Talk:Creation myth

"Myth" 2014

I agreed after reading the reason for the current terminology, and I nearly moved on but it still didn't seem right, so I looked into it further, and I'd like to share my findings. I saw that past discussions have been heated at times, so let this be a concise and academic 2014 discussion.

The word "myth" is accurate by its first definition, but the full definition of the word may not be appropriate for this article on Wikipedia. To clarify, the Oxford dictionary confirms that the word denotes falsehood in its second definition:

• Oxford English Dictionary on "myth" - 2. a widely held but false belief or idea

That is the dictionary definition, but proficient English speakers know this intuitively, and it's probably why this topic has been argued for so long. A lot of people believe that creationist accounts are false, but a large population also believes them true. Wikipedia is not the place for one side of the world to discard the other side. Let those debates continue in forums. Let this article finally take on a less controversial and more definitive title, such as "Creation beliefs" or even "Creation lore". Thank you for listening to this in 2014. --Waliway (talk) 13:36, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree. Something more objective like beliefs would be more appropriate, because it implies neither that the beliefs are true or false, but simply that they are believed. This would be more fair and objective, instead of discounting different cultures and their beliefs about the origin of the universe. 98.26.17.52 (talk) 17:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC) Michal

Change "symbolic narrative" to "myth"?

I once participated in an utterly dreadful argument about the phrase "symbolic narrative" in this article. At that time, I had no strong objection to the phrase. Now I think it's obfuscating verbiage. Toward the very end of that argument, a few editors seemed to agree with me that replacing "symbolic narrative" with "myth" or "mythological narrative" would do no harm, but none of us decided to actually make the change.

I'm probably stepping knee-deep in you-know-what by rekindling this discussion, but here it goes. Currently the lede says, "A creation myth is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it". I propose that we revise that sentence as follows: "A creation myth is a myth describing the creation of the universe." (If we did this, then we would need to link the word "myth" to the Mythology article. If we failed to do so, then the revised statement would amount to an unhelpful tautology: a creation myth is a myth about creation. The Mythology article provides the needed definition of "myth" without using the phrase "symbolic narrative".)

If we change "symbolic narrative" to "myth", here are some sources we can use to support the revised statement:

• Oxford English Dictionary on "creation myth" - "a myth describing or explaining the creation of the world."
• Oxford's A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology on "cosmogony" - "Also known as creation myth; a mythological explanation for the creation and evolution of the universe."
• Random House Word Menu on "creation myth" - "mythic explanation of formation of universe; cosmogonic myth"

What do people think? --Phatius McBluff (talk) 03:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - I know I was a big part of the previous issue, so I'll just leave this one comment and take a step back from it. Saying that "A creation myth is a myth" seems less helpful and does come across as a tautology, and I don't think wikilinking the term really changes that. I do think that the scare quotes around the word myth in the subsequent sentence should be removed and perhaps that instance of the word myth should be wikilinked, but rewording the lede to effectively say that "A creation myth is a myth describing creation" seems to be less than helpful, especially for the most important sentence in the article. - SudoGhost 04:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

• I have no strong feelings about the use, or not, of "symbolic narrative" but "A creation myth is a myth describing the creation..." is awful and pointless, even if wikilinked to myth. All the best, Simon Burchell (talk) 07:30, 30 April 2013 (UTC)