The differences all seem to come down to co-operation or competition — 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 – right? That’s 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 — as he says, he purposefully tells us the “Genesis” story with an authoritative voice, and “The Earth Diver” story with a storyteller’s 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?
I think King creates these dichotomies to show us how two stories that have the same end result can be so different in the way that they are told and created. It is true there has to be one story that a person believes is fact and the others are just pure creative stories. I think that the way a story is portrayed to its viewers makes a huge difference in the believability of a story. Most people would be more likely to believe a story from for example the history channel, compared to a story that is told by word of mouth. Which is really quite funny, because most television and movies are glamourized so that people will watch and people fall for it and think it has to be right.
I think the pairing up the oppositions of dichotomies is to show how different the two stories but also shows the commonalities between the two stories. I think it is important and very easy to follow in the way that he pairs the similarities and differences together.
http://www.sd91.bc.ca/frenchj/Students/Creation%20Stories%20First%20Nations.html
This is another example of creation stories, and I think this would be difficult for many people to believe. I think for the sole reason is that the website it not looking professional!
http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/fp/fpz2f22e.shtml
And I think that this would be more believable just for the sole reason it looks more appealing.
My personal photo
Hi Laryssa!
You make a crucial observation about the kind of clout that we so frequently give to TV (and even movies) that have been glamourized, edited, re-written, etc. as compared to word of mouth and some other forms of communication. This is huge nowadays when we are so accustomed to hopping on Google in order to answer our questions (immediate gratification) and our fixation with the “scientific” and “proven.”
On a different note, I also think it is interesting that you note that one must believe one creation story and reject others, for they would otherwise contradict each other. This is intriguing for me as somebody who was raised as a Catholic and spent a lot of time learning about the story of creation by one “true” God, but now identifies as an atheist. Growing up, though, my family both believed in God, and explained evolution to me as well. These two stories are thoroughly contradictory, which reveals how I think we can sometimes adopt multiple or many stories and use them how we desire in order to better understand our world. That being said, I understand that it can be a completely different situation when the stories are carried by different people!
Hello,
I am really excited between the catholic and atheistic views. I would love to have a conversation about this with you!
Laryssa