Skepticism and the myth

Humans generate mythology at nearly all levels of experience. We have myths for deep time describing our cultural or societal memories and we also have more subjective family myths.
This tendency toward creating myths is one of the most amazing aspects of human thought and experience. It provides a cognitive literature of sorts and enhances our feeling of participation with past events.
The lovely thing about these myths is that they are never true. They tell tales that bend the laws of physics, that change the way we know the world works. And why not? They are reflections of the human imagination. Myths show us that time and again, we are brilliant story tellers and that tendency runs through the core of our collective experiences.
Mythology is helpful because it helps (as it is intended to do) to participate in our history, without needing to read that history in a dry old text.
However, myths stop being helpful or good when people take them literally. Any myth that you can think of, from any corner of our planet, even if it has its ancient roots in real but unrecorded deeds, is only literature. It cannot and should not be considered real, true or an actual representation of what actually happened.
It can be fun to think about whether or not the myth is true, because that is the joy of literature, but when those who wish to take the myth literally begin to push the myth onto others, the problems begin.
It is not only that most myths deny or ignore real natural laws but that those who take the myth literally try to squash up the real world to fit in the limited and nonsensical world of the myth.
When this happens by an individual, there is no harm. But when this happens and the myths are forced on the young or on the credulous, terrible damage occurs.

The Coleoptera, (beetles) with about 400,000 species, is
 the largest of all orders, constituting
almost 40% of described insects and 25%
of all known animal life-forms;
new species are discovered frequently.
Noah would have had his hands full.

It may seem innocuous to tell children about the Genesis Flood or that Poseidon or Thor are real, but the consequences are terrible.
First, by instilling a literal view or interpretation on the young, we are actively suppressing their natural curiosity We force them to accept fiction as fact, which makes it much more difficult for them to discern other forms of literature from fact, as well.
But most disturbingly, it forces people to give over their critical faculties and renders them unable to think critically, challenge false claims or even realize the wondrous realities of this world that are true.
Mythology is wonderful, necessary and even entertaining, but it is never the unarguable truth and the critical skeptic must remember this in the fight against credulity, literalistic and zealous fanaticism and totalitarianism.