RE: Eternal punishment is pointless.
November 28, 2014 at 4:30 am
(This post was last modified: November 28, 2014 at 4:31 am by Smaug.)
Quote:That's the perfect example, IMO. Our myths and legends are always so much larger than life. Mankind makes bombs that can level entire cities, but in his stories he creates laser beams that can annihilate an entire planet.
This tendency to exaggerate and hyperbolize must be inherent in most cultures. Ancient hunters exaggerated the size of animals they've fought to make themselves look braver and more skilled. Warriors exaggerated the strength of enemies they fought for the same reason. Everything is still the same exept for how exactly the hyperbolization is carried out.
And there also has always been a widespred tendency to exaggerate things that happened in the past, especially in a manner of speaking of 'good old times'. It's kind of a psychic defensive mechanism called regression if I'm correct.
One of the roots of all this is probably a widespread and constantly present dissatisfation with reality.