Eliade's claim that a myth is believed to be the truest of all true stories rests on a misunderstanding of this response. Claims such as Eliade's result more from anthropologists reading their own preconceived ideas into their data than from the actual intentions of the primitive peoples. Good scientists will treat seriously any question about the details of the scientific knowledge of their day, just as good Christians will treat seriously any question about how their faith ought to be interpreted. Nietzsche recognized the newness of his ideas so clearly that he predicted it would take two hundred years for people to understand fully what he was talking about. This struggle is indeed very apparent when we look at life as it has been lived in the twentieth century.
Myth is a powerful source of meaning in human life.
Nietzsche's ideas can be interpreted in a way that is very much opposed to religion and philosophy in general, and to Christian religion and philosophy in particular. For his new myth does indeed look very much like a myth of ultimate meaninglessness and irrationality. Yet there is another way of understanding Nietzsche, and it is a way that I believe does more justice to his true intentions. In a word, we approach Nietzsche's ideal when we learn to recognize and affirm the myth we are living. I believe it is, though in this short essay it will not be possible to explore Nietzsche's ideas in enough depth to explain how.