Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent

“A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in which it is told, a creation myth is usually regarded as conveying profound truths – metaphorically, symbolically, historically, or literally. They are commonly, although not always, considered cosmogonical myths – that is, they describe the ordering of the cosmos from a state of chaos or amorphousness.” ref

“Creation myths often share a number of features. They often are considered sacred accounts and can be found in nearly all known religious traditions. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily. They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past that historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore (‘at that time’). Creation myths address questions deeply meaningful to the society that shares them, revealing their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context. Creation myths develop in oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions; found throughout human culture, they are the most common form of myth.” ref

Creation myth definitions from modern references:

“A “symbolic narrative of the beginning of the world as understood in a particular tradition and community. Creation myths are of central importance for the valuation of the world, for the orientation of humans in the universe, and for the basic patterns of life and culture.”
“Creation myths tell us how things began. All cultures have creation myths; they are our primary myths, the first stage in what might be called the psychic life of the species. As cultures, we identify ourselves through the collective dreams we call creation myths, or cosmogonies. … Creation myths explain in metaphorical terms our sense of who we are in the context of the world, and in so doing they reveal our real priorities, as well as our real prejudices. Our images of creation say a great deal about who we are.”
A “philosophical and theological elaboration of the primal myth of creation within a religious community. The term myth here refers to the imaginative expression in narrative form of what is experienced or apprehended as basic reality … The term creation refers to the beginning of things, whether by the will and act of a transcendent being, by emanation from some ultimate source, or in any other way.” ref

Religion professor Mircea Eliade defined the word myth in terms of creation:

“Myth narrates a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial Time, the fabled time of the “beginnings.” In other words, myth tells how, through the deeds of Supernatural Beings, a reality came into existence, be it the whole of reality, the Cosmos, or only a fragment of reality – an island, a species of plant, a particular kind of human behavior, an institution.” ref

“All creation myths are in one sense etiological because they attempt to explain how the world formed and where humanity came from. Myths attempt to explain the unknown and sometimes teach a lesson.” ref

“Some Ethnologists and anthropologists who study origin myths say that in the modern context theologians try to discern humanity’s meaning from revealed truths and scientists investigate cosmology with the tools of empiricism and rationality, but creation myths define human reality in very different terms. In the past, historians of religion and other students of myth thought of such stories as forms of primitive or early-stage science or religion and analyzed them in a literal or logical sense. Today, however, they are seen as symbolic narratives which must be understood in terms of their own cultural context. Charles Long writes: “The beings referred to in the myth – gods, animals, plants – are forms of power grasped existentially. The myths should not be understood as attempts to work out a rational explanation of deity.” ref

“While creation myths are not literal explications, they do serve to define an orientation of humanity in the world in terms of a birth story. They provide the basis of a worldview that reaffirms and guides how people relate to the natural world, to any assumed spiritual world, and to each other. A creation myth acts as a cornerstone for distinguishing primary reality from relative reality, the origin and nature of being from non-being. In this sense, cosmogonic myths serve as a philosophy of life – but one expressed and conveyed through symbol rather than through systematic reason. And in this sense, they go beyond etiological myths (which explain specific features in religious rites, natural phenomena, or cultural life). Creation myths also help to orient human beings in the world, giving them a sense of their place in the world and the regard that they must have for humans and nature.” ref

Historian David Christian has summarised issues common to multiple creation myths:

“Each beginning seems to presuppose an earlier beginning. … Instead of meeting a single starting point, we encounter an infinity of them, each of which poses the same problem. … There are no entirely satisfactory solutions to this dilemma. What we have to find is not a solution but some way of dealing with the mystery …. And we have to do so using words. The words we reach for, from God to gravity, are inadequate to the task. So we have to use language poetically or symbolically; and such language, whether used by a scientist, a poet, or a shaman, can easily be misunderstood.” ref

“Mythologists have applied various schemes to classify creation myths found throughout human cultures. Eliade and his colleague Charles Long developed a classification based on some common motifs that reappear in stories the world over. The classification identifies five basic types: Brahmā, the Hindu deva of creation, emerges from a lotus risen from the navel of Viṣņu, who lies with Lakshmi on the serpent Ananta Shesha.” ref

“Creation ex nihilo in which the creation is through the thought, word, dream, or bodily secretions of a divine being.
Earth diver creation in which a diver, usually a bird or amphibian sent by a creator, plunges to the seabed through a primordial ocean to bring up sand or mud which develops into a terrestrial world.
Emergence myths in which progenitors pass through a series of worlds and metamorphoses until reaching the present world.
Creation by the dismemberment of a primordial being.
Creation by the splitting or ordering of a primordial unity such as the cracking of a cosmic egg or a bringing order from chaos.” ref

