Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Creation Story
I feel that the probability of the Navajo story being true is no different than that of Genesis. The meanings behind them are similar in that what happened was that the root of man came from screw ups who made a mistake and moved on to our current world. The fact of where we came from is the difference. In Genesis, we were thought to have descended from Adam and Eve who were banished from the paradise Eden because they disobeyed god. They then went through a change that opened their eyes to good and evil. This mythical land could have existed just like the Navajos land. The Navajos believe that man crawled up from an earth beneath ours because of a change that the people endured. Is there really a difference between the two lands? Besides where they are located, they were peaceful places that we then left because of a change in humankind. We could have crawled up through a hole in the dirt to a new world or been banished by god from Eden. Both ideas are just as outrageous as the other. I feel that it all comes down to which one you want to believe in or the one that makes most sense to you. Neither one of these stories are more probable than the other.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Stephanie, remember the question was about truth, not realism. Remember the words of the Rabbi in the PBS video? I'm paraphrasing here, but what he said was basically: "Just because something isn't factual, doesn't mean it's not true." He suggested it was immaterial whether Moses led 10,000 or 0 people out of Egypt. The story was true because it accurately depicted challeges all humans face when trying to hold on to their freedom.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the stories I'm asking you about, consider them this way: one story says evil has been part of our nature since nearly the beginning (and explains how it all started), the other says evil and disorder comes and goes w/ different generations (certain generations literally climb out of the hole they're stuck in, but then evil creeps back into life). Which is more true? Sure the details of the story might seem a little "out there," but they're still trying to get at something fundamental that we can all have an opinion on. Your answer will reveal something about your fundamental beliefs in human nature.