Are Myths Valuable?

[vulcanlogician]

I'm really not trying to be difficult here.  I just don't understand myths except as stories and sometimes as metaphors in literature.

I'm not trying to be difficult either. Feel free to reject my thesis, as you did in your last post. Maybe my thesis is wrong. Maybe myths are just like urban legends and other bullshit. OR maybe myths are no more valuable than regular stories. Perhaps you think they all have a moral that could be delivered like the Bob Saget "life lesson" in an episode of Full House. I'm saying there is something more than this. But what is this "more."

Let's examine the myth of Kali. Kali is a feminine force. She is a destroyer of evil. She is driven to stomp on evil and stomp and stomp until it is obliterated.

But one time, in her blind rage, she began to stomp on the god Shiva. She stomped and stomped on Shiva not realizing what she was doing. In some versions of the myth Parvati (mother nature) shows Kali that she is stomping on her beloved Shiva. And when she realizes what she is doing, she stops.

Shiva himself is also a destroyer. But he is a meditative and contemplative destroyer. I often compare Shiva and Kali when reflecting upon the necessity of destruction.

All things must pass. Shiva the destroyer maintains the universe by taking away things whose time it is to pass. Sometimes it is painful to lose things. But all things must pass. That is the wisdom of the myth of Shiva.

The wisdom of the myth of Kali is that sometimes we must stomp away evil, but when we do, it is very risky. We will likely subdue the entity we wish to preserve. So I get a message of pacifism from the myth of Kali.

This is so much different from what people are calling "modern myths"-- Batman and Superman and shit. Fuck no.

If this is modern mythology, then moderners are weak and feeble creators of gods. Kali should be your inward sense of justice, and Shiva should be her moderator.

That is way more meaningful than having an inner Batman who is tempered by an inner Alfred. I'm not say this isn't all that bad. I'm just saying that moderners need to start creating better gods.