16, 17. Give examples of mythology in Catholicism and Protestantism.

¹⁶ Christendom has ‘turned to mythology,’ for example, to support the adoration of Mary and of saints. Typical is the little booklet written by a Jesuit and called “When Mary Walked the Earth,” which also bears an archbishop’s imprimatur. The introduction admits: “The episodes related in the following pages do not pretend to be historic. Perhaps they never happened.” Of the Catholic “Saint” Patrick, Dr. Joseph F. Kelly of John Carrol University says: “All the stories about Patrick may not be historically true, but that does not mean they have no value.” Most of the truth-starved people who are fed these “concocted myths” have not even heard all the true accounts in the Bible. How can mythology provide them with any basis for worship ‘in truth’?

19, 20. (a) What myth affects the majority of false worshipers? (b) Give evidence of mythology in other great religions.

¹⁹ Another myth that affects hundreds of millions, both in Christendom and outside, is the claim that images are an aid to true worship. Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus and others use, in all, hundreds of millions of these often very expensive carved figures and pictures in their worship. Yet of these, the Bible says: “Images are nothing but delusion, with no breath in them.” How useful to worship are they in God’s eyes? “They are a Nothing, a laughable production.” (Jer. 10:14, 15, Catholic Jerusalem Bible) Remember, the dictionary defines a myth as something imaginary, a nothing, as it were. Therefore, since the Bible defines images as “a Nothing,” they fall into the same category as “concocted myths.” Thus God views them as an ironically “laughable production.”