Creation Myth
Once there was a great civilization with a highly advanced group of beings always in search of greater discoveries. Atropos was among this group but had the lowest position within it even though he saw himself with the greatest talent. His task was to be an observer of the other beings and their research but not actively participate. Atropos loved the creatures and all of the plant life which was very rare in their world and wanted very much to preserve it but with no active role lacked the ability. So one day Atropos thought of a plan and started preparations. Atropos gathered the items necessary for his journey a pale of water, a chunk of extremely dense rock, some grains, a spark of flame, and his two favorite creatures the
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He then spread his items out over the back of elephant and became deep in thought, as he came out of this thought his work was planned and ready for creation. Atropos first took the dense rock and ground some of it very finely, he then took this ground rock and dipped it into the pale of water and worked it like mud around the unground dense rock leaving rises and indentions. He then handed this object to dolphin with instruction to set it into orbit around themselves and this formed the …show more content…
IT is explains the origins of plants from grain, the creatures of water from dolphin, creatures of land from elephant, creatures of air from both dolphin and elephant, and finally man from Atropos himself. This myth tells how they should live by respect of Atropos, their fellow man, creature, and earth. It tells how they should not taint the world by injustice such as killing what is not needed for consumption. The myth also tells where the creation is headed and how to reach pureness of earth. There is a three time cycle of death and rebirth where the impure is burned away and rebirth until after the third time all will be pure and all creatures of pureness will live forever untainted amongst the perfect version of earth. The primary aspect of this myth is oneness with nature, have respect for all life, and tend to your home and neighbors or all will live in the filth of your tainted thoughts and lazy hearts hence a tainted world versus a pure
A myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. Each civilization has its myths about the creation of the world and its human race. Most speak of “gods” who perform feats far beyond that of humankind. Most are legends passed down through oral tradition, and embellished along the way. The book of Genesis is one of the most significant books in the Bible and is sacred scripture for Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. The Babylonian epic, Enuma Elish, is one of the most important sources for understanding the Babylonian worldview. Hesiod’s Theogony is a poem describing the origins and genealogies of
A long time ago, the king of Athens, Cecrops was searching for a god to be the patron of Athens. There were two gods who had shown interest in filling this role, Athena and Poseidon and consequently each was invited to Athens for a competition that would select who was to become the patron of Athens. The competition they would partake in would be one of gifts, each was to bring one wonderful gift to the city of Athens; when the day came, they each came forward with their gifts. Poseidon presented his first, and holding aloft his trident he struck the ground from which sprung a magnificent spring which widened into a lake. Seeing his beautiful gift, the people of Athens grew excited at the allure of this beautiful lake, however, upon touching the water to their lips they were disgusted for the lake was made of salt water and therefore could not be drawn from. Next Athena presented Cecrops with a simple olive tree which she then planted into the ground, exclaiming that it would grow large and bear olives to eat and even for oil to fuel their lamps with. Upon seeing the two gifts the people made their decision, picking Athena as her gift was clearly the superior. In a rage, Poseidon retreated back into the sea, and in a fit of retaliation, he mustered a massive wave which flooded the Thriasian Plain (“Athena and Poseidon's Contest for Athens”). In
Now, one of the main problems of mythology is reconciling the mind to this brutal precondition of all life, which lives by the killing and eating of lives. You don’t kid yourself by eating only vegetables, either, for they, too, are alive. So the essence of life is this eating of itself! Life lives on lives, and the reconciliation of the human mind and sensibilities to that fundamental fact is one of the functions of some of those very brutal rites in which the ritual consists chiefly of killing—in imitation, as it were, of that first, primordial crime, out of which arose this temporal world, in which we all participate. The reconciliation of mind to the conditions of...
Thrasymachus' perspective of human nature is that we all seek to maximize power, profit and possessions. He gives the argument that morality is not an objective truth but rather a creation of the stronger (ruling) party to serve its own advantage. Therefore definitions of "just" and "unjust", "right" and "wrong", "moral" and "immoral" are all dependent upon the decree of the ruling party. Thrasymachus argues that acting "morally", in accordance with the ruling party, benefits the ruling party, while acting "immorally", injures the ruling party and benefits oneself.
From before the dawn of civilization as we know it, humanity has formed myths and legends to explain the natural world around them. Whether it is of Zeus and Hera or Izanami-no-Mikoto and Izanagi-no-mikoto, every civilization and culture upon this world has its own mythos. However, the age of myth is waning as it is overshadowed in this modern era by fundamental religion and empirical science. The word myth has come to connote blatant falsehood; however, it was not always so. Our myths have reflected both the society and values of the culture they are from. We have also reflected our inner psyche, conscious and unconscious, unto the fabric of our myths. This reflection allows us to understand ourselves and other cultures better. Throughout the eons of humanity’s existence, the myths explain natural phenomena and the cultural legends of the epic hero have reflected the foundations and the inner turmoil of the human psyche.
