Conflicting stories of creation?

[Isildurs Bane]

I was always led to believe that the CREATOR was the one who created the earth. But i'm currently reading second chronicles and have heard pitchwife come off with a completely different story of creation, involving a giant worm roaming the cosmos who eats a load of stars then falls asleep, then the earth sort of grows around him. Could someone with more knowledge on this subject than me please clarify, asap. Thanx

[Fist and Faith]

I just bumped two threads for you:
Ravers and the Ring
and
Worm of the World's End.
They're the last places I remember this topic being discussed.

[Isildurs Bane]

cheers

[Isildurs Bane]

what I meant to say was cheers.... but they don't even really explain it!!!!! I hate the idea of the 2 creation stories both being true, i find them completely unreconsilable. Either the creator created the world, or its the byproduct of the worms greediness. Also, it says the worm sleeps for an eon, then eats for an eon. How can an eon be measured without time? Where does the arch of time fit into this equation???? or anything really????

please elaborate people!!!!!

[UrLord]

Perhaps the Creator created the world by creating the worm with the intention of allowing it to become the world, while influencing its progress and development.

[ur-bane]

Also, it says the worm sleeps for an eon, then eats for an eon. How can an eon be measured without time? Where does the arch of time fit into this equation???? or anything really????

please elaborate people!!!!!

I'll try to keep this brief.

The Arch of Time was forged by the Creator because the Earth he intended to create needed a place in which to be. (Loose paraphrase of SRD's own explanation within the text itself)

Therefore Time exists above and beyond the Earth, just as the Earth exists within Time. In SRD's world, the Land's Earth exists within the Arch of Time. Therefore, the Worm's "eons" of eating take place within the Arch of Time.

How that Earth came to be is explained 2 different ways in the Chronicles. Much like different religions here on our own Earth have different creation stories.

Although they seem to contradict each other, both can be true at the same time, as explained in the thread "Worm of the World's End."
It is all a matter of what you choose to believe, and how you interpret the rest of the tale that SRD has brought to us.

Hope that helps a bit.

[I'm Murrin]

The Chronicles are all about paradox and contradiction. You cannot both believe that the Land is real and believe it a product of Covenant's (and Linden's) minds; but Covenant does just that. In the same way, The Creator and Foul are both very real, but it is also pretty certain that the Worm exists. In either case the two ideas are contradictory, irreconcilable, and, paradoxically, both true.

[UrLord]

Not true:

Personally, I don't see any inherent conflict between the two main cosmologies presented in the "Chronicles." After all, life necessitates death. Anything that lives carries within it the seeds of its own destruction. (And our own bodies demonstrate just how *many* seeds there can be.) The alternative is stasis. Indeed, anything that doesn't both grow and die (usually in that order) can't really be described as being alive. So if the Creator wanted to make a living world, he pretty much had to supply the means for the eventual ending of that world. Hence, to my way of thinking, the tangible existence of the Worm of the World's End doesn't conflict at all with the general cosmology put forth by the Lords.

At least according to SRD, there's really no inherent conflict between the two.