Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology
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Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology
The most numerous entries are those devoted to topics that are widely recognized as mythological: religion and metaphysical subjects, parapsychology and paranormal subjects, the supernatural, the occult, tabloid tipsters, and folk legends. Many ancient gods are listed, not because they have modern-day believers but because myths once told of older gods continue to be told in connection with newer gods.
Entries pertaining to historical beliefs are strictly factual. That does not mean that when Osiris is described as a "resurrected savior-god," the reader should believe Osiris really rose from the dead. It means, rather, that the ancient Egyptians believed that Osiris rose from the dead.
Entries calling for value judgments, such as those pertaining to political philosophies or non-empirical theological propositions, are treated from what is commonly termed a "liberal" perspective. Persons who believe that an identical act in identical circumstances can be evil when Hitler does it but virtuous by definition when a tribal god does it, or that a society should allow persons who cannot find employment to starve to death, will find no comfort here.
A few entries are intended only to be comical. A reasonable reader will have no difficulty identifying them as such.
A small number of entries include references for further reading, particularly where persons emotionally committed to a relevant belief system may question facts stated in the entry. I have not, however, given a reference for any fact proven in my Yahweh and Jesus: Mythology’s Last Gods. Most such facts are, in any case, widely agreed upon by biblical historians, and disputed only by practitioners of theology, a discipline in which evidence is manipulated to fit predetermined conclusions.
Information herein is bound to be very different from what is to be found in dictionaries and encyclopedias compiled by proponents of the belief systems with which this book deals.
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Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology
The most numerous entries are those devoted to topics that are widely recognized as mythological: religion and metaphysical subjects, parapsychology and paranormal subjects, the supernatural, the occult, tabloid tipsters, and folk legends. Many ancient gods are listed, not because they have modern-day believers but because myths once told of older gods continue to be told in connection with newer gods.
Entries pertaining to historical beliefs are strictly factual. That does not mean that when Osiris is described as a "resurrected savior-god," the reader should believe Osiris really rose from the dead. It means, rather, that the ancient Egyptians believed that Osiris rose from the dead.
About the Author
William Harwood is the author of Mythology’s Last Gods, as well as four published novels (including Uncle Yeshu, Messiah) and several more due out in 2002 (including The Autobiography of God). He is the editor/translator of The Judaeo-Christian Bible Fully Translated, volumes 1 and 7, is on the editorial board of Free Inquiry, and is a contributing editor of American Rationalist. He has written over one hundred articles for a dozen humanist and skeptical periodicals in seven countries. He started life as a Protestant, and turned Catholic when he discovered that Protestantism is repudiated by its own bible. He remained Catholic until he took his first ancient history course at the University of Calgary, and learned that fifty other virgin-born savior gods rose from the dead centuries before Jesus. But not until three years later, at Cambridge, on preparing to go to mass, did it hit him, "If I participate in this 5000-year-old Egyptian god-eating ritual even once more, I will throw up." At that point he was cured of god addiction – totally, permanently, irreversibly.