“Marta Weigle further developed and refined this typology to highlight nine themes, adding elements such as deus faber, a creation crafted by a deity, creation from the work of two creators working together or against each other, creation from sacrifice, and creation from division/conjugation, accretion/conjunction, or secretion.” ref

An alternative system based on six recurring narrative themes was designed by Raymond Van Over:

“Primeval abyss, an infinite expanse of waters or space.
Originator deity which is awakened or an eternal entity within the abyss.
Originator deity poised above the abyss.
Cosmic egg or embryo.
Originator deity creating life through sound or word.
Life generating from the corpse or dismembered parts of an originator deity.” ref

Creation from Chaos

“In creation from chaos myths, initially there is nothing but a formless, shapeless expanse. In these stories the word “chaos” means “disorder”, and this formless expanse, which is also sometimes called a void or an abyss, contains the material with which the created world will be made. Chaos may be described as having the consistency of vapor or water, dimensionless, and sometimes salty or muddy. These myths associate chaos with evil and oblivion, in contrast to “order” (cosmos) which is the good. The act of creation is the bringing of order from disorder, and in many of these cultures it is believed that at some point the forces preserving order and form will weaken and the world will once again be engulfed into the abyss. One example is the Genesis creation narrative from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.” ref

“Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap / abyss created by the separation of heaven and earth. Greek kháos (χάος) means ‘emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss‘, related to the verbs kháskō (χάσκω) and khaínō (χαίνω), ‘gape, be wide open’, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₂n-, cognate to Old English geanian, ‘to gape’, whence English yawn.” ref

“It may also mean space, the expanse of air, the nether abyss or infinite darkness. Pherecydes of Syros (fl. 6th century BCE) interprets chaos as water, like something formless that can be differentiated. The motif of Chaoskampf (German: [ˈkaːɔsˌkampf]; lit. ‘struggle against chaos’) is ubiquitous in myth and legend, depicting a battle of a culture hero deity with a chaos monster, often in the shape of a serpent or dragon. Parallel concepts appear in the Middle East and North Africa, such as the abstract conflict of ideas in the Egyptian duality of Maat and Isfet or the battle of Horus and Set.” ref

“Hesiod and the Pre-Socratics use the Greek term in the context of cosmogony. Hesiod’s Chaos has been interpreted as either “the gaping void above the Earth created when Earth and Sky are separated from their primordial unity” or “the gaping space below the Earth on which Earth rests.” Passages in Hesiod’s Theogony suggest that Chaos was located below Earth but above Tartarus. Primal Chaos was sometimes said to be the true foundation of reality, particularly by philosophers such as Heraclitus.” ref

“In Roman tradition For Ovid, (43 BCE – 17/18 CE), in his Metamorphoses, Chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a “shapeless heap”. According to Hyginus: “From Mist (Caligo) came Chaos. From Chaos and Mist, came Night (Nox), Day (Dies), Darkness (Erebus), and Ether (Aether).” An Orphic tradition apparently had Chaos as the son of Chronus and Ananke.” ref

“Ante mare et terras et quod tegit omnia caelumunus erat toto naturae vultus in orbe,quem dixere chaos: rudis indigestaque molesnec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestaque eodemnon bene iunctarum discordia semina rerum.Before the ocean and the earth appeared— before the skies had overspread them all—the face of Nature in a vast expanse was naught but Chaos uniformly waste. It was a rude and undeveloped mass, that nothing made except a ponderous weight; and all discordant elements confused, were there congested in a shapeless heap.” ref

“And in Biblical tradition, Chaos has been linked with the term abyss / tohu wa-bohu of Genesis 1:2. The term may refer to a state of non-being prior to creation or to a formless state. In the Book of Genesis, the spirit of God is moving upon the face of the waters, displacing the earlier state of the universe that is likened to a “watery chaos” upon which there is choshek (which translated from the Hebrew is darkness/confusion).” ref

“The Septuagint makes no use of χάος in the context of creation, instead using the term for גיא, “cleft, gorge, chasm”, in Micah 1:6 and Zacharia 14:4. The Vulgate, however, renders the χάσμα μέγα or “great gulf” between heaven and hell in Luke 16:26 as chaos magnum. This model of a primordial state of matter has been opposed by the Church Fathers from the 2nd century, who posited a creation ex nihilo by an omnipotent God.” ref

“In modern biblical studies, the term chaos is commonly used in the context of the Torah and their cognate narratives in Ancient Near Eastern mythology more generally. Parallels between the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma Elish were established by Hermann Gunkel in 1910. Besides Genesis, other books of the Old Testament, especially a number of Psalms, some passages in Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Book of Job are relevant.” ref

