Commonality of Worldwide Myths

Nuggin writes:Just because people experience common events, emotions, etc, doesn't mean they'll make up the same word for it. Why would we assume that someone on one side of the world witnessing a comet would call it exactly the same thing that someone on the otherside of the world would?

Nuggin writes:Your bigger question of why do we have so many languages is best answered by the fact that populations split from each other and spend huge amounts of time seperate, and during that time their languages evolve differently.

Nuggin writes:My original question is: Are common features in world wide myths a function of common factors in human life? Or do they necessarily indicate that all stories arise from some specific event?Why can't people from around the world, given the same circumstances, show the same degree of creativity?

Nuggin writes:There are many common elements in the mythologies of different cultures around the world. (ie Flood stories, dragons, man created from clay, etc.)Many of the YEC have sited these as evidence that their theory is correct.But aren't there other (better?) explainations for these stories. I'd like to suggest a few.1) Common experience - (the is very close to the YEC argument) world wide changes in climate / world wide events will have similiar effects on the cultures of different people. For example: At the end of the Ice Age, the water levels would have risen re-flooding the vast shoreline tracts which had openned and become inhabited. Peoples all over the world would have experienced "a great flood", but not "The Great Flood".2) Common reasoning - given similar discoveries, people from different cultures may draw similiar conclusions. For example: Megalodon (giant shark) teeth are fairly common fossils. There are a lot of them, they are generally well preserved. If someone with no frame of reference other than the natural world around them discovered one of these fist sized teeth, it's not hard to see how they would imagine it coming from a "dragon".3) Common psychology - No matter what culture you come from, some things don't change. Children are born, people grow old and die, some people are mean, others are nice. Isn't it reasonable that facing similiar experiences, people would develop similiar coping mechanisms/rationalizations? For example: As babies are born with a flood of water from the womb, so too, couldn't the world have been born from a flood of water?4) Common materials - The natural world offers up only so much for building materials. We've become very tricky at teasing out alloys and mixing up concrete, but clearly there was a time when people had only sticks, stones and clay. Given this limited exposure to materials isn't it reasonable that many different cultures have myths of man's creation being from clay. After all, clay is much more like flesh than sticks or stones.To my mind, these explain many of the points raised about the common myths. They do so within the framework of the evidence at hand and don't rely on "magic".Anyone have other examples? Questions? Disagreements?

PaulK writes:There is certainly some reason why the Babel myth arose. But it might be no more than curiosity and the story-telling impulse. Why are therediffernet peoples with different languages ? what were those large, ancient ruins ? how do we fit those into our world-view?

Nuggin writes:...you must recognize that your beliefs are your perspective. A Hindu very much believes that the God he worships is a divine entity, and probably believes that your God is the imitator.Given a fair and level playing ground, what are we to conclude? Everyone is right? No one is right?

ohnhai writes:What is the difference between ”truth seeking’ and ”spiritual truth seeking’?

NIV writes:John 18:37-38-- "You are a king, then!" said Pilate.Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.""What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him.