I'd like to tell you a couple of stories. I think you'll recognize them. They're very old stories. They've been told in a variety of forms by different people all over the world. Not all the details are the same in every versions, but the same general pattern is there.
The Battle at the Beginning of the World
The first story is about a battle at the beginning of the world. When people told this first story, more than four thousand years ago, they thought they were talking about a time long before them. So you know it was a long time ago. It was before there were any people, before the world looked anything like this, even before we started the building project.
Long ago, there was a monster. Depending on who's telling the story, the monster has a different name and shape. The Babylonians called the monster Tiamat, the Greeks Typhon, and the Hebrews Rahab, and they described it as a kind of reptilian monster with a lot of heads and eyes and tentacles. The Hebrews also had a story about a sea monster called Leviathan, and the Norsemen said it was a frost giant that they called Ymir.
Anyway, no matter what you call the monster, it was very big and scary and all the gods were afraid of it. Finally one god decided to be a hero among the gods. The Babylonians called him Marduk, the Hebrews Yahweh, the Greeks Zeus, the Norsemen Odin. He went out and battled the monster, and he won. And when he was done, he used the monster's dead body to build the world.
The Babylonian version of this is the most detailed. It says that Marduk sliced Tiamat in half, and with the top half he made the sky, while the bottom half became the Earth. Then he killed her husband Kingu and used his blood to make the first people.
And the gods were so grateful to be rid of the monster that they made this hero their king. And he went out and made all the rules that define how the universe works. He made the Sun shine in the daytime and the stars at night. He said that heavy things should fall and light things should rise, and things like that. In short, he made the world be the way it is now.
The Battle at the End of the World
The second story is about a battle at the end of the world. This story is a youngster by comparison; it's less than three thousand years old. And we even know the name of the guy who is supposed to have written it: Zoroaster, who was the founder of a religion that isn't very well known these days, but has had a big influence on a lot of the more popular religions.
In Zoroaster's story the whole world is a battleground, and there is a war that is going on all the time. It started thousands of years ago, and it's going to last for 12 thousand years altogether. And this is the war between Good and Evil, between the Army of Light led by Ahura Mazda and the Army of Darkness led by Ahriman. Everybody has to choose to join one side or the other, and this is the most important choice you make in your whole life: Are you going to fight on the side of Good or the side of Evil?
The war is destined to go back and forth, and at times it will look as if Ahriman is going to win. But no matter how bad things look, you shouldn't be fooled and go over to join the Army of Darkness. Because at the end of the 12 thousand years there will be one final battle, and the forces of Light will defeat the forces of Darkness once and for all. And all those who signed on with the Army of Light and fought for the Light in that great battle will be rewarded.