Original Story
An original story is an explanation, scientific or mythological beginnings of humanity , the earth , the life and the universe ( cosmogony ). These explanations or beliefs may be derived from scientific investigation , of metaphysical speculations or religious beliefs. As with any type of beliefs , opinions regarding the validity of different stories depending on the original point of view and can vary greatly.
original stories and creation myths
The original stories include creation myths, stories mytho- religious reporting the beginnings of the universe as an act of creation by a deliberate supreme being. However, the accounts also include the original non-religious assumptions based on theories of scientific or philosophical contemporary such as the Big Bang , the origin of life , the panspermia and theory of evolution.
The name of the creation myth may seem offensive when it comes to theories that are still widely accepted today, the term myth may suggest that these ideas about fiction. However, these beliefs or stories do not necessarily give an account of real events, but expressed more often what is perceived as truth on a symbolic level, hence the use of this term. Daniel Quinn , the author of Ishmael , also notes that the creation myths are not necessarily religious in nature and that there are secular forms in modern cultures.
Many share stories about creating a theme highly similar. Among the common grounds, fractionation of the constituents of the world from a primordial chaos, the separation of gods father and mother and the land emerging from an infinite and timeless ocean are recurrent.
Some religious groups claim that their version of the story of creation should be considered in parallel, merge or replace the scientific theories on the development of life and the cosmos , these theories are, too, belief based on interpretation facts. This statement sparked stormy controversies, such as the controversial creation vs. evolution.
Scientific observation
Using verifiable observations, science can measure some effects of past events related to the evolution of the universe (eg from the CMB , commonly regarded as the echo of the Big Bang) and interpret these observations within a scientific framework. By extrapolating to the past state of facts that exist today, scientists are trying to build an accurate picture. Adherents to the strict philosophical naturalism claims that it is impossible to know more. This view does however not unanimous and some scientists are encouraging other means of access to knowledge, not always characterized as scientific.
In scientific theories accepted by the majority of the community , the universe and life are described as developing by processes exclusively natural.
Major scientific trends
The Big Bang is the cosmological theory currently dominating the early stages of development of the universe and its evolution to the current state. This theory is supported by a set of observed facts.
It is the origin of the universe at about 13.7 + / -0.5 billion years ago. This contradicts commonly accepted scientific dating many religious cosmological assumptions, such as creationism , which, based on the Bible, considers the creation of the universe to a few thousand years only.
The preconditions to the Big Bang are currently under development theories (eg the theory of cosmic inflation ) and experiments like the Large Hadron Collider in 2008.
The solar nebula that formed by a coalition of gas and dust there about 4.3 billion years, is considered the best available model of formation of a planetary system to explain the origin of the solar system.
System Earth - Moon formed from this, and there are factual arguments to think that both bodies were formed during a collision between the proto-Earth and a body the size of Mars.
The modern evolutionary synthesis is the dominant biological theory on the origin of life on Earth. This theory combines that of Charles Darwin on the evolution of species by natural selection with the theory of Gregor Mendel on genetics as the basis of biological inheritance.
The origin of life itself on Earth is increasingly challenged. Scientific hypotheses and conjectures abut this topic are discussed in the origin of life.
None of scientific theories mentioned above are not part of a hypothesis from scratch, that is to say, they presuppose a previous state and "do not leave anything." They offer no mechanism for the origin of the scratch or the raw energy. They are from this point of view not only of different Abrahamic faiths , that the world, the Earth and life would come from a creative act of God inimitable, but also scientific speculation offering a first cause, if not divine, a another type.
- To get a clearer idea of modern scientific concepts of "matter out of nothing" or "something from nothing," see virtual particle and vacuum energy.
Beliefs from philosophical naturalism
- The Atomism is an ancient Greek philosophy professed by Democritus , Epicurus and Lucretius. The events in the universe are not the consequence of the act of a Creator, but rather the result of invisible particles indivisible (a-tomos) moving erratically. This philosophy was reformulated to become the determinism in the Age of Enlightenment and has always favored by some scientists, although the nature of interactions in a deterministic nature plays where quantum mechanics is a question which can not fail to intrigue.
