What’s the difference between between religion and mythology and why do certain religions get called mythologies?

Question

I noticed most ancient people’s religion get called mythologies, does that have something to do with it?

In: 8

Answer 1

Despite common usage, mythology doesn’t mean “falsehoods”. It’s in essence the lore of a religion, the stories pertaining to some faith. Religion is then the actual practical implementation *of* said faith: the rituals, the clergy, the prayers, the buildings, the rules and laws, how practitioners worship, e.t.c. In fact talking about “Christian mythology” is perfectly valid when talking about specifically all the stories in the bible when divorced from how Christians conduct their faith in the real world. IN short, the tale of the last supper is mythology, but the actual ritual of the sacrament (eating and drinking in remembrance of Christ and the last supper) is religion.

For most ancient faiths we have pretty much *no idea* how the real world religion worked. All we have is the mythologies, the stories that survived. We only have terse ideas on how Odin was worshiped, but we have a whole lot of stories about Odin and his antics. As such these faiths get to be mythologies as that’s all that remains, while modern religions get to be religions because they actually get practiced. Greek neo-paganism *is* a religion building on Greek mythology, but it has very little to do with the greek pagan religion that once existed.