In Reply to: Re: Perry: Nietzche's Geneology of Morals sounds interesting posted by Perry on December 11, 2005 at 16:08:15:
"I think what happens in our mythology is that the symbols, the mythological archetypal symbols become interpreted as facts."
If you understand this concept, you understand why I do not interpret the creation myth as a factual account of creation. It is a very powerful myth, which in my religious tradition means it holds spiritual truth, but not scientific truth.
Spiritual truth explains "why." Scientific truth explains "how." If we get stuck with thinking that the "why" story is really about "how" things came about, we run the risk of missing the point of the story altogether.
There is actually two creation myths in the Book of Genesis. The first account (Gen. 1-2:4) explains why the Creator acted: Because life is good. ("God saw all he had made, and indeed it was very good." Gen. 1:31a).
The second creation myth (Gen. 2:5-3:24) explains why there is evil in the world. There is a tension between these two accounts of creation, inasmuch as the first creation myth makes the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious tradition "like (that of) almost everybody else in the world, putting ourselves in accord with nature."
As problematic as the second creation myth is for me, the story of the fall of humanity is not without truth. Human beings are not entirely "at one" with nature. There is something in us that drives us to be more than very clever monkeys.
Berg's Law of Love/Sex doctrine emphasized the first creation myth and ignored the truths of the second. We are not animals living in unity with our reproductive nature.
It's been a very long time since I've studied this stuff, by the second creation myth is linked to a cultural abhorance (among the Jews) of the ancient central Asian snake cults, which by their symbolic nature, are an expression of human (particularly male) sexuality.
Interesting how Eve gets the blame for listening to the serpent. In the myth of Lillith, where woman was created from the dust just as Adam was created, she refuses to submit to Adam or be lead about, and for this she is banished from Paradise. Eve, on the other hand, is easily seduced by someone other than her mate, and for this she also also is banished.
I have always been fascinated by the power of myth, and I deeply regret that most people think "myth" means "not true."