“In Hawaiian folklore, a triad of deities known as the Ku-Kaua-Kahi (AKA “Fundamental Supreme Unity”) were said to have existed prior to and during Chaos ever since eternity, or put in Hawaiian terms, mai ka po mai, meaning ‘from the time of night, darkness, Chaos’. They eventually broke the surrounding Po (‘night’) and light entered the universe. Next the group created three heavens for dwelling areas together with the earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and assistant spirits.” ref

Creation Ex nihilo

“Creatio ex nihilo (Latin for “creation out of nothing”) is the doctrine that matter is not eternal but had to be created by some divine creative act. It is a theistic answer to the question of how the universe comes to exist. It is in contrast to Ex nihilo nihil fit or “nothing comes from nothing“, which means that all things were formed from preexisting things; an idea by the Greek philosopher Parmenides (c.540-480 BCE) about the nature of all things, and later more formally stated by Titus Lucretius Carus (c. 99 – c. 55 BCE).” ref

“The myth that God created the world out of nothing – ex nihilo – is central today to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and the medieval Jewish philosopher Maimonides felt it was the only concept that the three religions shared. Nonetheless, the concept is not found in the entire Hebrew Bible. The authors of Genesis 1 were concerned not with the origins of matter (the material which God formed into the habitable cosmos), but with assigning roles so that the Cosmos should function. In the early 2nd century CE, early Christian scholars were beginning to see a tension between the idea of world-formation and the omnipotence of God, and by the beginning of the 3rd-century creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology.” ref

“Ex nihilo creation is found in creation stories from ancient Egypt, the Rig Veda, and many animistic cultures in Africa, Asia, Oceania, and North America. In most of these stories, the world is brought into being by the speech, dream, breath, or pure thought of a creator but creation ex nihilo may also take place through a creator’s bodily secretions.” ref

“The literal translation of the phrase ex nihilo is “from nothing” but in many creation myths, the line is blurred whether the creative act would be better classified as a creation ex nihilo or creation from chaos. In ex nihilo creation myths, the potential and the substance of creation springs from within the creator. Such a creator may or may not be existing in physical surroundings such as darkness or water, but does not create the world from them, whereas in creation from chaos the substance used for creation is pre-existing within the unformed void.” ref

“Ex nihilo nihil fit means that nothing comes from nothing. In ancient creation myths, the universe is formed from eternal formless matter, namely the dark and still primordial ocean of chaos. In Sumerian myth this cosmic ocean is personified as the goddess Nammu “who gave birth to heaven and earth” and had existed forever; in the Babylonian creation epic Enuma Elish pre-existent chaos is made up of fresh-water Apsu and salt-water Tiamat, and from Tiamat the god Marduk created Heaven and Earth; in Egyptian creation myths a pre-existent watery chaos personified as the god Nun and associated with darkness, gave birth to the primeval hill (or in some versions a primeval lotus flower, or in others a celestial cow); and in Greek traditions the ultimate origin of the universe, depending on the source, is sometimes Okeanos (a river that circles the Earth), Night, or water.” ref

“To these can be added the account of the Book of Genesis, which opens with God separating and restraining the waters, not creating the waters themselves out of nothing.[9] The Hebrew sentence which opens Genesis, Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz, can be translated into English in at least three ways:

As a statement that the cosmos had an absolute beginning (In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth).
As a statement describing the condition of the world when God began creating (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was untamed and shapeless).
As background information (When in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, the earth being untamed and shapeless, God said, Let there be light!).” ref

“It has been known since the Middle Ages that on strictly linguistic and exegetical grounds option 1 is not the preferred translation. Our society sees the origin of matter as a question of crucial importance, but for ancient cultures this was not the case, and the authors of Genesis wrote of creation they were concerned with God bringing the cosmos into operation by assigning roles and functions.” ref

“Creatio ex nihilo, in contrast to ex nihilo nihil fit, is the idea that matter is not eternal but was created by God at the initial cosmic moment. In the second century, a new cosmogony arose, articulated by Plotinus, that the world was an emanation from God and thus part of God. This view of creation was repugnant to Christian church fathers as well as to Arabic and Hebrew philosophers, and they forcefully argued for the otherness of God and his creation and that God created all things from nothing by the word of God. The first articulation of the notion of creation ex nihilo is found in the 2nd century writing To Autocylus (2.10) authored by Theophilus of Antioch. By the beginning of the 3rd century, the tension was resolved and creation ex nihilo had become a fundamental tenet of Christian theology. Theophilus of Antioch is the first post New Testament author to unambiguously argues for an ontological ex nihilo creation from nothing, contrasting it to the views of Plato and Lucretius who asserted clearly that matter was preexistent.” ref

