On a website on
Australian Aboriginal culture, it has this to say about creation stories:
This shortened concept of time may be universal within the origin of
religions. For example, in the religions of Judaism and Christianity,
the Bible’s Old Testament tells how God created the entire universe,
including the four major rivers local to Babylon (now Iraq and Iran), in
6 days. It then goes to great lengths to describe many of the people
who lived following Adam and Eve, the first people.
It then goes on to explain:
The earliest bible stories may have only been in oral form, later
becoming written in Aramaic and Hebrew possibly around 1700 B.C.. and
read as though the time of creation was about 4,000 B.C.
But, we get the party line at the end:
However, since modern dating techniques have placed the earth’s age at
about 3,600 million years, many people embracing those religions today
still believe that God created mankind and the universe, but imagine
this happening over a different time scale to that described in the
bible. For all of us, the concept of a million years of humanity and
thousands of millions of years of existence for our planet is beyond our
comprehension.
A few observations: the first look at the Bible is taken, not to be a metaphor...but the metaphor has to be introduced to align belief with materialism; and that makes our attachment to our origins "beyond our comprehension". Good for materialism, not good for fellowship with our Creator.
