While reading a week ago, I encountered this website and decided to link it on OT.
It describes creation stories from around the world, and puts them in a cartoon format intended for children. The stories might be over-simplified and the details might be missing. I thought it was very interesting.
I like how the Aztec icon is in Colombia, the Mapuche are way down in Patagonia, the Chinese icon is in Vietnam, the Egyptian icon is in western Libya and the Old Testament is in Egypt.
according to the enuma elish from Bablyon the creator was clothed with the halo of 10 gods... thats a picture of our solar system before the celestial battle separating heaven from earth
There is Hesiod, and his Theogonia (literally birth of gods), according to which originally there was Chaos, the Night and other such forces, and later on the order of the Titans.
Chaos is a nice element in Greek ancient thought. Hesiod is argued (afaik) to have lived a bit after Homer, and possibly in the 8th century BC. Chaos was also altered in philosophy to 'the indefinate' or 'without any border', in Anaximander, and had other iterations, including in early christian gnostic philosophy and its terms such as "The spirit of the Border"
I watched Sumerian creation story. I it very similar to Bibles, instead of one God with some kind sense of justice there are many Gods who pretty much do whatever they want. And I just love part of making humans. Gods made humans when they were having a drunked banquet, I guess this means orgy, but because they were drunk they did not understood how much human sucked. Then later they killed almost all of them instead of helping them to improve. The end of story.
Creation myths are fascinating, they tell us a lot about ourselves in a way, or I suppose about the people who used to believe in them.
That people still believe in some of these blows my mind, but I suppose at one point most humans did.. so I shouldn't be surprised that people like that exist, given the prevalence of religion and religious ideas, but find me someone who believes that the Celtic creation myth is real. That's how likely I think it should be to find someone who believes in the Christian creation myth.
I view all of these myths are equivalent, yet members of these religions would view that as offensive. Am I being offensive, those who believe?
Even if your purpose was to be offensive, I would not be offended. I would not say that is offensive though. It is what you believe. What people believe does not offend me. What people know does not offend me, even if they claim I am wrong. I guess it is probably just me, and yes I can get emotional, but then that is the reaction to being told I am wrong. I refuse to accept that I am wrong because I know the truth, and that is ok with me. I also try to refrain from accusing others they are wrong, because I know how it feels.
That is a very dangerous way to go through life, IMO.
I accept that I might be wrong about anything, and leave the door open for someone to prove me wrong. Isn't that far more sensible?
I'm not trying to say "my way is better than your way", but I kind of am. Being stubborn about something you think is right could just lead to problems.
Indonesian (ceram) was suprisingly femine. I havent watched all of them yet but almost all of them have very similar theme: egg, void, first god or couple. Maybe they had commob ancestors?
Besides, Zeus himself was once defeated by the largest titan (Typhoon), and cut into hundreds of bits, by his own weapon (don't recall what it was, but probably something near a sickle or equally dangerous).
Later on Hermes found him entombed somewhere and helped him re-assemble. So in the end Zeus defeated Typhoon in their third fight (iirc), in the mountains of western Bulgaria, which is why the original name for the balkans is 'Aimos chersonese' (aimos comes from the term aima, which means blood; it is where Typhoon was finally defeated).
How would you explain the similarities between other creation myths and the one presented in the Bible, as well as how much the various myths have in common with each other, and how they are found in completely different cultures?
I wonder what sort of creation myths my ancestors in Poland believed in, before the arrival of Christianity. I'd guess that each tribe had their own belief system in place, or something?
In the national epic of Finland, Kalevala, there is a creation myth. The myth is one of many that the people here had. The actual creation part of the myth goes like this:
And the eggs fall into ocean,
Dash in pieces on the bottom
Of the deep and boundless waters.
In the sand they do not perish,
Not the pieces in the ocean;
But transformed, in wondrous beauty
All the fragments come together
Forming pieces two in number,
One the upper, one the lower,
Equal to the one, the other.
From one half the egg, the lower,
Grows the nether vault of Terra:
From the upper half remaining,
Grows the upper vault of Heaven;
From the white part come the moonbeams,
From the yellow part the sunshine,
From the motley part the starlight,
From the dark part grows the cloudage;
Original in Finnish:
Spoiler:
munat vierähti vetehen, meren aaltohon ajaikse;
karskahti munat muruiksi, katkieli kappaleiksi.
Ei munat mutahan joua, siepalehet veen sekahan.
Muuttuivat murut hyviksi, kappalehet kaunoisiksi:
munasen alainen puoli alaiseksi maaemäksi,
munasen yläinen puoli yläiseksi taivahaksi;
yläpuoli ruskeaista päivöseksi paistamahan,
yläpuoli valkeaista, se kuuksi kumottamahan;
mi munassa kirjavaista, ne tähiksi taivahalle,
mi munassa mustukaista, nepä ilman pilvilöiksi.
The English translation butchers the poetry but basically the world is created of water fowl's eggs. There are other creation myths that are slightly different and have the so called earth diver element to them where a bird dives in the water to bring mud and out of this mud everything is created. The earth diver myths are similar to other earth diver creation myths that can be found in Siberia and North America. Maybe they originated in the same region somewhere in Asia. Who knows.
How would you explain the similarities between other creation myths and the one presented in the Bible, as well as how much the various myths have in common with each other, and how they are found in completely different cultures?
How does one explain how there are so many interpretations of the Biblical account? People view history or what was passed down from their ancestors and filtered through the lens of each generation's common knowledge.
That is a very dangerous way to go through life, IMO.
I accept that I might be wrong about anything, and leave the door open for someone to prove me wrong. Isn't that far more sensible?
I'm not trying to say "my way is better than your way", but I kind of am. Being stubborn about something you think is right could just lead to problems.
That is not how I went through life. That is me looking back on how I coped with life. I was not trying to portray a stubborn attitude, but since you pointed it out, it does sound that way. Is persistence the same thing as stubbornness?
How does one explain how there are so many interpretations of the Biblical account? People view history or what was passed down from their ancestors and filtered through the lens of each generation's common knowledge.
That is not how I went through life. That is me looking back on how I coped with life. I was not trying to portray a stubborn attitude, but since you pointed it out, it does sound that way. Is persistence the same thing as stubbornness?
That is a very dangerous way to go through life, IMO.
I accept that I might be wrong about anything, and leave the door open for someone to prove me wrong. Isn't that far more sensible?
I'm not trying to say "my way is better than your way", but I kind of am. Being stubborn about something you think is right could just lead to problems.
Do you remember that story about the sighted man who lived in a population of congenitally blind people?
Who was it by? H.G. Wells, I think.
Anyway, it's a fine metaphor for this sort of thing.
(In the end, the guy had to leave: all the blind people tried to persuade him to have his eyes put out, because they thought his "vision" - which they couldn't comprehend - was giving him problems.)
Do you remember that story about the sighted man who lived in a population of congenitally blind people?
Who was it by? H.G. Wells, I think.
Anyway, it's a fine metaphor for this sort of thing.
(In the end, the guy had to leave: all the blind people tried to persuade him to have his eyes put out, because they thought his "vision" - which they couldn't comprehend - was giving him problems.)
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