- The Anthropic principle (from the Greek anthropos, man), and its "derivatives" (anthropic principle "low", "strong", "participationnel", "Final") are the opposite of the Copernican principle of mediocrity (a system may develop any point, without privileged observer). Formulated for the first time by Schopenhauer , he states that if a man observes the universe as he knows, is above all else because he is there himself.
Although metaphysical principle is used by some scientists to determine certain physical laws which necessarily resulted in the existence of man.
Moreover, if the principle was originally formulated an empirical truism, the strong anthropic principle can deal with the forgery.
- The Deism is a belief popularized by Voltaire (the "Great Architect", the "Big Clock"), commonly used among scientists and philosophers from the Enlightenment ( Newton , Leibniz , Jefferson , and Others). It retains the formal idea of a Creator, but allowing the establishment to operate only by natural laws established during the creation (pantheism of Spinoza , which will influence Einstein , is also a form of deism). Under this formulation, every interaction is subject to an absolute determinism.
- Interpreting the Many Worlds of quantum mechanics , introduced by Hugh Everett , conceptually close to the parallel universe (in fiction), is an attempt to resolve issues of causality and determinism in the context of probabilistic interactions. This interpretation speculates that the universe we inhabit is one of many possible universes that exist simultaneously, but mutually independent with each universe splits each "observation" of quantum mechanics (the universe, however, are not strictly parallel, since 'they share a common point in the past).
The creation ex nihilo
Creation ex nihilo ( Latin : out of nothing) seems unlikely because of the daily experience, and violates the principle of conservation of energy and matter ("nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed" ).
However, quantum mechanics allows to consider the spontaneous creation of energy from the vacuum , as the uncertainty principle is not affected (usually by spontaneous annihilation of particles created, cf. the Lamb shift ). This could be a means by which creation ex nihilo to happen, but we can not currently explain this form of creation, or even prove that it is necessary. Julian Barbour suggests that reality simply ends at the point alpha, which should be accepted as a fact, the same way that England leads to the sea at Land's End , without this requiring an explanation.
The creationist argument is often a theist to explain the world was created by God according to some creationists, life was also created in its present state of variety, the bodies are perfectly differentiated from the beginning.
Although there are many attempts to square these ideas with evidence gathered, and commonly accepted theories, explanatory usefulness, predictive power, and scientific soundness were questioned by critics of creationism.
Many scientists, theists or not, working in the areas concerned do not consider the notions of divine power or to play a role in genuine scientific cosmology and biology.
Regarding the origin of life, the scientific attitude is prevalent that life began on Earth, although some may imagine that the organic compounds in comets may have been an important source of material for the appearance of life. The Miller-Urey experiment showed that amino acids could be formed from a pristine environment corresponding to that of Earth before oxygen-producing organisms. Nevertheless, although the scientific work on the genesis of these artificial amino acids are progressing, no consensus as to the origin of life has yet been reached.
Religious beliefs and related
Many religions have their original story, cosmological or not. According to some, the Universe owes its existence and its present form as an act of creation by a supreme being or creator God , while according to others, one or shaping the world of gods and / or life out of existing equipment (eg, chaos or prakriti ).
Steps to create the classical world
Most of the stories have in common that they do not presuppose the existence of an uncreated universe, immutable and eternal, but suggest the steps and possible futures of the world :
- appearance of the universe from nothing ( ex nihilo ), chaos or the unknown;
- birth time and the space , the light and matter. From chaos primordial inert elements, water , earth , fire and air (in the West , while in other cultures , the basic elements are organized differently) animated;
- emergence of life from the meeting and mixing of these elements;
- appearance of the man ;
- possibility of creating a new world after a global cataclysm.
Some accounts assume that the birth and death of the universe is a continuous creation. The universe appears, lives, then disappeared giving way to a new world and this to infinity. Each creation of the universe correspond to a sort of reincarnation of God. The physical body of God is the whole universe. At each of its incarnations, it could improve and create each time a world better than the last.
To meet the cosmogonic myths Eschatological myths , which describe the end of the world.
