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  1. Nov 23, 2015 · Creation myths, or origin stories, tell us what a culture believes about how humans came to be. They can also tell us much about what that culture values. These are often religious or spiritual explanations for human life. Choose one of origin stories on this page to focus on. Read, watch, or listen to the story.

  2. Dec 5, 2017 · Now, a new study in Nature Communications, helps explain why: storytelling is a powerful means of fostering social cooperation and teaching social norms, and it pays valuable dividends to the ...

    • Overview
    • Origin Stories Introduction

    All humans yearn to know where we came from and how our world began. We may have different stories, but they all serve a similar purpose.

    By Cynthia Stokes Brown

    All humans yearn to know where we came from and how our world began. We may have different stories, but they all serve a similar purpose.

    Everywhere around the world people tell stories about how the Universe began and how humans came into being. Scholars, namely anthropologists and ethnologists, call these tales “creation myths” or “origin stories.” In comic-book lingo there is a specialized meaning for “origin stories.” They are accounts that relate how superheroes got their superpowers.

    Some origin stories are based on real people and events, while others are based on more imaginative accounts. Origin stories can contain powerful, emotional symbols that convey profound truths, but not necessarily in a literal sense. In the United States, many people tell stories about Santa Claus. But everyone, except young children, knows that he is a symbol of love and generosity, not a person who actually exists. Many cultures tell stories that seem strange to outsiders but have deep meaning to group members.

    When people in a culture become literate, they write down their origin stories. But the stories frequently go back way before written records, to when people told them aloud. This is called an “oral tradition.” Multiple versions of each story often exist, since people — from group to group and generation to generation — may change them slightly as they retell them. I have chosen to summarize, in writing, five origin stories from a wide number of places and eras — feel free to tell them aloud to each other.

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  3. Sep 6, 2016 · A broad range of themes and angles were raised at Christie Café, at the University Museum of Bergen, on 6 June, when this year’s Masterclass discussed stories of human origin: Why have humans needed to construct accounts of our earliest beginnings; what is at stake in different versions, and what can they tell us about Man’s understanding ...

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  5. Nov 6, 2012 · The modern origin story is large and ramshackle, with many different components, bits of nuclear physics, some cosmology, stories about the power and creativity of DNA, or the astonishing...

  6. Apr 2, 2024 · April 2, 2024. Here is an origin story about origin stories. Once upon a time, we knew where we came from: Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Fall. Then came modern science, modern...