Creation Myths and the Neolithic Revolution

[Wandering Monk]

Don't know if this is an original thought or if I heard it somewhere before: Virtually all creation myths begin with a chaotic world which is eventually brought under control and made predictable.

I wonder if this reflects the transition from hunter/gather culture to domestic life, from chaotic existence to taking control of your environment?

Curiously, if I understand it correctly, at the quantum level chaos rules, but as the physical scale increases, matter begins to become subject to the laws of physics. Not saying that the ancients knew quantum mechanics obviously, but I find it kind of interesting that the principles of chaos and order permeate the universe.

 

[ChristineM]

Don't know if this is an original thought or if I heard it somewhere before: Virtually all creation myths begin with a chaotic world which is eventually brought under control and made predictable.

I wonder if this reflects the transition from hunter/gather culture to domestic life, from chaotic existence to taking control of your environment?

Curiously, if I understand it correctly, at the quantum level chaos rules, but as the physical scale increase, matter begins to become subject to the laws of physics. Not saying that the ancients knew quantum mechanics obviously, but I find it kind of interesting that the principles of chaos and order permeate the universe.

It's something I've thought of. A hobby of mine is the Cro Magnon period (one of several reasons i moved to this part of france is it was a centre of cro magnon life.). I have often wondered when and why thise fully human human hunter gatherers began farming and whether they considered the change was a religious thing

 

[pearl]

Don't know if this is an original thought or if I heard it somewhere before: Virtually all creation myths begin with a chaotic world which is eventually brought under control and made predictable.

Most evident in comparing Geneses with the Babylonian creation myth.

 

[sun rise]

The OP thesis is not how I view Native American creation myths. But one does have a Cain/Abel story!

Three Native American Creation Myths

One is below from a different source. And the oracle google which knows all and sees all enlightened me about the world turtle of the Terry Pratchett discworld stories

Long before the world was created there was an island, floating in the sky, upon which the Sky People lived. They lived quietly and happily. No one ever died or was born or experienced sadness. However one day one of the Sky Women realized she was going to give birth to twins. She told her husband, who flew into a rage. In the center of the island there was a tree which gave light to the entire island since the sun hadn't been created yet. He tore up this tree, creating a huge hole in the middle of the island. Curiously, the woman peered into the hole. Far below she could see the waters that covered the earth. At that moment her husband pushed her. She fell through the hole, tumbling towards the waters below.

Water animals already existed on the earth, so far below the floating island two birds saw the Sky Woman fall. Just before she reached the waters they caught her on their backs and brought her to the other animals. Determined to help the woman they dove into the water to get mud from the bottom of the seas. One after another the animals tried and failed. Finally, Little Toad tried and when he reappeared his mouth was full of mud. The animals took it and spread it on the back of Big Turtle. The mud began to grow and grow and grow until it became the size of North America.

Then the woman stepped onto the land. She sprinkled dust into the air and created stars. Then she created the moon and sun.

The Sky Woman gave birth to twin sons. She named one Sapling. He grew to be kind and gentle. She named the other Flint and his heart was as cold as his name. They grew quickly and began filling the earth with their creations.

Sapling created what is good. He made animals that are useful to humans. He made rivers that went two ways and into these he put fish without bones. He made plants that people could eat easily. If he was able to do all the work himself there would be no suffering.

Flint destroyed much of Sapling's work and created all that is bad. He made the rivers flow only in one direction. He put bones in fish and thorns on berry bushes. He created winter, but Sapling gave it life so that it could move to give way to Spring. He created monsters which his brother drove beneath the Earth.

Eventually Sapling and Flint decided to fight till one conquered the other. Neither was able to win at first, but finally Flint was beaten. Because he was a god Flint could not die, so he was forced to live on Big Turtle's back. Occasionally his anger is felt in the form of a volcano.

The Iroquois people hold a great respect for all animals. This is mirrored in their creation myth by the role the animals play. Without the animals' help the Sky Woman may have sunk to the bottom of the sea and earth may not have been created.

Creation Myths -- Iroquois Creation Myth

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

Don't know if this is an original thought or if I heard it somewhere before: Virtually all creation myths begin with a chaotic world which is eventually brought under control and made predictable.

I wonder if this reflects the transition from hunter/gather culture to domestic life, from chaotic existence to taking control of your environment?

Curiously, if I understand it correctly, at the quantum level chaos rules, but as the physical scale increases, matter begins to become subject to the laws of physics. Not saying that the ancients knew quantum mechanics obviously, but I find it kind of interesting that the principles of chaos and order permeate the universe.

