Post 1: Creation and Why We Care (Part 1)

How's it going internet? Welcome to the Late Night English Blog with Andy Ferguson! I'm Andy Ferguson, a perpetually exhausted English Major, wannabe writer, and inexperienced host of this here internet thing that you will not be able to cite in your next formal essay. All that said, let's get started.

What better way to celebrate the creation of this blog than to discuss, you guessed it, Creation stories! Be it Adam and Eve sinning in Genesis, The Doctor of the Earth sweating life into existence in the Pima tradition, or Uranus and Gaia creating the concept of familial dysfunction in Greek mythology, creation stories have existed since we've been able to tell them! 

As they are, creation stories serve a sort of three-pronged purpose. I don't believe that word correctly but, hey, what the hell. 

Creation stories:

1.) Offer us human beings, not just in ancient times but modern as well, a kind of explanation as to where we came from and why we're all stuck here on this spinning mud-ball together.

2.) Allow us to to look into the culture and customs of others. Sound confusing? or possibly like a cop-out? Maybe. But here's my defense: I grew up in a predominantly Methodist family and, for a good portion of my life, the only creation story I was aware of was the story of Genesis. However, that all changed when, around my 9th birthday, my uncle gave  me a copy of D'aulaires Book of Greek Myths (an excellent gift for any child I might add). From it, I learned a rather different (and somewhat more metal) version of events pertaining to creation and, subsequently, learned more about Greek culture. In short, reading other culture's creation stories can help the reader to better understand said culture's customs. 

3.) In theory, scientific creation stories (i.e stories centered around evolution and the Big Bang theory) stand to offer us, as a species, a shared history of facing and overcoming shared obstacles as we make our way to civilization and modernity. Now, I know what your saying: " 'In theory'? Come on Andy, that's definitely a cop-out" and, to a certain degree, I can't deny it. However, I felt compelled to include this in the list of services after reading David Christian's "We Need a Modern Origin Story." If you haven't read it yet, I strongly urge you to; it is absolutely worth the read. (here's the link: https://www.edge.org/conversation/david_christian-we-need-a-modern-origin-story-a-big-history) 

 (We interrupt this post for a relatively special announcement: in order to prevent this post from becoming an atrociously long rant, I will split it into two parts. In conclusion of this portion, I'd like to share with you all my personal view of creation then further explore the ideas I mentioned above in regards to how short stories shape the way we view the world. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Now, the concept of creation has been something of a fascination to me for many a years, be it in the literal sense while learning about different creation stories or in a more liberal, like a superhero's origin story (Spiderman, in particular, was my favorite). If I had to list a specific reason for why I liked creation/origin stories so much while growing up, it would probably have to be because i enjoyed having the information as time went on in a story then being able to look back and see just how far the characters had come or changed from where they started. It's a  special thing to view the progress a character has made. Well, that's it for tonight. Thanks for reading, and see you next time!