Precisely.

Damn, Pie! No wonder they cut peoples hearts out and sacrificed children.:eek:

I don't count "myth" and "religion" as interchangable, at all.

"Myth" is a religion whose adherents aren't standing around you.

Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, the Greek gods, und so weiter are all "myths" to me. Unprovable stories someone made up a long time ago. The only thing that seperates them is that some are more entertaining than others.

How do you differentiate them, specifically?

[religion and myth]

I think that "religion" is a settled-upon, codified system which defines a set of stated truths, and the accompanying attributes and behaviors which are imperative to that system. Somewhere deep down inside the bureaucratic belly of religion, there are many garbled mythologies which have been assimilated.

Also, we are surrounded by myth which may or may not have anything to do with religion. See: Joseph Campbell.

How does ancient Egyptian "mythology" not meet the criteria of your first description?

Awesome. Mind if I complicate this even more?

How is it that hearing voices in your head is most often considered a mental illness, but hearing god talk to you is not? If someone is depressed and cuts themselves to feel better, we diagnose it as a clinical issue, but we write off people whipping themselves to please Jesus as a basic aspect of a religious sect?

Yeah, I know mental disorders are grounded in deviation from accepted culture and defined as only an issue when detrimental to the individual, but that is a thin line.

The first time I saw people speaking in tongues first hand, I thought they were absolutely insane. After reading more about it, I stand by that opinion.

And some people whip themselves because they get off on it, without any involvement from perceived higher beings.

(I guess I'm not sure what point you were trying to make. )

I think the point is that we write off behavior that would normally be considered crazy as normal or at least sane if they say its religious.

Gotcha.
Yes, but psychological issues are probably the least of religion's faults. How about genocide, war, persecution, murder... The list is long and ever-growing. All done in the name of <insert chosen deity here>.

Religion is usually a red herring... usually the base reason is jack.

The base reason is control -- the ability to get the unwashed masses to do what you want them to do or else.
Some of it is "for their own good", a codification of social laws and constructs. Mostly it is for the benefit of the elite.

I'm not an expert in anciant Egyptian culture, but if the Egyptian mythology was used in the manner I described, then it does qualify as a religion.

I think the question would be: why is it called "mythology" ??? Because the monotheistic religions put that label on it, to classify it as something beneath them?

We're just talking about words here. I think "mythology" is the thing that "religion" is usually based on.