4. Creation Story: What Is It and Why Do We Need a Change?

Humans love to explore the origins of man, earth, animals, plants and the elements of nature. “Creation Myths” helped to answer the existential questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? What is the purpose of life? These stories made sense at the time period they appeared.

Western culture currently struggles under two very different creation stories. The one from religion teaches what matters is spirit—an unseen deity made all we see in nature; humans are connected to the divine, giving us privilege to control and dominate. The intangibles of faith, trust and redemption replaced direct experience and societies moved forward one holy war after another.

For many 18th Century science slowly replaced religion with Newton’s classical physics, Descartes’ world as a big machine, and Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection. Spirit was out and matter became all that mattered. Society re-formed under materialism, reductionism and determinism. These “isms” led to the accelerating destruction of society and the natural world. We have been left with being a random accident, alone in the universe, and must struggle to survive in a world of limited resources.

Darwinism now prevails underlying the violence, Imperialism, wars and genocide of the last 150 years. Reductionism has led to seeing the body as chemical reactions and replaceable parts, not intricate interacting systems capable of renewal and regeneration. And determinism has stripped us of our sovereignty. It says events are determined by outside causes, making us helpless victims of our genetics. Now free will is out the window, rendering the ever-increasing masses easier to control.

Can you see how these theories have led to the current chaos and crises we now face? We have the wrong creation stories!

Traditionalism embraces religion. Modernism sides with science. What if they’re both wrong? We are left with another question. “What do Cultural Creatives embrace?” Let’s start with these questions: “What do I deeply value? What is a story that restores these values to a joy-filled and peaceful way of life?”

Then ponder this third creation story: The Hopi Indians of our American Southwest tell a story to their children. It’s about Spider Grandmother who wove an enormous web at the moment of creation to support and connect all that emerged. We find ourselves at a critical juncture. The story we pass on to our children of how the world came to be and how they fit into it no longer serves. What story will you tell your grandchildren—the story that separates, creates meaningless violence and planetary destruction, or a story that connects, restores and brings peace?

Let’s dream together a new creation story!