Common themes
Many themes are common to these stories, whatever their origin
- The creative entity
- In most traditional cosmologies, creators or gods are anthropomorphic which generate the universe and man by word, gesture, a member, secretions, etc.. The Abrahamic religions reverse this concept: it is man who is made in the image of God, let not this just an allegory ( Maimonides , Guide of the Perplexed , chap 1.) In societies current entities were replaced by the laws of physics and chemistry , trying to overcome the traditional anthropomorphism.
- The egg (cosmic egg)
- He is often depicted as the seed containing the universe in power. It symbolizes the periodic renovation of nature , the possibility of rebirth in the world. The hatching of the egg gives birth to the Universe (Pan Gu in China, Partholon among the Celts, Puruska India Nommo in Mali).
- One can also find the symbolism of the egg in the stories of the flood , when men were locked in a boat, like the chick in its egg.
- The chaos primordial
- The birth of a harmonious world is often the result of conflicts between opposing forces, order and disorder. However, in the Theogony of Hesiod , the original chaos is not in conflict with a set agenda, but rather an entity containing all the elements coming mixed.
As for the hurly-burly of the Bible, it describes a state of "amazing" and "sad" not to call otherwise ( Rashi on Ber. 1:2)
- The birth of a harmonious world is often the result of conflicts between opposing forces, order and disorder. However, in the Theogony of Hesiod , the original chaos is not in conflict with a set agenda, but rather an entity containing all the elements coming mixed.
- The water
- Symbol of purity , water is often expressed through the Flood (which in the Bible, calls to purify the world of ungodliness of men).
- The world often goes out of primordial waters (as is the case in life, plants, arthropods, molluscs, amphibians colonize the mainland out of water)
- The deluge is found in many original stories. It reminds the man's weakness against the heavenly powers, and allows the renewal of the world with the best humans (King Manu, saved by Vishnu and turned into fish, Noah and his ark , Deucalion and Pyrrha saved by Prometheus ).
Beliefs Abrahamic
Scholastic traditions of Judaism , of Christianity and of Islam adhered to the creation ex nihilo, right from the first verse of the Bible :
- In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth "
Verse 2 Maccabees 7:28 ("I beseech you, my son, watching the sky and earth and all things therein, and to understand that God has made nothing, and the race of men ") suggests that this belief was common among cosmological Jews.
A similar belief is reflected in the Book of Hebrews: "By faith we understand that the worlds were built by the word of God, so that the things we see were not made from things that appear.
Similarly, in the Qur'an , "He said Limits to the ontology of creation
Although several "scenarios" are offered by religion and science to identify the 'root cause' and the origin of creation ( ontology ), some fundamental limitations prevent humanity to acquire definitive knowledge on the subject.
Philosophy postmodern , preceded in that by the philosophy of Immanuel Kant , argued that nothing can be known with certainty - because we see the world through the lens of the mind, which in turn is even 'trained' by time, space, and things related to it, the thing itself is insachable (the noumena - real objects, which stand behind the phenomena - the objects we recognize subjectively). If this assertion is true, it is beyond the human mind to perceive a condition without time or space.
Many other philosophers, the most recent is Karl Popper have all demonstrated that there is precious little fundamental certainty, which can provide a starting point in order to determine how the root cause leading to the creation. The physical is a modern empirical science based on experimentation and observation which characterizes how things happen using scientific theories and physical laws , but does not seek to answer the question of why is ie the ontological question these things. For example, the existence of the Big Bang is not predicated on the basis of a reason for its occurrence, but on a series of preliminary findings suggesting its existence. Moreover, modern physics tends to Planck Time / Planck length , where both the quantum mechanics that gravity must be combined to characterize the interactions that occur.
There is no such model as tested at this level, which prevents any theoretical speculation on the nature of the universe below that point.
The "root cause" from which the universe was known to exist, a decision may be philosophically demonstrated, it is also one of the points where the dialogue between religion and philosophy has been most fruitful.
The original story by various belief systems
Some original stories are part of a belief system clearly identified, and under what name they appear below. Others seem to apply rather to a specific spatial or temporal context, and are part of local culture in this context.
Australian Aborigines
The Australian Aboriginal mythology with a fairly diverse, there are many original stories, none authoritative.
