and i'm with you there - i'm absolutely with you. i think a lot of religious leaders who are backing some extraordinary stories, if they could just get off the high horse and say, "it's myth, but myth is real." that's all they've got to say, "it's myth, but myth is real." and we're going to go through several functions of myth here shortly, and i'll try to make that case. and to me, it would alleviate - i mean, certain religions come to mind. i mean, come on folks, i mean, about 88 percent of the people who are religious in this nation are some form of christian. think of the myth statements within christianity of the extraordinary events. of those 88 percent, there's probably 1,000 different denominations of christianity in a free country that, for the most part, disagree over the interpretation of the level of factuality, historical, factual event versus symbolic, mythical ritual drama.

and we could just like take it easy on each other if we could just separate those. so you've brought up an excellent point, it's one of the key points - a beliefs and believers point - that we want to bring up is, well, let's sort that out; let's sort out some of the differences between history and myth and where they in fact interact. so good question. sure. >> i would answer that i think that people, in many ways, are like children, and they need some example, because if you gave them the basic principle, they'd say, "too deep." so if you give them something that they can picture, or fit in with their own life as being something reasonable, it doesn't matter to them if it's fact or not - you've given them a reason to believe what the person who is giving them the story wants them to believe. >> you're so right. i mean, think about the star wars trilogy, for instance, and what that taught people about. it's a mythic drama about good and evil, and about how people could begin

to relate to something like that. and why is it so popular? things are popular because they touch mythic cords. go ahead, chris. >> why do all great learned people or great religious teachers speak in myths and in parables? i've noticed like - maybe i'm totally wrong here - but jesus spoke in parables, buddha spoke in parables, confucius spoke in parables, socrates spoke in parables. i think the only - the truths that we seek to grasp cannot be grasped in such a simple thing as just saying it from me to you. i think what we have to - what they understood is that most people aren't going to understand this unless we bring everyday things, everyday symbols into it, and bring some normalacy to it, so people can understand it, like we talked about in the second class,

with bringing life symbols like the fish and crosses and stuff. >> exactly. that's exactly the point we want to look at when we're looking at myth is that's what's going on here. religious experience is extraordinary. we talked about language in here and how difficult it is to express it, and so myth symbols - and we'll go into more formal notes later on symbols - but symbols are elements that you're familiar with but they may point to something totally different - and that's what's going on in the drama. and because myths are so fantastic or extraordinary, they need to be ritually reworked and relived - i mean, so that's how you get back to the experience. again, that's why we started with experiential dimension, because unless you are in that experience, the myths are dead - they're just stories that aren't true; the rituals are boring. how many people bust on their religion because of those two things, that i don't believe that and the rituals don't mean anything - that's why it's so important

that they come back to the experience. go ahead, janet, and then we'll get you, juan. >> if you think back in the history of human beings, stories telling is the natural way that information would be passed from one generation to the next, it's a survival mechanism. you want that old person there to remember what happened last year when you were stuck in this conundrum, so that they can tell the story and that you can - your group can survive. so it's actually a built-in survival mechanism of behavior storytelling. >> because it's identity and relationship, and we want to get to graphics. but let me do that here. juan, i said i'd get to you, but we want to move on through the graphics and i'll come right back to you. let's move through the - i think we've made the main point here, but if we could move to the next graphic, what we have on them is just simply in words going through what i've already stated, which is that we have this dimensional triangle, we can see it here in the graphic - that is the dynamic that i want us to look for.

i'm always learning in this field, and i really got very excited when i saw how this was linked together, because it gave me a window to understand how so many different world views work. i had the same problem, that jamie raised, other people raised- what's this deal with myth? why can't you just - and chris said it, too - why can't we just say something factual that happened? why does it have to be so fantastic? and you realize, as you begin to move through these, that this dimensional triangle, that the religious experience, as we have here, is something that we've seen in all human beings because they seek these answers to boundary questions, and again, meaning and purpose and these sorts of things, and so where are they going to look to those answers? well, in religions, we move to the next step, in terms of the relationship, and we see that the myths step in, in the cultural context - back to our discussion

of cultural context. we see that the myths are colored, shaped - the prism element - the myths come in, and we'll speak about this term paradigmatic narratives - but myths - i like that term, paradigm means model - well, paradigm - or i like paradigm - laden narratives because it's as though myths literally drip like a ripe piece of fruit, they drip with models for behavior and action and activity - great heroes, like we heard in dr. dave's piece, so myths do those. and inside that, what they do then is they guide the rituals. now, in guiding the rituals, what actually happens - and this is ideally - what actually happens is that the believer will come back into holiness, wholeness, completeness, a sense of peace, a sense of fulfillment - that seems to have been the spark of the original religious experience -