“In modern times some Christian theologians argue that although the Bible does not explicitly mention creation ex nihili, various passages suggest or imply it. Others assert that it gains validity from having been held by so many for so long; and others find support in modern cosmological theories surrounding the Big Bang. Some examine alternatives to creatio ex nihilo, such as the idea that God created from his own self or from Christ, but this seems to imply that the world is more or less identical with God; or that God created from pre-existent matter, which at least has biblical support, but this implies that the world does not depend on God for its existence.” ref

Earth-Diver Creation

“The earth-diver is a common character in various traditional creation myths. In these stories, a supreme being usually sends an animal (most often, a type of bird, but also crustaceans, insects, and fishes in some narratives) into the primal waters to find bits of sand or mud with which to build habitable land. Some scholars interpret these myths psychologically while others interpret them cosmogonically. In both cases emphasis is placed on beginnings emanating from the depths.” ref

“This earth-diver myth is diffused throughout practically all of Eurasia and is found in ancient India as well. Closely related to the above type of myth is the myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, it is stated, The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po.” ref, ref

“The widely distributed earth-diver myth is the most familiar example of dualistic creation. The most widespread account of the creation among the Finno-Ugric peoples is the earth-diver myth. In the north it is known in an area extending from eastern Finland to the Ob River, and in the south it is found, for example, among the Mordvins. This myth, which is well known in North America and Siberia, is fairly constant in form among the Finno-Ugric peoples. In the Mordvin variant, God sits on a rock in the middle of the primeval sea and spits into the water; the saliva begins to grow and God strikes it with a staff, whereupon the Devil comes out of it (sometimes in the form of a goose). God orders the Devil to dive into the sea for earth from the bottom; at the third attempt, he succeeds but tries to hide some of the earth in his mouth. While God scatters sand, the earth begins to grow and the Devil’s deceit is unmasked, and the earth found in his cheek becomes mountains and hills. The eastern Finnish myth contains an interesting detail: God stands on the top of a golden statue and orders his reflection on the water to rise, and this becomes the Devil.” ref, ref

Etiological (explanatory and expanding) continuations of the basic myth are common. The Devil demands for himself a piece of earth the size of the end of a stick, and from the hole that results vermin emerge—mice, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, and other such living things. Indo-Iranian influence has been seen in the dualism of the myth—setting God against the Devil—since religious dualism is most significant in Indo-Iranian religion. A water bird may be older than the Devil. It also occurs, however, without the dualistic emphasis. Thus, in an account by the Yenisey Khanty, the great shaman (a medicine man with psychic abilities) Doh glides above the primeval sea among the water birds, and asks the red-throated loon to dive for earth from the bottom of the sea, and with the earth makes an island. A rarer, but apparently ancient, myth is found among the Mansi: the god of the skies lets earth come down from heaven and places it on the surface of the great primeval sea.” ref

“Creation myths are a part of the oral tradition and culture of every Native North American tribe. The different creation myths reflect different levels of creation or existence. Some describe the beginning of the universe, or the creation of the earth, or the birth of humankind. The earth diver stories portray a heavenly, celestial world from which a being falls and creates the earth. This type of myth is similar to many other of the world’s creation myths that place creation in the hands of higher beings like the Elohim (angelic beings, gods, and goddesses) and can be seen in comparing the Iroquois, Seneca, and Blackfoot creation myths.” ref

“The earth diver myths begin with beings who falls to the earth plane below from a higher plane inhabited by more evolved beings. The woman who falls creates the earth as we know it. This storyline is present in the Blackfoot, Seneca, and Iroquois myths. The Iroquois legend states that “the first people were the Sky People” the higher beings from which the human race was created. These beings are human-like in their description, as in the Seneca story The Woman who fell from the Sky, named “sky woman”, and describes the beings of her world as resembling the Seneca people, only more handsome and well-kept. When sky woman falls from her celestial world, she encounters an earth made of water. The watery earth is another motif of the earth diver myths and is seen in the myths of many tribes such as Iroquois, Blackfoot, Cherokee, and Lakota myths.” ref

“When sky woman falls from above, she clutches a handful of soil from the heavenly realm, and with this the great turtle dives into the ocean to find the tree in order to fecundate the earth. The great turtle, who is also a principal protagonist in the earth diver stories, counsels sky woman and rallies the other animals to help build the earth, which will be sky woman’s home. One by one the animals sacrifice themselves to dive into the sea and gather materials to build sky woman a home.” ref

