The construction of our myths, whether traditional or modern (scientific), did not follow a cosmic plan of progressive unfoldment. They are not, as Schelling thought, tautegoric expressions of an extra-human force wrapped around itself which becomes self-evident and acting in the course of time, knowing itself in the process, expressing itself through the physical means available and formed at that particular time. They are neither, as less pantheistically inclined minds thought, metaphors of an analogous extra-human reality, shadows of a true essence which convey reflected meanings which our petty minds can hardly understand, though we benefit from their eternal radiance in the filtered versions given to us by officials and priests. In order to have a metaphor, we need something which is not a metaphor to relate it to, a referent whose ontic nature is independent. Even if there was such a thing we could never tell, for its independence would make it independent from us, and therefor...
On the symbolic constructions of human identity.