Karen Armstrong is so anxious to distinguish mythos from logos that her account of Paleolithic religion would seem obviously to be in sharp contrast with the “intellectualism” of theorists such as Tylor and Frazer, true? Explain.

Throughout history there have been numerous theories to our origin as well countless questions and theories to answer such questions of our existence, why certain things happen in such a way or where we come from or where we may go after our deaths on Earth. Some of the earliest explanations of our existence in history are of the people within the Paleolithic Era through mythology. Karen Armstrong’s believes that mythology embodies the spiritual and actual world of the early civilizations; in contrast E.B. Frazer and Edward Tylor both believe mythology is separate of the secular world and more importantly an inferior belief system and was the predecessor of religion as well as animism.
Mythos and logos, by definition have very different meanings. Both forms of thought were very important to people in early history. It wasn’t until more recent history that people began to view the two terms in a different light. In present day we (referring to the Western people) view mythology as tall tale stories involving vain and mighty gods and demi-gods. Mythos, from Armstrong’s point-of-view, was very similar to the practice of psychology. People used myth to make sense of their lives and wanted to know the cause of the events that happened in their lifetimes. Logos is a much more practical and scientific way of explaining the causes of events throughout pre-modern history. Logos needs facts to function and unlike myth, logos looks to explain the future and did not give reason to a person’s life.
First, understand the use of mythology in pre-modern civilizations. As discussed previously, Armstrong talks of myth as being something of an early form of psychology. Like psychology, myth helped in understanding people’s daily activities as well as helped solve problems in people’s lives. Myth grew from the graves and burial sites of the dead of our ancestors. People needed to have purpose and they needed to know why things happened. Armstrong’s theory goes on to explain that mythology allowed for people to experience god-like divinity by doing daily activities. Pre-modern civilization’s culture as well as its religion coexisted, which is something we as a modern civilization find difficult to grasp. One of the larger contrasts of Armstrong’s theory is that people of the Paleolithic era did not take the mythological stories literally but rather apply them to their lives to achieve the equivalent emotions of the gods.
To further understand the differences of beliefs we must discuss the theories of Tylor and Frazer and their views of mythology, animism and magic. While Tylor is not the creator of the word, animism, the term became more commonplace after his work, Primitive Culture. In summary, Tylor’s definition of animism was that everything had a soul. People, other animals, plants and even rocks had their own spiritual entity. Tylor also believed animism to be a stepping-stone, a sort of middle ground between mythology and religion. He believed that while mythology was inferior, it was required to learn more about us and to mentally grow, at which animism became prevalent. Tylor’s theory was that animism was philosophical and not really considered religious. Animism was the explanation of an event rather than the cause of the event. Also, Tylor theorized that mythology embodied the personification of the gods. For example, Poseidon controlled the waves and currents of the oceans and that people believed that he (given a male gender) could change such things that were part of his territory. Tylor saw the personification as advancement from mythology and further into the direction of religion.
James Frazer built upon the Tylor’s theory of animism but believed that through magic a person could become one with the gods or higher beings. Frazer’s theory of animism differed from Tylor in that animism was for societal status and less about the explanation of events. Frazer built upon Tylor’s theory by adding that shaman and kings were said to be special, even god-like, among their people and in some cases, could transfer or maintain their magical powers by sacrifice of themselves or by transferring the need for self-sacrifice to another person thus keeping their magical powers. Frazer’s gods of religion put all the power in to the hands of gods rather than the coexisting of people and gods in Armstrong’s theory. While his theory appears that the transition from magic to religion was short, it in fact was not. In reality, there was a long period of time in which the idea that magic could conjure the supernatural or alter natural events coexisted with prayer to gods.
Both Frazer and Tylor’s theories portray the gods of mythology as extremely emotional, vengeful, arrogant and vain. The gods of their theories continually wanted and required gifts and appreciation. They were untouchable when it came to human encounters. These gods could potentially have their actions or decisions swayed by food offerings, animal or human sacrifice, or even sexual acts amongst people. They were ever-wanting beings that were never completely satisfied.
In summary, the differences between Armstrong’s theory and Frazer and Tylor’s theories are very apparent. Armstrong embraces and respects mythology while Tylor and Frazer see it as an inferior. Tylor and Frazer say that mythology is a series of stories that help evolve our civilizations further from animism to religion and currently into the transition to accepting science as the explanation to our existence and Armstrong’s theory differs in saying that the belief in mythology dwindled due to the belief in personified gods and the advance of scientific evolution. Armstrong did not see mythology as a stepping-stone as Tylor and Frazer did. Tylor and Frazer saw a separation of mythology from religion while Armstrong believed mythology embodied not only religion but also culture all together. The largest contrast of the two theories is the personification of the gods with gender and names from Tylor and Frazer and Armstrong’s theory talks of symbols rather than the personalities or lifestyles of a god. Lastly, Tylor and Frazer believed pre-modern people to take mythology tales literally while Armstrong says that people applied the stories to their lives in order to achieve otherworldly emotions.