“At the end of the myth, sky woman sacrifices her body “from her head grew the corn, beans, and squash…the three sisters” which become staples of the Native American diet, and “from her heart, the sacred tobacco”. These interactions show the interdependent relationship between humans and animals. There is no dominion portrayed in how they relate to each other, only collaboration. For example, in the Iroquois version of the Sky Woman myth, called Turtle Dives to the Bottom of the Sea, sky woman lives on the back of great turtle. The turtle sees the woman as a blessing and generously offers her a home. She uses the soil she clutched from the celestial Tree of Life, to fecundate the earth plane below.” ref

“The way human, animal and plant relationships are portrayed speak of a time when human life was in balance with the earth’s offerings and rhythms (i.e. seasonal rounds). Duality and balance are portrayed as twin brothers in many myths such as the Iroquois, Algonquin, and Sioux stories, and the sky woman myths, too. The twins represent the duality of human life and the coexistence of night and day, light and dark, good and evil, and how they are inseparable and necessary. In the Seneca myth, sky woman gives birth to twins and these twins manage earth’s creation.” ref

For example, the historian Axtell recounts the myth a time when humankind and animals lived in harmony and cooperation as related from the Iroquois tradition:

“the world the twins made was a balanced and orderly world…the plant-eating animals created by the right-handed twin would eat up all the vegetation if their numbers was not kept down by the meat-eating animals which the left-handed twin created. But if these carnivorous animals ate too many other animals they would run out of meat and starve. so the right and the left-handed twins built balance into the world.” ref

“This excerpt beautifully demonstrates how many the Iroquois people viewed and accepted duality in their lives and saw them as inseparable. Geographically, the Seneca and Iroquois tribes lived near the Great Lakes region of the United States and Canada, but the Blackfoot and Lakota were plains people. Perhaps, the fact that the Iroquois and Seneca (whom are considered part of the Iroquois Nation) were geographically surrounded by water influenced their earth diver creation myths.” ref

“Characteristic of many Native American myths, earth-diver creation stories begin as beings and potential forms linger asleep or suspended in the primordial realm. The earth-diver is among the first of them to awaken and lay the necessary groundwork by building suitable lands where the coming creation will be able to live. In many cases, these stories will describe a series of failed attempts to make land before the solution is found. Among the indigenous peoples of the Americas, the earth diver cosmogony is attested in Iroquois mythology: a female sky deity falls from the heavens, and certain animals, the beaver, the otter, the duck, and the muskrat dive in the waters to fetch mud to construct an island.” ref

“In a similar story from the Seneca, people lived in a sky realm. One day, the chief’s daughter was afflicted with a mysterious illness, and the only cure recommended for her (revealed in a dream) was to lie beside a tree and to have it be dug up. The people do so, but a man complains that the tree was their livelihood, and kicks the girl through the hole. She ends up falling from the sky to a world of only water, but is rescued by waterfowl. A turtle offers to bear her on its shell, but asked where would be a definitive dwelling place for her. They decide to create land, and the toad dives into the depths of the primal sea to get pieces of soil. The toad puts it on the turtle’s back, which grows larger with every deposit of soil.” ref

“In another version from the Wyandot, the Wyandot lived in heaven. The daughter of the Big Chief (or Mighty Ruler) was sick, so the medicine man recommends that they dig up the wild apple tree that stands next to the Lodge of the Mighty Ruler, because the remedy is to be found on its roots. However, as the tree has been dug out, the ground begins to sink away, and the treetops catch and carry down the sick daughter with it. As the girl falls from the skies, two swans rescue her on their backs. The birds decide to summon all the Swimmers and the Water Tribes. Many volunteer to dive into the Great Water to fetch bits of earth from the bottom of the sea, but only the toad (female, in the story) is the one successful.” ref

Emergence Creation

“In emergence myths, humanity emerges from another world into the one they currently inhabit. The previous world is often considered the womb of the earth mother, and the process of emergence is likened to the act of giving birth. The role of midwife is usually played by a female deity, like the spider woman of several mythologies of Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Male characters rarely figure into these stories, and scholars often consider them in counterpoint to male-oriented creation myths, like those of the ex nihilo variety.” ref

“Emergence myths commonly describe the creation of people and/or supernatural beings as a staged ascent or metamorphosis from nascent forms through a series of subterranean worlds to arrive at their current place and form. Often the passage from one world or stage to the next is impelled by inner forces, a process of germination or gestation from earlier, embryonic forms. The genre is most commonly found in Native American cultures where the myths frequently link the final emergence of people from a hole opening to the underworld to stories about their subsequent migrations and eventual settlement in their current homelands.” ref