According to some traditions, the earth was created by one of the gods of the Dreamtime (Dreamtime or Dreaming in English) in local language Tjukurpa. At that time mythical ancestors supernatural, as the serpent Arc-en-ciel or enlightened man, created the world through their movements and actions. Tjukurpa provides an explanation of the world, defines the meaning of life, what is right or wrong, what is natural or what is true. These definitions govern all aspects of the lives of Anangu , the people of Central Australia.
Tjukurpa interprets each site and each element of the landscape in symbolic terms, it combines the past (that is to tell the story of its creation) with the present and its meaning. Much of this information is secret and should not be disclosed to non-aborigines, Piranypa.
Uluru (Ayers Rock) was created during the Tjukurpa. This monolith of 3600 m long and 348 m high come game of two legendary in the mud on a rainy day. All around this rock, many sites are sacred and holders of memory and legend.
In this cosmogony, the thought has created all matter. Land, people, animals and plants are only parts of one whole. Men can not own land or animals, which could lead to conflicts with settlers who themselves, their society founded on private property bounded, livestock, ...
Other traditions teach that particular creatures were created by particular gods or ancestral spirits.
Abrahamic religions
- See sections Creation (theology) , creation according to Genesis and creationism
The Abrahamic religions have on Judaism , the Christianity and Islam , the movement Baha'i and movement Rastafarian inspired by them.
God, Creator uncreated
God, and a single root cause of the world is uncreated, eternally existing in any order:
- According to the Book of Genesis , shared by Judaism and Christianity , this is derived from Genesis 1:1 (Bereshit bara Elohim ve ett ett hashamam haaretz / I> In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The story goes on narrating this creative work, from chaos to celestial luminaries, to aquatic creatures and birds, animals and mankind (Adam means original man and woman, cf. Gen 1:26).
- The Mormons , followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe that physical reality (space, matter and / or energy) is eternal , having no absolute origin, the creator is an architect and organizer of matter and energy premortal, who built the present universe from the raw material ( demiurge ).
- According to the Koran , the holy book of Islam:
(13:16) ... Say: Allah is the Creator of all things, and He is the One, the Supreme (57:3) ... He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden, and He is the knows everything (112:1-2) ... Say: He, Allah is One Allah is the One Who is everything on All creation is attributed to Allah (the proper name of God in Arabic ), the only god of the Muslims.
In the first cause
- In Judaism , the story of creation stemmed undoubtedly the rule of God. It had, however, be justified in the confrontation with Hellenic philosophy, particularly when some, called apikorsim by tradition, reject the foundations of the Torah to join those of the eternity of the world. The problem will be thoroughly discussed by the rabbi and philosopher Moses Maimonides and his successors. A crucial concept in Judaism, especially developed in the Kabbalah Lurianic is the Tzimtzoum , the "contraction" or "retraction" of God to "give way to space and time."
- References to God in the New Testament vary, but they all show an incorporation of the first cause. However, the Christian concept of God, the Trinitarian doctrine (which do not adhere to all Christians), is more complex, as illustrated by various examples:
- Revelation 1:8 - I am the Alpha and the Omega , the beginning and the end ... what is, what was, what will be, God Almighty.
- John 1:1-4 - In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Everything was made by Him and without Him nothing would have been aware of what was done. In him was life, and life was the light of men.
Humanity and its place in Creation
According to the first Genesis account (Genesis 1-2 3), Adam, man and woman is created by God in His image on the sixth day of Creation. According to the second story (Genesis 2 4-25), the Adam was formed with the ground soil and soul of life was breathed by God into his nostrils the woman is formed from a side / of rib of man.
According to the Qur'an (Surah 23:12-13):
- We created man from an extract of clay, then We made him a drop of sperm in a solid resting place. Then We made the sperm adhesion, and adhesion We have created an embryo, then, that embryo We created bones and We clothed the bones with flesh. Then, we have transformed into another creation. Glory to God the Best of creators!
Adam, man and woman were created by God to embrace and enjoy the best environment to live is Earth, and the Garden of Eden in particular. They were made to reflect the authority, love and righteous government of God, his "heralds" in this world, somehow, that also offer him the praise of creation, directing the choir in the land army parallel with that of the heavenly host, described by Isaiah.
