No author has taught me more about mythology than Joseph Campbell, the author of The Masks of God, The Hero with a Thousand Faces and many other books that collectively represent a big bang of sorts in the world's intellectual history. Here, I wanted to highlight one of the important ideas in Campell's work, focusing on the parallels between dreams and myths.

Myths and dreams draw their energy from a single source: the human imagination moved by the conflicting urgencies of the here and now. Dreams metaphorically express the psychology of the dreamer.  Likewise, mythical images and narratives serve the same function for the consciousness of an entire people.  Just as you can’t ask a person not to dream, so too you can’t ask a nation not to create myths.  Nor can you judge these creations of the mind on the basis of conventional standards of truth and falsehood.

Stories about Moses parting the Red Sea or Jesus walking on water have survived this long, because great stories often earn trans-generational longevity.  But the belief that these stories reflect historical events jumbles metaphors and facts.  Granted, the assertion that these stories are factually false -- and akin to fairy tales -- has the benefit of being true.  But the atheistic rejection of myth errs in taking the psychosis of mythical literalism seriously enough to counter it with rational argument.

Why not accept dreams and myths for what they are: creations of the human mind and the society’s collective consciousness.  Rather than mistake these stories for facts, why not simply enjoy them and use them for self-discovery and as a stepping stone toward a finer understanding of the human condition?  Why not simply ask yourself why you dreamt what you dreamt, why a headless baby or white elephant appeared in your dream, why you decided to castrate yourself in your dream, or why Angelina Jolie was smearing herself with feces or escargot as you made love to her?

Turning to the fruits of collective imagination, ask why the ancient Jews created the character of a Moses endowed with super-human powers.  Why and how did Jews develop the belief that the Rabbis quoted in the Talmud could fly?  In creating God, why did they write the character of God the way they did: omniscient, just, merciful, distant, inaccessible?

Whatever the answers to these questions, they will reveal more about the authors of religious myth (i.e., people) than about its presumed subjects.

Inherent in literal interpretations of myth and legend is the belief that the dream continues after you wake, that you are indeed having your way with Angelina Jolie, that you are really swallowing the flesh of Christ during Sunday Mass, that heaven indeed exists, with 70 virgins awaiting your blessed arrival.

Over the past decade or so, several atheist authors -- e.g., Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennet, etc. -- took on leading roles in the confrontation with theological literalism.  Their work has merits, but it sorely lacks Joseph Campbell's originality, balance and subtle brilliance.  Their tone is strident, their arguments focused rigidly on proving the factual falsehood of myths.  This is especially true of Dawkins and Hitchens.

In the current controversies around the separation of church and state, school prayer, and the "war on Christmas", progressive minds would do better by drawing inspiration from Campbell's genteel scholarship than from the vehemence of the more recent cadre of non-theists.