Creation from World Egg

“The world egg, cosmic egg, or mundane egg is a mythological motif found in the cosmogonies of many cultures that is present in Proto-Indo-European culture and other cultures and civilizations. Typically, the world egg is a beginning of some sort, and the universe or some primordial being comes into existence by “hatching” from the egg, sometimes lain on the primordial waters of the Earth. Eggs symbolize the unification of two complementary principles (represented by the egg white and the yolk) from which life or existence, in its most fundamental philosophical sense, emerges.” ref

“The earliest idea of the “cosmic egg” comes from some of the Sanskrit scriptures. The Sanskrit term for it is Brahmanda (ब्रह्माण्ड) which is derived from two words – ‘Brahma‘ (ब्रह्मा) the ‘creator god’ in Hinduism and ‘anda’ (अण्ड) meaning ‘egg’. Certain Puranas such as the Brahmanda Purana speak of this in detail.” ref

“The Rig Veda (RV 10.121) uses a similar name for the source of the universe: Hiranyagarbha (हिरण्यगर्भ) which literally means “golden fetus” or “golden womb” and is associated with the universal source Brahman where the whole of all existence is believed to be supported. The Upanishads elaborate that the Hiranyagarbha floated around in emptiness for a while, and then broke into two halves which formed Dyaus (the Heavens) and Prithvi (Earth). The Rig Veda has a similar coded description of the division of the universe in its early stages.” ref

“According to Zoroastrian cosmology, the period of (material) creation, also to last 3,000 years, began after the treaty, when Ohrmazd recited the Ahunwar (Av. Ahuna Vairiia) prayer, revealing to Ahriman his ultimate defeat and causing him to fall back into the darkness in a stupor, which lasted for the entire period of the creation. During this time Ohrmazd fashioned his creations in material (gētīg) form, by celebrating a “spiritual yasna”. He placed each creation under the protection of one of the seven Amahraspands (Av. Aməša Spənta).” ref

“First he created the sky (protected by Šahrewar, Av. Xšaθra Vairiia), which enclosed the world like the shell of an egg. The second creation was water (protected by Hordād, Av. Haurvatāt), which filled the lower half of the “egg.” The third creation, earth (protected by Spandārmad, Av. Spənta Ārmaiti), shaped like a flat disk, floated on the primeval waters. On it stood the fourth, fifth, and sixth creations, respectively the single plant or tree (protected by Amurdād; Av. Amərətāt), the uniquely created bull (protected by Wahman, Av. Vohu Manah), and the first man, Gayōmard (Av. Gaiiō.marətan, protected by Ohrmazd himself). The seventh creation, fire (protected by Ardwahišt; Av. Aṧa Vahišta), was said to have permeated all other creations. During the 3,000 years of the period of material creation these creations were motionless, and the sun stood still in the middle of the sky.” ref

“The Orphic Egg in the ancient Greek Orphic tradition is the cosmic egg from which hatched the primordial hermaphroditic deity Phanes/Protogonus (variously equated also with Zeus, Pan, Metis, Eros, Erikepaios, and Bromius) who in turn created the other gods. The egg is often depicted with a serpent wound around it. Many threads of earlier myths are apparent in the new tradition. Phanes was believed to have been hatched from the World egg of Chronos (Time) and Ananke (Necessity) or Nyx (Night). His older wife Nyx called him Protogenus. As she created nighttime, he created daytime. He also created the method of creation by mingling. He was made the ruler of the deities and passed the sceptre to Nyx. This new Orphic tradition states that Nyx later gave the sceptre to her son Uranos before it passed to Cronus and then to Zeus, who retained it.” ref

“The ancient Egyptians accepted multiple creation myths as valid, including those of the Hermopolitan, Heliopolitan, and Memphite theologies. Under the Hermopolitan theology, there is the Ogdoad, which represents the conditions before the gods were created. An aspect within the Ogdoad is the Cosmic Egg, from which all things are born. Life comes from the Cosmic Egg; the sun god Ra was born from the primordial egg in a stage known as the first occasion.” ref

“A philosophical creation story traced to “the cosmogony of Taautus, whom Philo of Byblos explicitly identified with the Egyptian Thoth—”the first who thought of the invention of letters, and began the writing of records”— which begins with Erebus and Wind, between which Eros ‘Desire’ came to be. From this was produced Môt which seems to be the Phoenician/Ge’ez/Hebrew/Arabic/Ancient Egyptian word for ‘Death’ but which the account says may mean ‘mud’. In a mixed confusion, the germs of life appear, and intelligent animals called Zophasemin (explained probably correctly as ‘observers of heaven’) formed together as an egg, perhaps.” ref

