Creation Stories and Myths

This study will examine and compare a number of creation stories and myths from different cultures. Considerations in the study will include: How powerful are the gods of the particular religion; what are the relations between mankind and the rest of nature; how are sexual roles defined; and how is evil defined and explained. The religions of Christianity and Buddhism will receive the greatest emphasis, but other religions from around the world will also be covered.

Christianity in terms of the creation story is completely reliant on Judaism and the tale of the beginning of the universe as related in the Old Testament.

Huston Smith writes that a number of religions take a cynical or pessimistic view toward the world, although they believe that God is good. The world is not necessarily made by God in other religions and is not necessarily good.

Judaism on the other hand takes a more positive view toward the material universe. As Smith writes, "Against all such forms of world pessimism, the chronicle of the Jewish perspective opens with the statement: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'" (230).

The questions crucial to Judaism and Christianity and any other religion with respect to beliefs about this issue are, What difference does it make to us how the world was created, whether it is eternal or came into being at a certain point in time? In other words, does a creation myth or story of the beginning of the world make any difference to the w

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ated in a far less specific way than Christianity and Judaism hold. As a result, the Eastern religions are marked by a number of more specific but "smaller" creation stories which do not hold as central a place in those religions as the creation story of the Western religions holds. The Upanishads, the holy book of the Hindus, declares that "In the beginning this world was merely nonbeing. It was existent. It developed. It turned into an egg. It lay for the period of a year. It was split asunder. One of the two eggshell parts became silver, one gold. That which was of silver is the earth. That which was of gold is the sky. What was the outer membrane is the mountains. What was the inner membrane is cloud and mist. What were the veins are the rivers" (Campbell 276). It is a commonplace of Hindu creation myth that this cosmic egg breaks open to expose a huge figure in a human form. This, says Campbell, is the anthropomorphic personification of the power of generation, the Mighty Living One. "This demiurge--a god in human form--is displayed in Hindu myth," Campbell goes on to say, "in yogic meditation, with the forms of his inner vision breaking forth from him (to his own astonishment) and standing then around him a

Category: Philosophy - C