thoughts from nz.general

>> I see the creation story as some kind of allegory.
>
> Care to enlighten me? Do you have a theory?

I'll give it a go.

"God said "Let there be Light" is as good an explanation of the Big Bang as
any.
Something suddenly appearing out of nothing.(Well, a singularity, whatever
that is. God himself, perhaps?)

The daily creations follow more or less the stages of evolution of the Solar
System and life on Earth. Man is a comparatively recent species.
Adam in Eden would have been rather like an early Australopithecine, (Lucy),
or a gorilla today. (Not a chimp.)
A harmless creature well adjusted to its environment.

"Eating the apple" would be the gradual development of ideas, language and
then a conscience. An animal slowly becoming human. The need for clothing,
not just for practical reasons but for social ones.
"Being turned out of Eden" would be the descent from the trees and living on
the savannah among predators. Needing to kill prey to survive. The
Pleistocene droughts after a life in the lush forest. Laborious early
agriculture.
The angel with a flaming sword may have been a comet. Or possibly an
erupting volcano?

Cain and Abel may be the conflict between the hunters and the early crop
growers. (Like the American West.)

And now we come to the scary part.
Until the Industrial Revolution, life went along much as it always had. Even
as late as sixty years ago, I hand milked cows, used horses, stooked corn,
used a scythe, pitchfork and billhook etc, much as my West Country ancestors
in Britain had done for centuries. We had made a second Eden of our world.
Now the hedgerows have gone in many places leaving big open fields, and
everything is mechanised.
Here in New Zealand where the bush has gone, heavy rains cause erosion.

But the rest of the world has changed too. Much of the tropical rain forest
has gone, and the climate is changing, whether from man made global warming
or natural causes. The planet itself is changing, and it may not be for the
better. Desertification may be on the move.
For a second time, Adam is leaving Eden, or rather Eden is leaving Adam. The
changes may be irreversible.
But where are we to go? Some people think we can all take off in spaceships
for some other planet!

The other end of the Bible, Revelation, may be much nearer than we think,
especially the Four Horsemen.
But that's another story. Perhaps the asteroid due in 2028 will end our
civilization and maybe kill us all, leaving Earth free to develop new
inhabitants. But will they be intelligent human-like creatures, or some kind
of invertebrates?
Insects?

Well there you are. I've rambled on a bit. Perhaps these ideas have occurred
to others. If there is a book or website about it I would like to know.