“The account is not clear. Then Môt burst forth into light and the heavens were created and the various elements found their stations. Following the etymological line of Jacob Bryant one might also consider with regard to the meaning of Môt, that according to the Ancient Egyptians Ma’at was the personification of the fundamental order of the universe, without which all of creation would perish. She was also considered the wife of Thoth.” ref

“In the myth of Pangu, developed by Taoist monks hundreds of years after Lao Zi, the universe began as an egg that symbolizes the primordial state of Taiji. A primeval hermaphroditic giant named Pangu, born inside the egg, broke it into two halves: the upper half became the sky, while the lower half became the earth. As the god grew taller, the sky and the earth grew thicker and were separated further. Finally, Pangu died and his body parts became different parts of the earth.” ref

“In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, there is a myth of the world being created from the fragments of an egg laid by a goldeneye on the knee of Ilmatar, goddess of the air:

“One egg’s lower half transformed and became the earth below, And its upper half transmuted and became the sky above; From the yolk the sun was made, Light of day to shine upon us; From the white, the moon was formed, Light of night to gleam above us; All the colored brighter bitsRose to be the stars of heaven and the darker crumbs changed into Clouds and cloudlets in the sky. And in many original folk poems, the duck – or sometimes an eagle – laid its eggs on the knee of Väinämöinen.” ref

“From Polynesian mythology, such as in Cook Islands mythology, deep within Avaiki (the Underworld), a place described as resembling a vast hollow coconut shell, there dwelt in the deepest depths, the primordial mother goddess, Varima-te-takere. Her domain was described as being so narrow, that her knees touched her chin. It was from this place that she created the first man, Avatea, a god of light, a hybrid being half man and half fish. He was sent to the Upperworld to shine light in the land of men, and his eyes were believed to be the sun and the moon.” ref

“In Samoan and Tahitian mythology, all existence began inside an egg-like shell called Rumia. The first being to exist within Rumia was Tangaloa. Tangaloa instigated the creation of many aspects of reality, the atea/lagi heavens, the papa earth, and additional living creatures (the atua / gods) tightly compressed within the shell. The new creatures eventually worked to release the shell and pushed the heavens and earth apart, resulting in the universe as we know it.” ref

World Parent Creation

“There are two types of world parent myths, both describing a separation or splitting of a primeval entity, the world parent or parents. One form describes the primeval state as an eternal union of two parents, and the creation takes place when the two are pulled apart. The two parents are commonly identified as Sky (usually male) and Earth (usually female), who in the primeval state were so tightly bound to each other that no offspring could emerge. These myths often depict creation as the result of a sexual union and serve as genealogical record of the deities born from it.” ref

“In the second form of world parent myths, creation itself springs from dismembered parts of the body of the primeval being. Often, in these stories, the limbs, hair, blood, bones, or organs of the primeval being are somehow severed or sacrificed to transform into sky, earth, animal or plant life, and other worldly features. These myths tend to emphasize creative forces as animistic in nature rather than sexual, and depict the sacred as the elemental and integral component of the natural world. One example of this is the Norse creation myth described in Völuspá, the first poem of Gylfaginning.” ref

“Creation by world parents is closely related to a type of myth that states that the world is created as the progeny of a primordial mother and father. The mother and father are symbols of earth and sky, respectively. In myths of this kind, the world parents generally appear at a late stage of the creation process; chaos in some way exists before the coming into being of the world parents. In the Babylonian myth Enuma elish, it is stated,

When on high the heaven had not been namedFirm ground below had not been called by name,Naught but primordial Apsu, their begetter,(And) Mummu-Tiamat, she who bore them all,Their waters comingling as a single body;

The Maori make the same point when they state that the world parents emerge out of po. Po for the Maori means the basic matter and the method by which creation comes about. There is thus some form of reality before the appearance of the world parents.” ref

“Even though the world parents are depicted and described as in sexual embrace, no activity is taking place. They appear as quiescent and inert. The chthonic (underworld) structure of the earth as latent potentiality tends to dominate the union. The parents are often unaware that they have offspring, and thus a kind of indifference regarding the union is expressed. The union of male and female in sexual embrace is another symbol of completeness and totality. As in the African myth from the Dogon referred to above, sexual union is a sign of androgyny (being both male and female) and androgyny, in turn, a sign of perfection. The indifference of the world parents is thus not simply a sign of ignorance but equally of the silence of perfection. The world parents in the Babylonian and Maori myths do not wish to be disturbed by their offspring. As over against the parents, the offspring are signs of actuality, fragmentation, specificity; they define concrete realities.” ref