I don't think that early h/gs thought of their experiences in the world as chaotic and disordered...after all, the stories they told were about why the experienced the order that they did. The stories were about the origins of themselves and all their relations (food species, spirits, gods, etc.) in the ORDER that they lived every day.

early agriculturists simply added explanations of why/how they were given the further order of how to raise crops and tend livestock as part of the general order of the cosmos.

my opinion, of course.

 

[RestlessSoul]

Don't know if this is an original thought or if I heard it somewhere before: Virtually all creation myths begin with a chaotic world which is eventually brought under control and made predictable.

I wonder if this reflects the transition from hunter/gather culture to domestic life, from chaotic existence to taking control of your environment?

Curiously, if I understand it correctly, at the quantum level chaos rules, but as the physical scale increases, matter begins to become subject to the laws of physics. Not saying that the ancients knew quantum mechanics obviously, but I find it kind of interesting that the principles of chaos and order permeate the universe.

At the subatomic level, quanta have both a wave and a particle function, or at least they can be understood in those terms. Wave functions are deterministic, particle functions behave randomly. Though the probability of particles behaving in a particular way can actually be predicted with remarkable accuracy, it is arguable that individual particles have no material existence between measurements. The uncertainty principle prevents them from being observed in motion.

So the matter from which the natural world is constructed is, perhaps paradoxically, both deterministic and random; that's if, at the fundamental level, the material world has any tangible substance at all. Some ancient dharmic philosophers, and some quantum physicists, say that at the granular level, the material world is fundamentally without substance. Such is the stuff of which we are made, but the theatre in which we live out our existence is, in the words of Carl Sagan, "equidistant from the atoms and the stars".

The ancients may not of known QM or Relativity, but they do seem to have intuited a few things about the timeless mysteries of being.

You can interpret the word God in the following passage loosely, in perhaps a similar manner to that in which Einstein and Hawking used it - which they both did, a lot. Anyway, this strikes me as a most eloquent description of the Big Bang...

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

 

[RestlessSoul]

The OP thesis is not how I view Native American creation myths. But one does have a Cain/Abel story!

Three Native American Creation Myths

One is below from a different source. And the oracle google which knows all and sees all enlightened me about the world turtle of the Terry Pratchett discworld stories

Long before the world was created there was an island, floating in the sky, upon which the Sky People lived. They lived quietly and happily. No one ever died or was born or experienced sadness. However one day one of the Sky Women realized she was going to give birth to twins. She told her husband, who flew into a rage. In the center of the island there was a tree which gave light to the entire island since the sun hadn't been created yet. He tore up this tree, creating a huge hole in the middle of the island. Curiously, the woman peered into the hole. Far below she could see the waters that covered the earth. At that moment her husband pushed her. She fell through the hole, tumbling towards the waters below.

Water animals already existed on the earth, so far below the floating island two birds saw the Sky Woman fall. Just before she reached the waters they caught her on their backs and brought her to the other animals. Determined to help the woman they dove into the water to get mud from the bottom of the seas. One after another the animals tried and failed. Finally, Little Toad tried and when he reappeared his mouth was full of mud. The animals took it and spread it on the back of Big Turtle. The mud began to grow and grow and grow until it became the size of North America.

Then the woman stepped onto the land. She sprinkled dust into the air and created stars. Then she created the moon and sun.

The Sky Woman gave birth to twin sons. She named one Sapling. He grew to be kind and gentle. She named the other Flint and his heart was as cold as his name. They grew quickly and began filling the earth with their creations.

Sapling created what is good. He made animals that are useful to humans. He made rivers that went two ways and into these he put fish without bones. He made plants that people could eat easily. If he was able to do all the work himself there would be no suffering.

Flint destroyed much of Sapling's work and created all that is bad. He made the rivers flow only in one direction. He put bones in fish and thorns on berry bushes. He created winter, but Sapling gave it life so that it could move to give way to Spring. He created monsters which his brother drove beneath the Earth.

Eventually Sapling and Flint decided to fight till one conquered the other. Neither was able to win at first, but finally Flint was beaten. Because he was a god Flint could not die, so he was forced to live on Big Turtle's back. Occasionally his anger is felt in the form of a volcano.

The Iroquois people hold a great respect for all animals. This is mirrored in their creation myth by the role the animals play. Without the animals' help the Sky Woman may have sunk to the bottom of the sea and earth may not have been created.

Creation Myths -- Iroquois Creation Myth

I think that’s why American poet Gary Snyder called one of his books Turtle Island