What is the difference between a religion and a mythology? What stops someone from saying they worship Greek gods if asked if they are religious?
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Religion is the entire practice, and mythology is the stories associated with it.
Take the Christian religion. You don’t have to be a Christian to read the stores of Noah, or Samson, or Jesus. Those stories would be the Christian ‘myths.’
Similarly, we know all about Loki and Thor, but have no idea of what the actual prayers and rituals were.
Nothing stops a person from saying the worship the Greek Gods. The question would be how authentic their rituals were.
There is nothing, in fact, stopping someone to say they worship Zeus and Athena, and the whole crew. In fact, some people do, in some at least soft way (and, I am sure, some a bit more devoted, but I cannot confirm that).
The difference between a religion, and a mythology, is the practice. Literally.
I see Christian Mythology in many a video game that use angels and demons, for instance, but that doesn’t mean that the developers are religious: It is a practical vessel to create beings in the game. Bayonetta is a great of example of a non-religious game that uses Christian Mythology.
On the flipside, if you deeply believe that the Christian book is at least somewhat of a code to live by, or somewhat believe in the punishments/rewards and teachings you took from it, you get to call it the religion of Christianity.
TL;DR: Religion is living by some sort of description of the text’s contents, Mythology is realizing they’re stories and characters of myth and legends, rather than fact.
(Some) religions are rooted in actual people…i.e. there’s plenty of historical (non-religious) documentation that Jesus and Mohammed existed. Can’t say the same for Zeus or Athena
In general, religion is a system of formally organized beliefs and practices, while Mythology is an unorganized collection of stories. Both are in typically centered around supernatural forces or beings that can, are or were being worshiped. You can make a religion out of a mythology and most religion have a mythology.
For example, the Ancient Greek mythology was the basis for religion at the time and there is modern revival attempts like Hellenism. But such attempts are not really popular so we talk a lot more about the Mythology than the religion.
And like someone else said, we can see a lot of Christian mythology in our general culture. Adam and Eve, or Cain and Abel are two example of stories that are use outside the religion.
Stories in mythologies often have a moral or a point they try to explain, but they are not a set of belief and practices to live by. People can learn from the Story of Cain and Abel, but they don’t base their life around it. They base their life around the rules and morals of the religion and they follow the practices developed over the history of the religion.
Same thing in Ancient Greek religion. You can learn something from the story of Hercules, but you don’t base your life on it. But people in the past did create a value system and practices out of the mythology. It’s just that today these values and practices are basically non existent, but the stories (mythology) are still very well alive.
To quote Ricky Gervais:
“Since the beginning of recorded history, which is defined by the invention of writing by the Sumerians around 6,000 years ago, historians have cataloged over 3700 supernatural beings, of which 2870 can be considered deities. So next time someone tells me they believe in God, I’ll say “Oh which one? Zeus? Hades? Jupiter? Mars? Odin? Thor? Krishna? Vishnu? Ra?…” If they say “Just God. I only believe in the one God,” I’ll point out that they are nearly as atheistic as me. I don’t believe in 2,870 gods, and they don’t believe in 2,869.”
Mythology is the stories that explain life, and religion is a catch all phrase for th practice and principles of a particular school of thought.
Just become a Pastafarian, dead easy religion to follow, only bit that’s problematic is the headwear but at least it’s dual purpose
Religion is practiced. Mythology is a religion that used to be practiced.
Why isn’t hinduism a mythology even though it’s so old? Because they never stopped practicing hinduism.
But what if you started practicing Greek god worship? That’s neo-paganism. The original religion died off and was no longer practiced, but since it was rediscovered new (neo) people started to practice it again and it became a neo-pagan religion
It’s the role the belief plays in society.
I know some people who have worshipped the Greek pantheon. It happens.
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