Made Up Mythology

I teach Intro to Theatre at a community college. A few semesters ago, when we began our unit on Ancient Greek drama, I was doing my five minute lay down of everything I know about Greek mythology.  I had to lay some groundwork for the cult of Dionysus, as that cult produced Thespis, the "first actor."

So I was talking about the birth of Dionysus, from the thigh of Zeus, having been sewn there after being ripped from Semele's belly just as she was being destroyed by the presence of Zues in his true form...when a student raised his hand and asked, "Did they make this up? Or did they really believe it?"

My answer: "Yes." My thought, "Just like the talking snake."

He asked, "They made it up, and then they believed it?"

I said again, "Yes...like all mythologies." (I'm careful to say "mythologies" and not "religions" because...I'm a coward.) After a bit of what seemed like uncomfortable laughter from the class and a short awkward pause, I went on to say that mythologies develop over time, they evolve, they are stories. Mythologies are explanations of the natural world, of the universe, created before we had the proper tools to explain the natural world. We used to think Thor was raining down thunder bolts from the sky. Now we understand thunder and lightning.

It was a fun skeptical moment in a theatre class, which often doesn't get into skeptical territory.