at a festival, the buddhist meditates as the buddha did. we will look at baptism here shortly. let me take us through here and look at some of these functions. this is where we hit on jamie's key point here - the relationship between myth and history. he used the term fact , but i use history, but i think you get the basic point here, that the quest for the historical jesus versus the quest for the jesus of faith. now, those are two very different things, and why can't people just recognize that they're two different things? well, it's difficult. but let's look first at myth an see what we're talking about here. just as i said, paradigm - laden narratives - that there's models for good and evil - primordial heroes, great leaders, evil forces. i mean, just think of the book of revelation that's getting a lot of play lately because we're "getting near the end of the world."

what will we do in the end time? and next, that's - we'll look at different types. but we've got to know, "how did we get here? where do we go? where are we going to go when we die? who's right? who's wrong? what's good? what's evil?" and these, as chris said, are very hard to just come out and say, so all these magical stories rise up. janet made a key point - storytelling is the key to human existence. we love stories. listen to, what makes a hit, a music hit? you've got good narrative - you've got to get a good story and you've got to get a good melody, and that makes a hit. look at all our sitcoms, look at our fascination with stories. what are stories doing? back to class one - identity and relationship - and that's where myth plugs in. but look at some of these key functions of myth, and then we'll go back to jamie's question and say, are myths phony? are myths false? should we disregard them? well, number one, they answer profound life questions, and indeed they do, as we heard with dr. dave.

and answering profound life questions, second key point, as we go through here - they guide individual and collective behavior, and from the point of view of beliefs and believers, this may be the most important thing they do. i do not - well, of course i care - but it doesn't matter if - i think i used this example in another class - but if you're a government agent and you're crossing that plain in texas and inside is the branch davidians, and they are living in an armageddon, apocalyptic, mythic drama, based straight out of the book of revelation , and they know the u.s. government is the antichrist, and the government agents are representatives, they're dominions of satan, and they're coming across that field - all hell broke loose. and the government agent and his family - very tragic. but can they go back and say those were wackos -

everything they believed was wrong? it was not wrong - it guided their behavior, and then all violence came to be. i mean, the killing, ethically, you can take issue with that. but what you see there in that kind of activity is that the myths guide individual and collective behavior, and there's great reality and great power in that. the issue - well, let's go through these, and i'll go back and put my you-know-what on the line and bring up the particular religion that i think's interesting there. but another very important point is it engenders - brings out self-esteem and empowerment. and i've got to jump in right on this one. we'll come back to the nation of islam, elijah mohammed, louis farrakhan, and if you look at the original teachings of elijah mohammed, it's a fascinating turntable mythic story in which whites are a devil race created by an evil force who have been made to oppress black folk; but when the justice is done,

that evil race will be wiped out. now, elijah backed off that in his later years, but what he had to do was raise up the self-esteem of african americans - empower them - and he used a mythic force. true or false? open question. but it had the key point here. another key thing they do is they order existence - they tell us who we are, where we're going, what we're doing, what's important, what isn't important. and we're going to come back to civil religion in this class, but all you have to do is walk through the paper plate and napkin section of k-mart and watch the colors change, from your little reds and whites on valentine's day to your st. patty's day, to memorial day, fourth of july, and what you're seeing is a liturgical, mythic cycle happening inin the secular leve- it provides meaning,

it guides behavior, which is the credit card - i mean, the card companies are making all the money, but that's the kind of idea - it orders us. and another very important part it does, which also lends itself to a political idea, is it does give reverence for the past and hope for the future. my fifth grade social studies book about america was not history - it was myth. it was george chopping down the cherry tree and not lying, and abraham lincoln walking 60 miles for a penny. hey, you ever been down to springfield in our great state of illinois? lincoln worship! we were talking about that big drama. helen, let me get to you here. >> could we get back to waco, texas, just for a minute? >> sure. >> it seems to me that the government men also had a myth, and so what happened that was so tragic was the collision of two myths - the branch davidians' myth and the feds' myth. the feds' myth was that satan was on the other side, these were devils -

there was some, even, creation of a false story that they were abusing children in order to justify the myth that permitted the government men to attack. >> very well said - there was symbolic manipulation going on there on both sides, in order to justify behavior. the united states is a very mythically vital country, and you can raise up certain issues that tear things down. probably one of the problems by the time this gets out, it'll probably be past - president clinton has is that for all the good he's done, he's violated certain mores that are part of the mythic drama that we're in here. so just the last graphic, and then i want to go to the one roll-in, and we'll have a little time to come back here. the last graphic kind of summarizes what we're looking at here that jamie brought up, which is history is about factual description of past

peoples, places, and events. and my big question is: is history ever free from its mythic element? whatever is in the culture, is history ever completely detached from myth? it's always in there. anytime revisionists come back - helen brought up the women, the book with a woman relooking at buddhism - a woman goes back and looks at history with eyes of a woman and sees great leaders in there and it changes. african americans go back and look at american history, and all of a sudden, there's a different tone, a different flavor to the textbooks, because they see that indeed, these people participated as much as anyone else. so whosever reading and interpreting is doing the job there. now let me go to the roll-in, because this is just an example, if you're hanging out there in doubter's land about my triangle, i wanted to bring home something to you that fills out the triangle, and it's baptism.