During Antiquity, what could explain the mystery of Earth? No one could explain its creation, and reason of some animals and other elements formation. The author Ovid in the book Metamorphoses uses the God’s myth to explain how the world was created, and explain the meaning of life or the creation of certain animals or plants. Ovid also uses those myths to teach us lessons, which is the main meaning of his myths. All the myths have a very specific ending. Ovid wrote those myth to show us what we should achieve and not accomplish, he is like the master in Tao Te Ching, and his tying to teach us, to be better in what we are doing, by showing the punishments the character had to deal with. The three myths that teach us the most are the Minerva and Arachne myth, the Daedalus and Icarus myth and the myth of Thisbe and Pyramus. In the myth of Minerva and Arachne the lesson is that we should never be to confident and to be respectful to higher-class people. In the Daedalus and Icarus myth, Icarus had over excitement, it made him forget his father’s advices, and in the myth of Thisbe and Pyramus, the myth shows us that we should never take decision to quick and we should always think before acting. Those three myths have a lot in common, they all finish tragically, and the characters are punished or transformed to teach us the creation of some animals or elements.
Myths relate to events, conditions, and deeds of gods or superhuman beings that are outside ordinary human life and yet basics to it” ("Myth," 2012). Mythology is said to have two particular meanings, “the corpus of myths, and the study of the myths, of a particular area: Amerindian mythology, Egyptian mythology, and so on as well as the study of myth itself” ("Mythology," 1993). In contrast, while the term myth can be used in a variety of academic settings, its main purpose is to analyze different cultures and their ways of thinking. Within the academic setting, a myth is known as a fact and over time has been changed through the many different views within a society as an effort to answer the questions of human existence. The word myth in an academic context is used as “ancient narratives that attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and to the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not behaving in such ways” (Leonard, 2004 p.1)? My definition of a myth is a collection of false ideas put together to create
Every ancient society and civilization has creation myths that were passed down and keep alive throughout the passing of time by word of mouth. These myths are the world’s oldest stories and are vital to these cultures because they explain their beginnings and give purpose to their existence. By analyzing and interpreting different creation myths it becomes easier to understand different cultures and their connections and relationships with heir beliefs and god(s).
Myths – as they are known to most of the world – give insight into the pasts of various countries and religions as the people saw them. They have been used to explain phenomena in nature or describe the tales of courageous and important men and women throughout history. Creation myths in particular define how the Earth itself was created, along with the universe, heavens, hell, people, and creatures that exist today. Genesis of Christian mythology, for instance, tells the story of how the single deity God spoke and formed everything from day and night to man and woman. Various African creation myths, such as with the Yoruba, explain the creation of the Earth through at least a couple gods working together and all life sprouting from a seed.
Throughout The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, the author argues that the coevolution of plants and humans is seen within the relationship of humans manipulating plants to fulfill their desires. Pollan touches on four main examples where coevolution can be easily seen throughout history and the present. The apple satisfies sweetness, the tulip beauty, marijuana intoxication, and the potato control. As we are benefitting from evolving the plants for our own interest, the plants themselves are benefitting as well. The environmental message of the book surpasses that of coevolution and dives into the technology of genetic engineering
All has surrounded a important point, FAITH. Because faith does not strong enough, Eve/Pandora followed their curiosity, Eve/Pandora ate/opened the forbidden fruit/box, destruct them because less faith. Because faith strong enough, Noah/Deucalion and Pyrrha saved from the disaster of cleaning the earth's atrocities, saved by their faith, because we have faith , we are not being afraid of death, accordingly, when we are going to dead , faith will appears in our heart and lead us to a better situation, conversely, those who do not have faith or less faith, will feel nothing, and this was the point i think reveal human nature in Greek mythology and
In both myths the relationship between humans and nature is shown as a positive one but with negative effects from humans’ greed and necessity for more. In the beginning of the Creation Story it is stated in the first few lines “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. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” God then began to create the Earth in seven days. On the first day he created day and night out of the darkness and light. The second day led to the creation of the sky. The third day was the creation of the land. The fourth day led to the creation of the season. And finally on the fifth and sixth day, animals and humans were created, and the first two were a male and female named Adam and Eve. At the end of everyday during creation the words “and God saw it was good” are written. God is happy with his creation of nature. The phrase shows the positive connotation of...
This myth reveals about the daily life of the Fon that this society rely on agriculture. They needed the rain to get the necessary food that sustain them. According to this myth, they also believed that “the forces of nature were controlled by individual gods.” The story of this myth reveals how much the Fon people believed and trusted in prophecies. And finally, it demonstrates how inheritance was supposed to works for this society. The oldest son was the one to inherit the entire possession and wealth from their
In the myth that is introduced the existence of the world is divided into two epochs, the Age of Kronos and the Age of Zeus. As the myth goes the world is endowed with motion, but alone it cannot move eternally.
Throughout studying many myths, I came up with many new observations. Many questions came into my mind about these myths. Greek mythology takes us back to a time when people had a connection with nature and when nature played a major role in people’s lives. The religious beliefs of the people who wrote the myths are found in the background of these myths; however, they are not to be read like religious texts. The myths try to offer explanations of “how”, which makes us think deeply about the purpose of these myths and the questions they draw to our minds. According to the myths we studied in class, the world created the gods, not the other way around. The gods were always created in the image of man, which shows how much men were important in their society. Furthermore, many of these Greek myths show us the difference between the views of the Greek then and our view towards many aspects of the society, including nature. Monsters appear in Greek myths and have different representations and roles. Greek mythology reflects a view of the Greeks towards the world and how certain aspects of their lives are similar and different to modern society.