Recommendations for a book/resource on comparative religion/mythology, ideally theory-laden and written by someone with good taste for hermeneutics? Preferably something that doesn’t assume that gods aren’t real. (I’m approaching the subject from the Gaimanian mythological paradigm, i.e. something vaguely postmodern and vaguely Gods Need Prayer Badly, but that perspective is only provisional and I value alternative perspectives.)
Recommendations for a book/resource on comparative religion/mythology, ideally theory-laden and written by someone with good taste for hermeneutics? Preferably something that doesn’t assume that gods aren’t real. (I’m approaching the subject from the Gaimanian mythological paradigm, i.e. something vaguely postmodern and vaguely Gods Need Prayer Badly, but that perspective is only provisional and I value alternative perspectives.)
I mean, the classic is Jospeh Cambell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces. There’s also The Masks of God and other books by him.
It’s not book-length, but Eric S. Raymond’s Dancing With the Gods treats them as, at least, intersubjectively real.
I’ve read it. ESR is… a young soul, hard for me to learn from.
Thanks yo, will read.
What’s your empirical definition of god here?
Not what you’re asking for, but possibly interesting: A World Full of Gods: An Inquiry into Polytheism, a polytheistic theology. The author said it was the first attempt at such.
This review has enough quotes that you should be able to see whether you want to read it.