we happened to just arrive at the river jordan - not really headed there for any reason - we got to the river jordan, where, of course, jesus is baptized, and we see all these people there being baptized, and we say, "why are you doing it?" and it's because the myths, the story in the new testament speaks of baptism, jesus was baptized, they want to be baptized in the same spot. then we jump all the way half a world away to roy, washington, and speak to a fundamentalist baptist preacher who says exactly why he does it. and hopefully, this will show our triangle at work. so let's go to our roll-in on baptism and look for that dimensional triangle. ♪ god is so good, ♪ god is so good,

♪ he's so good to me ♪ god is so good, ♪ god is so good, >> personally, for me, we were talking earlier about how we were going to chicken out because it was so cold. but i'm really glad we did, that it not only reaffirms how i really believe, but the bible tells you to be baptized, and just to - like my father said - to do it here in jordan river is something really special. ♪ god is so good, ♪ god is so good, >> baptism pictures the gospel of the lord jes christ. the gospel is, christ died for my sins, and was buried, and rose again.

now, baptism by immersion has always been the biblical way. even those who sprinkle that the ancient, primitive way of baptizing was always by immersion, which is what the word literally means - it means immersed, to immerse. and so if you've truly accepted christ in your heart, we believe that you will follow through with obeying him in being baptized, to show forth to whoever is there, as a witness and a testimony that you have accepted christ, you believe he died for you, he was buried for you, and that he rose again, and you are identifying publicly with christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. this also associates you with god's people - his church - and you're saying, "i'm one of these folks." that's what baptism is about. >> i baptise you my sister in the name of the father, and the son and the holy ghost.

>> see, all the elements are in there - huge passage of time, almost 2,000 years, the original leader of christianity is being baptized, maybe in that same spot. there we are the river jordan, and we didn't even have to slip that woman five bucks, she said, "i did it because the bible told me to do it," and what she's saying is that the mythic drama asked for that. then we jump, centuries and centuries, a millennia away, half a world away to a little town called roy, washington, and we happened to cross this calvary baptist independent fundamentalist church and we'll come back to our good friend pastor stowe here later in the course, but what we find is that there - we're sitting in the church, and we said, "there's going to be a baptism; where's the baptismal font?" then up on the big wall, whoosh,

open up and in she goes and out she goes. so a millennia later, that's the triangle, to get back into that experience of - to sort of validate, to validate the initial experience of your born again experience of acceptance into christ, you go back to an ancient ritual, but do it in the very, very current time, which ideally brings you back into it. what's very interesting about the woman - we didn't get a chance to talk to her - but the woman in the church, it was a rebaptism. she'd had a very bad time, a divorce, some kind of bad personal experience, and she felt she was losing her christianity, losing her experience. so what do you do if you lose your experience? you rebaptize - you go back through the ritual again, reaffirm that original experience in the myth, so you're back into it. let me go to one more roll-in, and then we'll have - i keep promising a little time to talk,

but well get to it here. it's a really, another neat piece i want to share with you in this class because it fits so well. it's in a graveyard, overlooking the holy city in jerusalem, on a beautiful day, and what we find there is particularly wealthy jews in jerusalem will have themselves buried so that they can be right there near the holy city. so we'll see in the roll-in from the graveyard this beautiful setting - even though it's a graveyard, it's a beautiful day - but behind it is al-aqsa mosque, the muslim mosque and the dome of the rock, the holy sepulcar in christianity, and of course, the western wall of the temple - so three great traditions rise up, as we'll say here in the videotape, out of a single boundary question - "what do we do in mortality?" so let's jump from - where have we been? we've been to roy, washington, we've been to the jordan river, and now to the holy city.

