First,
before all the science people start screaming for me to be burned as a witch, I
need to clarify a little piece of terminology. Contrary to the popular show
Mythbusters (which I dearly love), a myth is not something to be proven true or
false.
A myth is a
story. Period. Evaluations as to veracity don’t matter in mythology studies.
So, moving
on. The Big Bang Theory is a creation myth. It’s a pretty darned good one, too.
Cosmic mass goes boom, accelerating out to create space and time, filling the
universe with . . . stuff.
Too bad
it’s plagiarized.
Oh, not
intentionally. I’m sure of that. Scientists would likely never have read the
particular creation myth it was taken from. Nevertheless, it’s still
plagiarized.
The ancient
Chinese conceived as the universe beginning as a giant, cosmic egg, from which,
when it cracked open, the universe poured and spread out, filling the
emptiness. Certainly it doesn’t have the panache and jargon that the scientific
myth has, but all of the essential elements are there.
The choice
of an egg is especially representative of Chinese thought. The egg reflects the
idea of balance so perfectly. Contained within are all of the equal and
opposite essences which drive the universe, so perfectly symbolized by yin and
yang. The yin and yang are opposites in every sense: light/dark, push/pull,
good/evil, masculine/feminine, yolk/white, etc.
Yet these
opposites are not stagnant. The opposites oscillate and cycle, though one may
gain dominance for a time, the other will recover to gain its own dominance for
a time. Never will one side completely void out the other. And, if science is
correct, after the massive expansion of the universe has completed, there will
be a contraction to balance things out, whereupon the egg will reform to begin
the universe anew.
Who’s
hungry?