“The separation of the world parents is again a rupture within the myth. This separation is caused by offspring who wish either to have more space or to have light, for they are situated between the bodies of the parents. In some myths the separation is caused by a woman who lifts her pestle so high in grinding grain that it strikes the sky, causing the sky to recede into the background, thus providing room for human activities. In both cases, an antagonistic motive must be attributed to the agents of separation. In the Babylonian and Maori versions of this myth, actual warfare takes place as a result of the separation.” ref

“Over against the primordial union of the world parents, there is the desire for knowledge and a different orientation in space. After the separation, lesser deities related to solar symbolism take precedence in the creation. The sun and light must be seen in these myths as representing the desire for a humanizing and cultural knowledge as over against the passive and inert forms of the union of the parent deities. From the point of separation, the mythic narrative of the world-parent myths states how different forms of cultural knowledge are brought to human beings by the offspring, the agents of separation. The separation of the world parents is the sign of a new cosmic order, an order dedicated to the techniques, crafts, and knowledge of culture.” ref

List of creation myths

Creation from chaos

Main article: Chaos (cosmogony)

Enûma Eliš (Babylonian creation myth)
Greek cosmogonical myth
Jamshid
Korean creation narratives
Kumulipo
Leviathan (Book of Job 38–41 creation myth)
Mandé creation myth
Pangu
Raven in Creation
Serer creation myth
Sumerian creation myth
Tungusic creation myth
Unkulunkulu
Väinämöinen
Viracocha

Earth diver

Main article: Earth-diver

Emergence

Main article: Emergence

Ex nihilo (out of nothing)

Main article: Ex nihilo

Debate between sheep and grain
Barton cylinder
Ancient Egyptian creation myths
Genesis creation myth (Judaism, Christianity and Islam)
Kabezya-Mpungu
Māori myths
Mbombo
Ngai
Popol Vuh

World parent

Main article: World parent

World egg

Divine twins

Main article: Divine twins

Proto-Indo-European creation myths

Regional Creation myths

Africa

Ancient Egyptian creation myths
Fon creation myth
Kaang creation story (Bushmen)
Kintu myth (Bugandan)
Mandé creation myth
Mbombo (Kuba, Bakuba or Bushongo/Boshongo)
Ngai (Kamba, Kikuyu and Maasai )
Serer creation myth (cosmogony of the Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania)
Unkulunkulu (Zulu)
Yoruba creation

Americas

Mesoamerica

Mid North America

Anishinaabeg creation stories
Cherokee creation myth
Choctaw creation myth
Creek creation myth
Hopi creation myth
Kuterastan (Plains Apache)
Diné Bahaneʼ (Navajo)
Raven in Creation (Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian)
Zuni creation myth

South America

Legend of Trentren Vilu and Caicai Vilu (Chilean)
Viracocha (Incan)
Xolas (Chilean)

Asia

Central Asia

East Asia

Indian subcontinent

Europe

Slavic creation myth
Theogony (Classical Greco-Roman)
Book of Invasions (Celtic)
Väinämöinen (Finnish)
Völuspá (Norse)

Middle East

Debate between sheep and grain
Enûma Eliš (Babylonian)
Genesis creation myth (Hebrew)
Islamic creation myth (Arabic)
Leviathan (Book of Job 38-41 creation myth)
Mashya and Mashyana (Persian)
Sumerian creation myth

Pacific Islands/Oceanic

Areop-Enap (Nauruan)
Kumulipo (Hawaiian)
Māori myths (Māori)
Rangi and Papa (Māori)
Sureq Galigo (Buginese)

“Religion is an Evolved Product” and Yes, Religion is Like Fear Given Wings…

Atheists talk about gods and religions for the same reason doctors talk about cancer, they are looking for a cure, or a firefighter talks about fires because they burn people and they care to stop them. We atheists too often feel a need to help the victims of mental slavery, held in the bondage that is the false beliefs of gods and the conspiracy theories of reality found in religions.

Creation myths: From chaos, Ex nihilo, Earth-diver, Emergence, World egg, and World parent

Creation from Chaos

Creation Ex nihilo

Earth-Diver Creation

Emergence Creation

Creation from World Egg

World Parent Creation

List of creation myths

Regional Creation myths

Americas

Mesoamerica

Mid North America

South America

Asia

Central Asia

East Asia

Indian subcontinent

Europe

Middle East

Pacific Islands/Oceanic

The Atheist-Humanist-Leftist Revolutionaries Shows in the prehistory series:

Damien Marie AtHope (Said as “At” “Hope”)/(Autodidact Polymath but not good at math):

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