hinduwoman

Creationists are asking that their theories be taught in schools along with evolution.
Are they willing to allow Hindu, Red Indian, Haitian version of the creationism also? After all, the pagan creation stories are as scientific as the Biblical one!

sbaii

[QUOTE]Originally posted by hinduwoman:
[QB]Creationists are asking that their theories be taught in schools along with evolution.
Are they willing to allow Hindu, Red Indian, Haitian version of the creationism also? After all, the pagan creation stories are as scientific as the Biblical one!]


This question has been asked, but creationists like to have people think that "creation science"
is actually based on science unlike those other obviously mythological cosmologies. The new wrinkle is ID, Intelligent Design.

lpetrich

And they turn very vague on what entity or entities that "designer" is supposed to be. They even avoid such elementary questions as how many designers one can reasonably deduce the presence of.

Of course, some old-time-religion creation stories are very cute. Consider the Old Norse story of how the giant Ymir was killed and dismembered and how the familiar Universe was created from his body parts.

Or the Hesiodic Greek one, in which the primordial deities Ouranos and Gaia emerged from the primordial chaos, only to be overthrown by their offspring, whose leader Kronos castrates his father Ouranos. Kronos naturally fears the same fate, so he swallows the children that his partner Rhea has. But when Zeus is born, Rhea slips him a stone, and Zeus escapes. When Zeus grows up, he makes Kronos vomit up his brothers and sisters, who had been living in Kronos's stomach the whole time. And Zeus's family and friends proceed to fight Kronos's family and friends, defeating Kronos and establishing Zeus as the Universe's new ruler.

Or the "Pelasgian" Greek story in which the goddes Eurynome emerges from the primordial ocean and dances on it. This stirs up the North Wind, which becomes the snake Ophion. Who proceeds to wrap himself around Eurynome and make her pregnant. She turns herself into a dove and lays an egg, and Ophion wraps himself around it. The egg hatches into the familiar Universe, and Ophion tries to claim most of the credit for creating it. Eurynome gets pissed and banishes that snake into the underworld.

Or some Egyptian ones, like the one in which the god Atum emerged from the primordial waters but could find no assistance in creating the Universe. So he masturbated.

Are stories like those any more absurd than either the Genesis 1 six-day or Genesis 2 Adam-and-Eve creation stories?

philechat

Upanishad: First there is Self, and because the Self need love it split apart, become Man and Woman. They embrace one another, and the female got paranoid and changed into a cow. The male turned into a Bull. And so on with other animals down to the ants.

Chinese: Chaos gave birth to Pan-goo, who grow taller and taller, spliting the two masses apart into heaven and earth. Because the heaven was so heavy he have to carry it on his shoulders. After he grew 36500 miles high he died exhausted. His muscles turned into soil, his eyes into sun and moon, his blood into river. Later a female serpant-figure emerged and created human from soil (ahh...and stopped the flood!).

fando

Hmm... that gives me an idea. Allow teaching whatever the creationists want but on the condition that it's taught with a wide selection of other mythologies. The class could be called Historical and Contemporary Mythology.

KeithHarwood

At a recent exhibition at the Australian National Museum in Canberra an Aboriginal creation myth got equal time with evolution. Genesis didn't even get a look in.

d'naturalist

Ooooh, can I put in a vote for Norse creationism? The Norse tale is kinda spooky. Yeah, they got a great cow (Audumla) and some frost giants (most notably Ymir), but I love the punch line: Between Muspelheim (the realm of fire) and Niflheim (the realm of ice), in Ginnungagap (the empty space), Odin and his brothers slew the frost giants and from their bodies created the nine worlds.

Why is it spooky? Seen a drawing of the solar system lately? A realm of fire (the Sun). A realm of ice (the Oort cloud / cometary halo). And in between, nine worlds. Okay, maybe the "sky is really a giant's skull" concept isn't gonna fly, but them Vikings sure had the solar system pegged a thousand or more years before Clyde Tombaugh (sp?) discovered Pluto. Call some of the odder bits metaphorical, and you've got credability (what other religion has ever accurately described the structures of outer space).

Vesica

Just to clarify:

Creationist = one that accepts a creation story as truth

OR
= one who tries to push this 'truth' on to everyone as THE fact??

Does creationism/creationist imply a polical agenda as well as a belief structure?

I have heard the terms bandied about but have never been able to pinpoint the exact meanings beling implied...