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In academic circles, the work myth is any story that has or had religious significance, whether deemed true or not, and without regard for how calling it a myth is received by popular culture. For example, the Christian religion has a creation story that is properly called a myth in academic circles. Would that kind of thing be on-topic?

Proposal: Mythology

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Yes, questions about modern mythology would be in scope.

"Mythology can refer either to the collected myths of a group of people—their body of stories which they tell to explain nature, history, and customs or to the study of such myths. As a collection of such stories, mythology is an important feature of every culture"

You can't define one belief system as being above questions around their mythology and still be a general mythology site.

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Since there are people now who identify as Asatru (Norse-German religion), following Hellenismos (ancient Greek), etc, etc, etc, it would be a good idea to treat all varieties of mythos with equal respect in the group.

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There might already be a Stack exchange site for Christianity, and other big modern religions (I know there's an Islam one). Maybe we should make a point to only discuss the ones that don't have their own specific sites, and redirect questions that could go somewhere that has a more specific focus.

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    I would say that this should depend on the type of question. As I understand it, those sites are answering questions from within the faith. But a question that is more about the study of the religion from the outside, rather than a faith-based response from inside the religion, might be more at home in the Mythology section.
    – Jenny D
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 7:06
  • @Jenny D We should probably poke around in those sites to see if they answer those sort of questions anyway. (I'll try to make time later, need to sleep now)
    – Mary ML
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 7:17
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    Each site needs to focus on it's scope. If the site exists and a question is in scope with experts available to answer the question, the existence of another site that might also be able to answer the question is only of passing interest.
    – James Jenkins
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 10:26
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    @JennyD The Christianity site is quite strictly scoped from "outside the faith". In other words, the attempted effort is that uses ask and answer with an academic apathy. Judaism.SE is strictly scoped from within Rabbinical Judaism, neglecting all others. Islam.SE is somewhere in between.
    – user95600
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 23:09
  • @JamesJenkins I actually think that with the name "mythology" it's very unlikely that users will think to ask questions about major current religions. But it will happen eventually, so better to lay down what we might do early on and be prepared.
    – user95600
    Commented Apr 1, 2015 at 23:10
  • @JamesJenkins Thanks for the clarification!
    – Jenny D
    Commented Apr 2, 2015 at 11:35
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    @fredsbend I don't think it's particularly unlikely at all, if only because there is a segment of the population that feels that doing so will prove some great rhetorical point to the world at large. They will come quickly, and they will be terrible questions. Which is unfortunate, because there are interesting questions to be had around these subjects.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Commented Apr 15, 2015 at 14:21
  • @LessPop_MoreFizz A question made to prove a point is not a question at all. I close those as "unclear what you're asking" and usually comment to this effect.
    – user95600
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 6:29
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    @MaryML Hinduism.Stackexchange certainly allows questions examine Hindu mythology from the outside, like this one: hinduism.stackexchange.com/q/6870/36
    – Keshav Srinivasan
    Commented Apr 16, 2015 at 17:48

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