Seems like creation myths are just not going to go away...
Even at a time when religious people are having a very hard time maintaining their traditional tales about how it all started, creation myths are still alive and well among us. Some are pretty well disguised, like the "civil" creation myths of America. Take for example the "First Thanksgiving" of 1621, with the European Pilgrims side by side with the native Wanpamoag, teaching them the ways of civilized society, showing them how to farm crops of corn and squash. Collecting their first harvest, then feasting over dear and duck and thanking the Lord for His generosity. Most -if not all- of this Bambi story we now know is sheer fantasy. The reality was most probably closer to the exact opposite. Still, school children all over America rehearse and play a theatrical version of this story every year on Thanksgiving, with half of them dressed in colonial costumes, and the other half in "native" rags.
But civil or religious creation myths don't surprise me so much anymore. It is the newer, more trendy version of "scientific" creation myths that truly fascinates me!
Scientists are supposed to be people who have spent the biggest part of their life honing their analytical reasoning skills. You'd therefore expect them to be among the most resistant breeds to mythology. Yet even among scientists themselves (not sure if this is sad of funny) physicists have collectively dreamed up and then believed a story that can only be described as a creation myth by its own right! the "Big Bang" theory.
I mean, I read the evidence, and I'm pretty convinced that there most likely was a bang, and that it was big. But this tells me nothing about how things started! There is absolutely no reason to conjuncture that this bang was an event of creation. It was just, well, a bang! It's a little like a flock of birds observing the aftershock of a huge explosion, only to conclude that the sky came to be as a result of that explosion, not to mention gravity, wind, and all other forces that keep them airborne. It's just silly!
People, really it's OK to say we don't know. We have figured out a lot of answers to a lot of questions since the dawn of the inquisitive mind, and we ought to be proud of ourselves. But we just don't have a good answer yet as to how something came to be out of nothing, or even as to if something ever came to be out of nothing. When it comes to creation (or lack thereof), we still don't have a clue. There is no shame in admitting that, and no need to speculate without base. The hunt is still on for the real story, and that's all you have to commit to as a scientist until a good answer is found....
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