>> the poppy is traditionally a symbol of remembrance, and it's really quite appropriate we'd find them in a graveyard. but what a graveyard. this is a holy site, and the people who are buried here are actually jews who have paid money in order to have themselves dug up and put in this special site, because it's one of the most holy sites in the world. behind me, we see the holy city - home to the sacred, sacred sites for jews, for christians, for muslims - and it tells us a lot about the importance of coming to grips with your own mortality. we've mentioned in the class that death is one of the great stimulators of religious feelings - if we're all immortal, how then can we make sense of our life? if everything we do comes to naught, well, then, why even go on with life? and of course, religion steps in and tries to make sense of that. now, in the holy city, it's an amazing story,

almost a collision of myths - jew, muslim, and christian - coming from the same faith, looking to abraham, worshiping the same god, but extraordinary differences in how they go about it, and yet all look to the same holy site. muslims at al-aqsa mosque and the dome of the rock will be washing their hands and feet, prostrating themselves towards mecca, worshiping allah. jews in sacred shawls will be kissing the western wall, the last remnant of the great temple, praying devoutly. and christians may well ritually follow in the path of their savior, via del a rosa to calvary, and then the holy sepulcar. very powerful situations here, but it all comes back to our look at what do we do about our mortality. so as the poppy is a symbol of remembrance, in many ways, it also is a symbol of resurrection, of rebirth. and the religious traditions we'll see here in israel, in jerusalem,

will help us in finding out exactly why it is that humans take this religious impulse and turn it into these extraordinary religious expressions. >> and that's what we saw over and over again in the holy city is the - in the muslims, in the jews, in the christians - pilgrims going to the ancient places to if not do what the great leader did, to be in the spot. the al-aqsa mosque and the dome of the rock are extraordinary places where mohammed did amazing things - ascended to heaven, came down, talked with the great leaders of all times - and people come there and they pray, right next to the western wall where the jews ritually pray, pray as the ancestors did, pray as they were taught to do. all that history is in there, and of course, the whole - we'll come back to a roll-in later on this - but you go to the church of the holy sepulcar,

where the christian pilgrim can literally go through the stages of jesus's last time. and until you go in there - i think i asked if anyone had been there before - but until you're in there, it's a rather short space where you move from jesus's - from being stripped, to being nailed to the cross, to being on the cross, to being taken down to wash, to into the tomb, to where it all raises up, and christian pilgrims wander in there in great serenity - doing what? seeking to renew that religious experience that originally inspired their great leader, was passed on down through tradition - the myth mostly concretized in sacred text; not always - but then you capture it by redoing it in rituals. i mean, you think about what goes on in various religious organizations, it seems to me to hold up pretty well. but that's why people do the things they do, and it's also how they do them.

in a free society, they do them in a lot of different ways; other times, people, have gone through the stake or been hung or killed for doing the ritual the wrong way. but in our society, you see how much that's going on. any comments or questions you might have on that or anything? before i put myself in that line with that one. sure. >> well, i don't know if this could be called religious, but we do that same feeling when we go walk the trails of lewis & clark. why are we doing that? because we want to feel those same footsteps, you maybe feel a relationship with what they did. it could be any of those times when you go on a vacation, to be right where lincoln had been and so-and-so. >> you're so right. >> ...just religion of jesus christ or such. >> that's the feeling you get, and we'll talk about this in terms of civil religion - kind of a controversial term - but that's exactly why we want to go back to those

original spots, go back to colonial times, because you're reliving the mythic drama. did you notice, oh, last year or something like that, the mormons got together, dressed in their old - the 19th century clothing, and they got the oxen and everything, and they did redid the mormon trail out to utah. they want to relive it - it renews the experience. yes. >> it seems to me, from everything we've discussed, that the danger in most religions, in my perspective, seems to come when the learning of the myths is taken in without understanding the symbolism there, and without historical perspective. >> yes. absolutely. this is a point that i want to extend on when we get to doctrine, but i teach the bible sequence down at western illinois university, and naturally, i have the classic evangelical born again christian in there, and a good many of them really know the bible, but many of them do not know

the cultural context, and you need to have - you need to understand the symbolism. when we look at a book like revelation , that is causing so much turmoil, and may well have been behind political acts of destruction in this country, in which the symbolism - i'm not just making this up, folks - the symbolism that drove a timothy mcveigh to such extreme is drawn from the book of revelation , filtered through soldier of fortune and christian identity movements and all these sorts of things, in which the symbols that were being used 1,900 years ago are skewed in such a way to present u.s. and u.s. government as some kind of demonic force. so you're so right there, and it's one of the things we're going to have to pay attention to. and you know, as we're running down to the last few seconds, unfortunately, in this class, keep that in mind, because i want to come back, and we will come back to some fairly controversial religions as we move through the semester, and we want to always keep in mind what's

the mythic symbolism? where do we draw that line between myth and history, and how are these people using these symbols? so we'll see you next time, with judaism.

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