"Metaphors be with you..."
Myth, metaphor, parable and analogies are tools that we use in our attempt to describe something that lies just beyond our intellectual capacity to comprehend. Our intuition understands, we feel the understanding, but our communication of this understanding uses the intellect to put into words what remains but a hazy comprehension, like the brass ring of a carousel, just barely within reach. Even Jesus could only use analogy and parable to describe the "Kingdom of God" and even that phrase, "Kingdom of God," is, itself, yet a higher level of metaphor. The role of myth in all human culture is as an aid to our understanding of more abstract truths. The only thing that is lacking in the way most people approach myth is that they do not understand those myths as symbolic of something that is real. Most contemporary people throw out the old myths as outright lie rather than try to understand what the myths ...