They are unique in Creation, in that they are the only carriers of "imago Dei, the image (Heb. - like of God in creation, animate and inanimate. As such, they have a right to conquer the world and use it for their use, and a duty to walk in communion with God and with each other. However, "we" of communion with God and the other man prefers to choose as "I", growing individualism.
At this point in the story of Genesis, man becomes, in the words of Francis Schaeffer, "indisputable willing." This self-determined isolation moves the human soul toward self-preservation and self-absorption. This "fall into the shadows" has unleashed destructive patterns within and outside of the human race, and led to the need for a redemptive adam being, choosing to live a human life in communion with God , reversing the effects of the fall.
According to the Christian faith, Jesus, the Christos of God, was the new adam sent to men "to the completion of time." The human pursuit of a return to Eden will culminate with a new Eden in times to come, manifest in the new heavens and a new earth.
Ainu
The cosmogony of the people Ainu of Hokkaido has six heavens and six hells where living gods , demons and animals. Demons lived in the lower heavens, among the minor gods stars and clouds , and the highest heaven lived Kamui , the creator god and his servants. Her world was surrounded by a wall of metal, whose only entrance was a large iron gate.
Kamui made this world as a vast round ocean resting on the backbone of an enormous trout. This fish sucks in the ocean and spits it out to form the waves, when it moves it causes earthquakes.
Kamui looked one day this watery world and decided to do something. He sent a wagtail to work. Beating wings above the water, trampling the sand with his paws, and beating its tail, the wagtail created patches of dry land. It's so that the islands emerged to float above the ocean.
When animals that lived in heaven as the world saw was beautiful, they begged Kamui to let them settle and live there, what Kamui did, but he also made many creatures specially for this world. The first people, the Ainu, had a body of earth, hair grass and spines made from pieces of willow.
Kamui sent Aioina , the divine man from heaven to teach the Ainu how to hunt and how to cook.
Apache
According to the original stories Apaches at the beginning, nothing existed, the darkness was everywhere.
In the darkness emerged a thin disc, one side yellow, white on the other, suspended in air. In the disc sat a small bearded man, the Creator, He who lives above. When he looked into infinite darkness, light appeared above. He looked down, and darkness became a sea of light. To the east, he created the yellow bands of dawn. To the west, multicolored hues appeared.
He also created three other gods: a little girl, a sun god and a little boy. He created celestial phenomena, the winds, the tarantula , and the earth from the sweat of the four gods mixed together in the palm of the Creator, in a small round brown ball, not much bigger than a bean. The world was expanded to its current size by the gods, which smote the ball of the foot until it extends. The Creator told Wind to go into the ball and inflate.
The tarantula , who played the role of the trickster , secreted a black cord and, attaching it to the ball, crawled rapidly toward the east, pulling the rope with all his might. She repeated the maneuver with a blue rope to the south, a yellow rope to the west, and a white rope to the north. With these powerful pulls in all directions, the brown ball stretched to immeasurable proportions, it became the Earth. There were no hills, no mountains or rivers visible only small plain brown, smooth, treeless appeared. Then the Creator created the rest of the people and the characteristics of the Earth.
Babylonian
The story of creation is described in the Babylonian Enuma Elish , which existed in various versions and copies, the oldest dating from at least 1700 BCE.
In this poem, the god Marduk is armed with arrows and wind defy the monster Tiamat , who threatens to destroy the world she has created. Marduk destroys it, cut into two halves which become the earth and sky. Later, he destroys Tiamat's husband, Kingu , and uses his blood to create mankind. (Reference: A. Leo Oppenheim, Ancient Mesopotamia.)
Bantu
The story Bantu of demiurge is as follows: originally, the Earth was as water and darkness. Mbombo , the giant white ruled the chaos. One day he felt a sharp pain in the stomach, and vomited the sun, moon and stars. The sun shone strongly and the waters s'vaporrent cloud. Dry hills appeared gradually.
Mbombo vomits again. This time, the trees out of his stomach, as well as animals and people, and many other things: the first woman, the leopard, the eagle, the anvil, monkey Fumu, the first man, the firmament , medicine, and light. Nchienge, the wife of the waters, lived in the east. She had a son, Woto, and a daughter, Labama. Woto was the first king of Bakuba.
