Comparing Religions

Comparing Religions

For centuries, humans have had questions about their existence: “What is my purpose?”, “Why am I here?”, or “Where did I come from?”. Religions have helped answer these questions. Some questions, such as “Where did I come from?”, have been answered in great detail. Creation stories give people a sense of where everything they see and interact with all originated from. Some stories have many similarities, others have seldom. Two religions that come from completely separate worlds, the organized world of western Christianity and the nomadic world of the Huron Native Americans contain an in depth creation story. Even though both religions contain in depth creation stories, the two don’t have many similarities in context and meaning. Even if one may not be a practicing Christian, it is difficult to not have heard the creation story from the first two chapters of the book of Genesis. The story states that there was nothing in the universe until God created heaven and earth. He then went on to create light, the waters, land, vegetation, the sun and the moon, all animals, and finally man and woman. (KJV) However, the creation story of the Huron Indians is less widely known. The Hurons were a tribe from what is now known as Western Canada. This tribe believed that in the beginning there was only one body of water and all the animals that lived in the water. Then a woman fell from the sky and after being rescued by two loons, a snapping turtle called for other animals to find this woman some land to live on. A toad returned with a small earth in it’s mouth and it was laid on the turtle’s back. After some time had passed, the woman gave birth to two sons. One was born normal, but the other broke out of her side and killed her, but when she was buried, all the plants needed for life came from her body. The two boys then prepared the earth for humans to live on, but they soon realized they could not live together so they both separated with their own portion of land. The evil brother made giant animals, including a giant toad that drank all the fresh water. The good brother then heard what his brother was doing and realized that he must be stopped. The two brothers came face to face which lead to the good brother defeating the evil brother. The evil brother then said he had gone to the far west and that all races of men will follow him to the west. (Ford 168) While these are two completely different takes on how the universe was created, one similarity can be shown between these two stories. Both stories show that men and women were the last things created. The differences between these stories are much more numerous than the comparisons. Since these two stories came from opposite sides of the globe, the differences between them are very apparent. In the Huron story, there is no higher power dictating everything that is happening. Everything just seems to be happening at random. Some could argue that the woman who fell from the sky was a higher power, but she is more like a deity instead of a God. Also in the Huron story, there was never a time when the universe was completely void of all forms of life. The Huron story states that in the beginning, there was only water and the water animals. This is unlike the Genesis creation story, which states that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.”(KJV). Another difference in these two stories is that there is no struggle between good and evil in the Genesis creation story. A struggle does occur, but after everything is created. Also there are no humans in the Huron story, only deities. There are not only several contextual differences between the two, but there are also several symbolic differences. At first glance, these stories seem very different from one another. But upon further examination, several symbolic differences can be seen. The Genesis story can be viewed as having a distinct order in the things that were created when they were created. Unlike the Huron story, which seems to be just a chaotic chain of events. Also, the Hurons seemed to believed that good and evil had always existed which is different from the Genesis story that does not mention evil in the place where Adam and Eve, the two people God created, lived. Another difference is instead of the higher power creating a place for the animals to live like in the Genesis story, the animals found a place for the woman who fell from the sky to live. This gives a sense of equality among the creator and it’s creations with everyone working together to help each other. Religion does a great job of giving its followers a good idea of where they came from. The two creation stories mentioned earlier, the Genesis story and the Huron story, both show in great detail how the universe was formed. Some similarities can be taken out, but these stories are very different in both context and symbolic meaning.