{"id":42,"date":"2016-10-11T14:02:04","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T21:02:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/?p=42"},"modified":"2016-10-11T14:02:04","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T21:02:04","slug":"one-creation-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/2016\/10\/11\/one-creation-story\/","title":{"rendered":"One Creation Story?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven and earth with his words, and then Adam and Eve and the Garden. King provides us with a neat analysis of how each story reflects a distinct worldview. \u201cThe Earth Diver\u201d story reflects a world created through collaboration, the \u201cGenesis\u201d story reflects a world created through a single will and an imposed hierarchical order of things: God, man, animals, plants. The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition \u2014 a nice clean-cut satisfying dichotomy. However, a choice must be made: you can only believe ONE of the stories is the true story of creation \u2013 right? That\u2019s the thing about creation stories; only one can be sacred and the others are just stories. Strangely, this analysis reflects the kind of binary thinking that Chamberlin, and so many others, including King himself, would caution us to stop and examine. So, why does King create dichotomies for us to examine these two creation stories? Why does he emphasize the believability of one story over the other \u2014 as he says, he purposefully tells us the \u201cGenesis\u201d story with an authoritative voice, and \u201cThe Earth Diver\u201d story with a storyteller\u2019s voice. Why does King give us this analysis that depends on pairing up oppositions into a tidy row of dichotomies? What is he trying to show us?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Why must we believe only one creation story? We might be all one species, but that does not have to mean that we come from the same source. We all come from different cultures, if there are multiple creation stories, that just indicates that perhaps we have multiple origins. For example, if reincarnation exists for some, it exists for all. If that\u2019s the case, then doesn\u2019t that mean we have a lot more to experience in life? Maybe you\u2019re born into a Christian family this time around and you learn about their religion and their creation story. Next time, you could be born into an Indigenous family and learn theirs. In the end, if there is an end, it would be to have an accumulation of all these different lifestyles and maybe you could become a God yourself. Perhaps that means creating a new Creation story. That\u2019s not too far-fetched since writers often create new worlds and ask their audience to believe in them.<\/p>\n

As someone who came from an Asian background but was born and raised in Canada, I know enough about Asian<\/a> myths as well as Christian and Indigenous<\/a> myths. Why can\u2019t we incorporate all of them? Why can\u2019t we stop and realize that there isn\u2019t one almighty story or religion?<\/p>\n

I believe that this is why King emphasized the dichotomies of creation stories. Although he emphasizes the believability of each creation story, he also shows how each story\u2019s voice is. The Genesis story is much more authoritative, inducing a \u201cyou-must-listen-to-me\u201d tone whereas the Earth Diver\u2019s storytelling voice is more relaxed and seems to be more flexible.One story is about the creation via a singular force while the other is about collaboration. By showing this dichotomy, it reminds readers to stop and think of the extremities of the division. King is trying to show false dichotomies by bringing attention to two extremities. Just because two subjects are put against one another, doesn\u2019t mean that it is a win-or-lose situation. Just as a Nature-vs-Nurture dichotomy is false because both is required in child rearing, collaboration and a single will is necessary for creation. The Genesis story and The Earth Diver story are merely \u201cperceived dichotomies<\/a>– divisions we project onto the world because of our perceptions and bias.\u201d By developing this dichotomy, King provides us with an example to return to when he advises against binary thinking. King is asking us to discover contradictions, nuances and subtlety in his dichotomies as a practice for future dichotomies that we may come across.<\/p>\n

Work Cited:<\/p>\n

Berkun, Scott. “The False Dichotomy of False Dichotomies.” Scott Berkun. N.p., 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.<\/p>\n

King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.<\/p>\n

“Raven Steals the Sun.” Raven Steals the Sun. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.<\/p>\n

“The Four Mythological Symbols of China.” Ancient Origins. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First stories tell us how the world was created. In The Truth about Stories, King tells us two creation stories; one about how Charm falls from the sky pregnant with twins and creates the world out of a bit of mud with the help of all the water animals, and another about God creating heaven […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44799,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[922232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engl-470a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44799"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/cipjwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}