There was a children’s book we read to our kids when they were young about monsters that lived under the ice in the north. The aboriginal peoples told these stories to keep their children off of the thin ice in warmer seasons. As the children grew older, of course, they would come to understand the purpose of these stories. They weren’t real. They were devices used to prevent children from taking risks and to ensure their safety.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the adults can now wander out on thin ice. It’s still dangerous. But they don’t need the mythologies to convince them anymore.

After we become analytical of the religious stories we’ve been told, as we should, we eventually learn that many of them are devices used to prevent us from taking risks and to ensure our safety.

For example, let’s consider things like Hell and demons. I believe they were used as devices to make me behave. Now I consider them mythologies. It doesn’t mean I can go out and murder people now. I have a deeper understanding of what it means to be ethical and moral. But I can drop the mythologies.

The things that helped you understand what it means to be a good person may not be necessary anymore.