Ways of knowing truth connected with secular belief systems adopted to combat skepticism about the old symbolic and mythological truths of the Judeo-Christian heritage. Doubt crept into religious belief systems of the present in a way that did not exist before. Along continuum from simpler societies to complex urban industrial ones, go from world where most things have sacred connections and there is little doubt about reality of sacred things, to a world where most things have no sacred connections, and there is doubt and controversy and conflict about the reality of sacred things. A few definitions. Belief systems can be sacred or secular.
Symbols largely arbitrary that people, through culture, assign meanings.
Myths, for anthropology, are associated with belief systems. They are considered true by believers. Rituals are physical activities associated with belief systems that are repeated with some regularity.