My first post about the chasm generated so much comment on the topic of creation that I felt we were straying from the topic.
But as I thought about those responses, I changed my mind.
Stories of origins have a special feature which we often overlook. They are never about what happened way back then, so much as they are about the nature of things here and now.
Talk about the big bang, for example, is of interest to scientists primarily as a testing ground for fundamental ideas about physics. And those ideas are of interest because of what they tell us about how the world we live in—the world today—works.
Likewise, the creation story in Genesis is the outline of the worldview of ancient Israel. It establishes the basic social categories within which those people lived.
It asserts that the god of Israel is the creator of the universe. This makes Israel more legitimate than the other nations, who worship gods who didn't (no matter what they claim in their creation stories).
It asserts that Israel's dietary practices are in accord with the fundamental structure of the universe. God created sea creatures to swim. So sea creatures that walk—like lobsters—are in violation of creation, and unclean.
On land, the creation walked. Mammals that flew (e.g. bats) also violated the creation, and were unclean.
It establishes the "waters of the deep" as an anti-creation force, which appears again in the story of the flood, and in Moses' parting of the Red Sea, and puts the creation of Israel on the same footing as the creation of the world.
It was not, basically, about the distant past, but the structure of human life and politics in Israel, just as the big bang is about physics.
Genesis One was one of a series of creation stories, written in ancient times, for the same purpose: to create a worldview which would unify a group of people into a nation.
These stories all tied their nation, the people, and a god, or gods, together, in a way that distinguished them from other nations, created loyalty, and justified war. "We" were always the "good guys", no matter what we did, because we worshiped the true god.
The gods were intimately associated with the kings and their wealthy courts, supporting a class system. The kings were the sons of the gods, got authority from the gods, and to serve them was to serve the gods.
You couldn't rebel against the king without rebelling against heaven.
This union of state and religion held for 12,000 years of human history—until the advent of the United States of America, and the separation of church and state. For the first time in 12,000 years, there was a chance average people could assert their rights against wealth and power.
It was a moment with the potential to end a 12,000 year mistake.
At least, that's what I think today.
