Post by Heron on Jun 9, 2016 15:54:56 GMT -1
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@ Heron 'Mythology (stories about the gods) and theology (theories about the gods) both have their place.'
Yes, I think they do for us. I wonder how theoretical Brythonic oral cultures were. Did those people theorise about the gods or simply live by and accept their myths? Maybe what differentiates mythology and theology is that mythology is fluid, metaphorical, stories like the characters within them flow and change. Theories are rigid and are thus discarded and overturned although this may be seen as a sequence of developments. In general, looking at the myths and artworks, I suspect the Celts as a whole were of more of a mythological mindset.
I think that's right. They didn't need to theorise because they accepted the gods as being pervasive in their lives. Perhaps the druids might have done some thinking about 'theology'. But for us, with a lot of recovery to do, it does tend to be more necessary, and there is a danger that it overlays the mythology too much, or even the reverence. We need to keep it in its place!
PS. How do you do that quotey thing? When I press the quote button I end up faced with a page of someone else's text and the reply box vanishes.
As Lee says for the easy way. But if you do hit 'Quote' you should be able to begin replying right after that page of the other person's text (if you want to reply to the whole thing) or edit it using the BBcode. The principle here is that the word quote enclosed in square brackets creates the beginning of a quote box while the same word preceded by a forward slash: /quote ends the box. If you want to identify the author as I have done in the first quote here you need to make sure the quote tag includes the information at the top of the quote. Just putting quote simply makes a quote box without identifying the person quoted as in the second box here.