that there were times,when people didn't have fire and didn't know how to use it,compared to later times,when they have the knowledge.

So myths are written,but none of them is just made up,all of them are certain historic,society related or explaining in mythic ways what had happened in their time.

I have read part of a book about legends,and one of the points in it is,that many myths/legends are built around death or blood and we need a prism,through which we need to look upon those old times and events.
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre

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artu
artu


Promising
Undefeatable Hero
My BS sensor is tingling again
posted June 28, 2013 05:24 PM
Edited by artu at 17:30, 28 Jun 2013.

Someone who's religious is someone accepting ONE OF THE mythologies as truth and since he accepts it as truth, it's understandable he won't feel pleasant when the mythology is treated just like the others by analysts. But that's just something you have to live with because there is no impartial and unbiased way to analyze a myth without treating it as a myth. Of course, like any other type of fictional story, myths are made up in the real world and just like any other literature they deal with real world problems and events and are inspired by them, sometimes as in Iliad and the war of Troy, based on them. (If you read the actual book, you'll see that the myth is quite secularized in the movie, in the Homeros version, the Gods of Olympus are very active and they interfere with the battle themselves, taking sides and making wagers etc etc.)

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Salamandre
Salamandre


Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Wog refugee
posted June 28, 2013 05:43 PM

Religion is an accident of birth. One's personal beliefs and the certainty with which one holds them is an unreliable measure of truth, because they are largely determined by one's culture and the faith of one's parents. If Elodin was born in Saudi Arabia, for example, there is near 100% chance that today he would promote Islam instead of Christianity, therefore not being affected by Jesus as myth in this thread. He would be same person but entirely different in some way. Same goes probably with any of us but just pointing that the such "universal truth" is in fact nothing else than a conjecture.

Because religions are so different, only one could be the "true religion", perhaps none of them. The question is: "Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?".

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Zenofex
Zenofex


Responsible
Legendary Hero
Kreegan-atheist
posted June 28, 2013 05:46 PM

Quote:
So myths are written,but none of them is just made up,all of them are certain historic,society related or explaining in mythic ways what had happened in their time.
You do make a difference between a myth and a religion, right? Religion assumes that its myths are actually no myths but true events and while some of them might be true to some extent (it is extremely unlikely to have something 100% true), most of them are stories, the original meaning of which rarely survives untouched and which are interpreted in a given cultural context and not as historical events. Now try to explain that to Elodin and his kin and see how far you'll get.

By the way, Joseph Campbell (which is among the people in Elodin's quote, only that the wannabe who has written the text from the "clicky" clearly has no idea what he's talking about) makes an interesting analysis of the hero myths, although in my opinion his approach is too speculative at times. His "Western Mythology" and "Eastern Mythology" are recommended reads.

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master_learn
master_learn


Legendary Hero
walking to the library
posted June 28, 2013 06:28 PM
Edited by master_learn at 18:38, 28 Jun 2013.

@Elodin,what would you say about the greek myths,do you find them interesting or valuable to you(many greek stories are myths-something that all participants in the discussion can agree on)?

For example I respect the myths about Sisyphus and Tantalus,as descriptions of aspects in our life and think how can I avoid being in the place of these two.
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"I heard the latest HD version disables playing Heroes. Please reconsider."-Salamandre

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