Buddhism
Buddhism generally ignores the original question, especially life.
The Buddha said here that "speculating about Cherokee
In the beginning there was only water. All the animals lived above it, and the sky was accordingly crowded. All were curious what was under water, until Dayuni'si , the water beetle, volunteered to explore it. He explored the surface but could not find dry land. He explored beneath the surface and found nothing but mud it brought to the surface. The sludge collected grew and spread until it became the Earth as we know it.
After all this came, one of the animals attached this new land to heaven by four son. The earth was still too wet, so they sent the great buzzard from Galun'lati to prepare for them. The buzzard came down, and the time it reaches land Cherokee , he was so tired that his wings began to hit the ground. Each time a wing touched the ground, a valley or a mountain was hollowed formed.
Animals believing that this world was too black, decided to create the sun, and placed him on the path it takes today.
Chinese
There are five views of the majority creation in China:
- The first and most striking of a historical perspective, there is no myth. This does not mean that nothing exists but there is no evidence showing that something divine could explain the origin of the world. This theory is closer to the agnosticism or of atheism in Europe.
- The second is indirect. The main idea is a separation of heaven and earth. It is an ancient belief.
- The third view is perpetuated by Taoism and the nature of his philosophy. It appears relatively late in China. It describes the Tao, ultimate force of creation. With the Tao, nothing is there, there bringing the yin and yang and yin and yang leads to everything.
Because of the ambiguous nature of this myth, there are different interpretations - it might be closer to the second hypothesis mentioned, or its antithesis, in other words to explain it in the light of modern science on the subject the creation of the universe.
- The fourth view is a myth of Pangu. It was an explanation by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Tzu , probably around the year 200.
In this story, the universe begins as cosmic as eggs. A god named Pangu , born inside the egg, break it into two parts: the upper half became the sky, the lower half became the Earth. Then the god becomes larger, and heaven and earth are removed and separated. Finally, the god dies and his body parts became different parts of the Earth.
- The fifth view is made up of tribal histories, which vary greatly and are not necessarily linked to religious belief systems.
Choctaw
The Choctaw who remain in Mississippi have a tradition explaining their arrival on land where they live now and how Naniah Waii Mound came to be. Chata and Chicksah , two brothers, led the original people to a country far west which had ceased to prosper. They traveled a long, guided by a magic wand. Every night, when people stopped to camp, the stick was planted in the ground and in the morning, the people traveling in the direction towards which the pointing stick.
After traveling extremely long, they finally arrived at a place where the right stick remained. It was here that they placed the bones of their ancestors, they had carried in buffalo sacks from their original land. The large mound heaved after burial. After the funeral, the brothers discovered that the earth could not sustain all the people. Chicksah took half of the people and drove north to form the tribe of Chickasaw. Shatah and the others remained near the mound to become the Choctaw.
Creek
The Creek Indians relate that the world was originally all-in-fact submerged, with the exception of a hill called Nunne Chaha. On the hill was a house where lived Esaugetuh Emissee ("master of breath"). He created mankind from clay from the hill.
Ancient Egypt
While the culture of ancient Egypt can look very homogeneous at first, there was at least in religious matters, large geographical variations. Cosmogony varies according to region, and the tutelary gods were often the most important roles.
- The Ennead , effective Heliopolis , raises Atum , the completion, of Nun , the primordial ocean. Masturbating (to cheer his solitude, sic), it gives birth to Shu dry, and his breathing or his sputum was born Tefnut , wet. The pair formed by Shu and Tefnut, the goddess born Nut (sky) and the god Geb (earth), in a state of permanent copulation. Their father separates them, raising his arms.
Their children are Ausar ( Osiris , Death), Set ( Seth , the desert), Aset ( Isis , life) and Nebet Het ( Nephthys , fertile land). Isis and Osiris are the first couple symbolizing the renewal plant, which relates the legend of Osiris , while the pair of Seth and Nephthys is sterile.
| Noun | ||
|
Ancient Greece and Rome 
Loading ...