Myth
* Attempted or completed suicides happen without warning.
* Being seriously obese can result in a number of diseases and serious health problems.
* Make-up protects the skin from outside elements,such as wind,dust,ect,ect.
* Many myths deal with the relationship between mortals and divinities.
* Many myths exist about domestic violence
  - sexual assault
  - vasectomy
* Many myths exist in believers' minds concerning giving
  - our society surrounding fat
  - relate stories and wisdom drawn from animals in the world
  - say it was born from the marriage of the earth and sky
  - speak of how all life upon the planet, especially human, sprang from the seas
* Many myths surround aging
  - sex after heart disease and stroke
  - spaying and neutering
* Most myths have some basis in the real world of facts and observations.
* Some myths try to explain the natural world
  * A 'myth' story that may or may not be true. Myths are generally very old. This means there are no records or other proof that they happened. We know about them from older people telling them to younger people. Some myths may have started as 'true' stories but as people told and re-told them, they may have changed some parts, so they are less 'true'. They may have changed them by mistake, or to make them more interesting. All cultures have myths
* Understand the political use of myth.
* abound about breeds of cats and dogs and even horses that are supposedly safe.
* also deal with the past.
* also give women a false sense of security and dis-inhibit the behavior of rapists
  - of security and disinhibit the behavior of rapists
  - has an esoteric function, which is almost the opposite of the exoteric function
* also have a descriptive function, explaining facts beyond normal reason and observation
  - spontaneous quality, having been created by an outburst of human imagination
* always have their origin in an experienced reality.
* are a collective dream of a culture and are no different than a personal dream
  - about the gods
* are among the most persistent, resilient, lasting, and enduring artifacts of culture
  - oldest, most powerful, and most entertaining forms of literature
  - an important part of every society, including our own
  - as old as humanity itself
  - complex organizations of meaning and signs
  - different from legends because legends are usually based on historical events
  - false beliefs that most people think are true
  - formulative in that they attempt to create order out of the disorientation of illness
  - important to a nation's sense of identity
  - imprints of human behavior
  - integral to communal propaganda
  - just stories that someone made up at some point in time
  - like records, and how records are made to be broken
  - meanings and values in narrative form
  - metaphors for the metaphysical universe
  - more than history in that they grow from personal and shared memories and imagination
  - myths because of the great truths they talk about
* are narratives people use to remind themselves of the paradigms they hold as True
  - themselves of what they hold to be True, and why
  - natural expressions of reality
  - oral technologies that unwrap time, moving one into the timeless
  - our self-interpretation of our inner selves in relation to the outside world
  - part of all our folk tales, stories and religions
  - powerful forms of persuasion
  - reflective of the human experience, even the human experience of fantasy
* are sacred stories about past events or about events in the future
  - stories, histories are secular stories
  - simply narrative elaborations of culutrally shared perceptions of reality
  - so much a part of human culture, no matter what their origin
  - social property
* are stories about gods and goddesses
  - naturally occurring things
  - the gods and their adventures
  - attempting to explain a natural phenomenon using gods or goddesses
  - based on some truth
  - of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance
* are stories that are more true than actual events
  - so true they can never happen
  - narrate the structure and origins of a culture
  - often contain the deeper truths
* are stories which are in some ways fictional and in some important ways true
  - interpret the universe, and infuse it with personal meaning
  - someone believes is true
  - with religious content, about gods, goddesses, and heroes
  - stories, narratives, about the origins of things that humans practice or engage in
  - symbolic narratives connected to the original experiences by the symbols themselves
  - symbols of faith combined in stories about divine-human encounters
  - tales of the early stages of culture and cosmos
* are the ancient pre-histories of the stories that reappear in our lives
  - bridge to the collective unconscious
  - creation traditions and the mental supports of rituals
  - storehouse, or library, of a group's identity and history
  - stories the Greeks told about their past
* are traditional stories occurring in a timeless past and involving supernatural elements
  - universal truths applicable regardless of era, culture, gender, age, etc
  - vehicles for transmitting eternal wisdom
  - what help people switch from victimization stories to empowerment stories
* are, for the most part, allegories and personifications of nature.
* articulate the fundamental truths about the shape of the universe and the nature of humanity.
* belong to our evolution of social thoughts.
