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In my experience, this is rather unusual. As far as I know, she has never been to church nor any sort of sunday school. That means she doesn’t know the creation story as told in Genesis, nor, in fact, any of the Bible stories that aren’t widespread in popular culture.
This came up because she and I and a number of other friends are having a series of Neil Gaiman read-a-longs. This month it is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. However, Good Omens is based on a lot of Christian mythology, specifically what would happen if the Antichrist as a baby, was switched at birth and raised just like a normal kid, with everyone around him with no idea who he really is. If you don’t know any of the stories about Creation and Armagaddon, there is rather a lot of explanation missing!
Anyone else encounter this with their friends?
Wade.
@staticsan, I teach children in the public school. They don’t know any of this. Most of my students are new here from Russia, China, India, Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Their parents are highly educated and come for high tech jobs. A couple of my Russian kids are somewhat religious and know but the others are not at all and have no pockets for the Biblical narrative. The parents are the same. They come from very different world views.
Hmm. I hadn’t thought of kids from non-western backgrounds.
My un-churched friend is part of a wider group of friends. We formed as a group of writers, but we also just clicked and do a lot of other socializing, too. Almost everyone else is or was churched, and were raised here in Australia. My friend is no exception – except she has no church background. She is also the youngest in our group. But your comment suggests that maybe we are in the minority, now. And that more and more young people are becoming adults with no knowledge of Christian mythologies.
Wade.
Most of the people here have no interest in church and I would wager to say don’t care about the creation story or the Biblical narrative. In my neighborhood maybe 2 families go to church. That’s it. Most folks think of church as an archaic thing and why would they want to go there or learn anything from it? Sunday’s for sure are for anything but church. They think the creation story, if they know it, is stupid. Seriously, that if you believe in a christian view then you are uninformed and might even have a low IQ. It’s very interesting. Science on the other hand is widely accepted.
I understand their thinking Star…the typical Christian view is very anti-science. At least it was in my experience. We were taught to believe that nearly the entire scientific community was engaged in a mass conspiracy to deny God and blind the world to the truth. It is largely because of such crap that I have totally lost my faith in any kind of religious system. I am still a believer in God, but I see science as my ally now rather than my enemy.
AnonymousI’m wishin there was a like button or sumthin. I’m likin this thread.
I’m really interested in philosophy too. I don’t always get it, but I like the way, for the most part, it’s conducted in a scientific manner. I also think mythology, good story telling, parables and metaphor are important, but let’s call them what they are.
@Gary, I know! I know! I was taught this same thing: “We were taught to believe that nearly the entire scientific community was engaged in a mass conspiracy to deny God and blind the world to the truth. ”
These days I hold both. I wonder. I think they are both interesting and both are better held, meaning just let them be. But, that’s just me. (Ok, that the earth is only 6000 years old or whatever, is crap (creationism is bullshit) and I won’t go down that road.. but other parts of the myth intrigue me.)
So, my kids went to a VERY conservative school for a bit. Our son came home one day crying. He was crying for our neighbor who is an evolutionist. We hugged him and said, “um Son, we’re evolutionists too and we have faith too.” Our kids aren’t in that school anymore but WOW that stuff was weird.
Like @starfielder, the only people I’ve encountered who did not know the creation story were people from non-Christian backgrounds, both children and adults. What I have encountered a lot lately is “relevant” Christians distancing themselves from the parts of the OT, including things like the Creation story. It’s no longer a focus as much as the NT and the story of salvation through Christ. I know many young church goers who don’t really have a thorough knowledge of the OT.
I have a couple of friends who had never heard the creation story until adulthood, and they have never taught it to their children. When I was a kid, I only ever heard it in the context of other creation stories–never as anything “true.” In fact, I had largely forgotten it until I started attending church in high school. At that point, it was taught to me as something I should take literally. My dad, who is Jewish, thought that was very strange.
My dad, who is Jewish, thought that was very strange.
@Amy Your comment is very interesting! Was he a practising Jew? Even so, it highlights something I only discovered myself in the last few months: we forget that the creation story in Genesis was never intended to be a historical account. And for the peoples who first wrote it down, even the concept of “historical account” didn’t really mean quite the same thing to them as it does to us today.
My original point, though, was how many young people are growing up without even hearing about what “The Garden Of Eden” means? Only a few short decades ago, it was rare to find someone who knew nothing of that.
Wade.
Wow, this is a great thread! I remember meeting a little girl in my neighborhood when I was about 8 years old. She did not go to church, and I was encouraged by my mother to introduce her to to God one day when she came over to our house to play. I asked her if she knew about Jesus, and she didn’t. I told her that Jesus is God’s son, and I very distinctly remember that she threw back her head and LAUGHED..she told me that I was weird for believing in all that fairly tale stuff. She was only about a year younger than I was, and she told me that I should keep it to myself. I can only assume she didn’t know the creation story, because this kid didn’t let me ever talk to her again. I DID meet a few people later on that definitely had not heard it, one of them was a Japanese American that played in my band class…
The neighborhood I live in now is full of religious people..I wonder if I am the minority now. Lol!
@moxierocks Too funny! I remember getting mad at a kid on the bus who told me I shouldn’t “use the Lord’s name in vain” because I said “oh my god.” I thought even then that it was pretty dumb for religious kids to impose on the rest of us. Of course, just a few years later, I had fallen in with that crowd and had become very religious myself. LOL!
@staticsan My dad was not an observant Jew, but his parents were. They were very religious people who intentionally moved away from New York to distance themselves from cultural Jews. To my knowledge, neither of my grandparents took the creation story in Genesis literally. One of my closest friends growing up (who is Jewish and still observant) also thought the Christian reading of the Old Testament was suspect. She actually did laugh when she found out lots of Christians take Noah and the flood literally.
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