Burke Lecture: You Can't Get Here From There: The Logical Paradox of Creation Myths with Wendy Doniger, UCTV (58:21 min.),
Wendy Doniger has published more than twenty books on mythology, including The Implied Spider: Politics & Theology in Myth and Other People's Myths: The Cave of Echoes. In this video, she discusses a variety of creation myths, including myths about the creation of the universe, humanity, and individual humans. She discusses how scholars of mythology seem to be looking for the origins of myth as if to somehow get near the first myth or beginnings of myth, especially those who attempt to get back to the time "before myth" when there was nothing, and she shows how this search is doomed to failure -- "You can't get here from there." She focuses particularly on Hindu myths, of which she is most familiar. She also discusses how science attempts to answer these questions in comparison to myth's answers. She concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these questions for people in the present, in the here-and-now.
You will not be tested over the content of this video. The video is offered for those interested in furthering their knowledge.