* can be life-giving at times, destructive at others
  - interfere with the ability of persons with disabilities to have equality in employment
  - protray values, living conditions and attitudes in different cultures
  - reflect certain beliefs or facts in Greek life
  - serve as stumbling blocks to happiness in marriage
  - span cultural and generational boundaries
* coexist with mathematics.
* combine religious purposes with explanatory purposes and have been widely used in literature.
* complex cultural phenomenon that can be approached from a number of view points
  - approached from a number of viewpoints
* create a sense of oneness with nature.
* create, maintain, and legitimate past, present, or future actions and consequences.
* define and explain the relationship between society and the supernatural.
* differ from fairy tales, in that they refer to a time that is different from ordinary time.
* distort the real world, mangling the spirit and confusing the heart and mind.
* do injury to individual persons, families and to children.
* dominate people when they are alienated from their lives by wage labor.
* exist along side of scientific thinking and play a significant role
  - in every culture in the world
* explains how something came to exist
  - the cycle of life and death in nature
* has it that dolphins sometimes guide ships through treacherous waters.
* have a universal and a culture-specific aspect
  - the power to touch our imaginations
* heal and teach people.
* help explain and create cause and effect relationships.
* help people come to terms with difficult periods of their past
  - organize their experiences and embody a culture's assumptions and values
  - to develop together and individuals to develop within themselves
* inspire philosophers and scientists alike, who, in turn, become weavers of myths.
* invest life with meaning.
* involve fantastic events and heroic endeavors.
* is about maturing and growth and decay and death
  - alive and well in the marketplace, and in our consumer subconscious
  - also evident in media political and commercial propaganda and images of gender
  - always concerned with creation
* is an attempt to understand the world
  - experiment in conversation and an experience in the human being
  - old traditional story or legend
  - aware of reality, but reaches beyond concrete experience
  - based on quality, ideology on quantity
  - common to all cultures with culturally-determined variants
  - fictional work
  - nourished by silence as well as by words
  - one of the fundamental forces in the human universe
  - poetry by nature, whereas the nature of history is prose
* is the conscious compression of a universe of meaning into a set of archetypes
  - disc operating system of humanity
  - mode of simultaneous awareness of a complex group of causes and effects
  - pattern that knits together self, society and comos into a meaningful matrix
  - symbolic bond between two worlds
  - used both in connection with natural events and as a model of human experience
* live and grow and extend themselves.
* means to meaning.
* occur, for example, in history, law, sociology, and economics.
* often explain the origins of customs and features of the landscape
  - inspire great works of art
  - prevent people from doing the right thing
  - surround, and explain, heroes and heroines
* play a role in their everyday society.
* play an important part in our lives
  - role in human life both personal and collective
* portray human issues in ways that adolescents can understand.
* powerful source of meaning in human life.
* psychic phenomenon that reveals the nature of the soul.
* reconciles human beings to the world.
* reflect their time, place, and race.
* rises out of archetype and ritual, ritual translates to metaphor.
* seek to explain the origin of humanity.
* serve an important function in society.
* shows how powers that rule the world attain their position.
* speak a symbolic language and make use of metaphor
  - of a formless void or egg which was the beginning of the universe
* structure of values, set into a story.
* takes many forms.
* transcend the senses and permeate sensibility, conditioning moral and emotive reflexes.
* usually come from rituals
  - try to explain aspects of nature
* view of reality.
* way of relating.
+ Myth, Mythology
  * One important type of myth is the creation myth, which describes how that culture believes the universe, or 'world' was created. But now, there is talk within the scientific community about what existed before the Big Bang. To those are comfortable with the Big Bang as the ultimate, or only solution to the question of the beginning of the universe, the Big Bang may have itself become a myth. Myths are often final answers with great authority, and strong emotional ties.
  * Mythology' is the collection of myths for a culture. A myth is a story or series of stories used to explain the world around you and describe what is happening, such as why weather happens. Myths usually have heroes, gods, and creatures that are bigger or more fantastic than real life, or sometimes just normal people doing amazing things. Some myths try to explain the natural world. One example is the Greek myth of Arachne. She believed that she could weave far better than anyone else, including the goddess Athena. So, Athena challenged Arachne to a weaving contest. Arachne lost, then was turned into a spider. This myth explains why spiders weave webs.