Creation stories, no matter the culture or religion, have made an impact on not only how we as humans were created, but also how we choose to view the world we live in today. These stories provide a force, which is known as a "God" or some sort of spirit as we read these stories, that navigate the creation of the world we live in. Each story we have read have all had the same theme: a creator brings about human life and the features of the Earth - simple enough right?The differences are the important feature in the the view of our world. They make each creation story come to life and make them unique. These important differences, along with the similarities, are what make the huge impact on us of how we see the world, and how we relate to and connect with others around us.
There are some creation stories that place man in life on Earth, with other creatures and the physical features of the Earth, where they form a relationship, and there are others where man is placed on the Earth with creatures, but man is seen as being in charge of the Earth, instead of just a part of it. For example, in the Native American myths, a brother and sister are placed along side the animals and other features of the Earth, and do not try to take over, but instead they all multiply and live together. However, in the Genesis stories, Adam is placed on the Earth by God to till the ground and care for the animals. God created Adam to be an image of him, and instead he turned away from God, and became the dominion of the world God created.
In the Genesis story, when God created Adam and Eve, they chose to disobey their creator and ate from the "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil", which is a prime example of how we view the world. As we read this creation story, we observe God say, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever" which is basically God stating that humans will live with sin now, and life will have struggle and sorrow because of Adam and Eve's bad decisions. As humans, we witness that we can continue to live with knowledge of what is good and what is bad, and no matter what decision we make, life will continue. We can live lives pleasing to God, or we can live the opposite, and unfortunately humans take advantage of this. Humans view the world as just a place we live and that we control, when really the creator controls it all, since in fact He created it. We are like Adam and Eve, where we choose to view the world in our own ways, including our opinions of others, and what we choose to do with our lives, which lead us into bad situations that we are eventually punished for, which illustrates our life of sin.
A quote from newstories.org states that "relating to the Earth as a dead object, a vast repository of resources to be used by man for his own purposes has, on the one hand, vastly accelerated our knowledge of the universe and produced lifestyles unimaginable to earth-centric cultures" and this also represents how we view the world. We don't really think of the Earth as a functioning planet that we would not have life without. We tend to not think about what would happen if the Earth were to stop functioning properly. The article I quoted from previously states that we as humans act as a cancer (how we view/treat the world) that is outgrowing its host body (the creation from the "God", spirit, etc.) and this couldn't be more spot on. Our way of life and our attitudes are killing the things that give us life. With this being said, if you are a religious person like me, we fill our attitudes and how we live with toxic behaviors and push away the one who gives us life and reason to live: God.
In conclusion, we view the world in a negative manner, and tend to forget what creation has done for us. These creation stories have caused us to take advantage of our creation, and instead of living differently from the humans created in these stories, we tend to live just like them and love to receive the punishment. The creation stories do help us view how our world was created, no matter what religion believe, but they also give us the opportunity to live negatively, instead of us learning lessons from those creations.
Thanks for the thoughtful post.
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