Amr Diab

Constancies in the diagrams of imaginary human

The majority of these myths conceal points, Symbole S and Paradoxe S commun runs:

The being and/or nothing

The myths offer various versions of the creation of the current universe; Some describe it like born Néant, others of a timeless being which would have dreamed or created our world - without human witnesses - in one moment, 7 days according to the Bible, or in a long continuation of more or less happy event.

The paramount chaos

The birth of a world (sometimes harmonious even paradisiac) is often the resultant of conflicts between antagonistic forces, the order and the disorder, the light and the black, etc Cependant, as in the Théogonie of Hésiode, preexistent original chaos with the Universe is sometimes presented not like nothing or a whole in conflict with the order, but rather like entity containing the whole of the elements to come, but mixed.

Fights and Sacrifice

Carl Gustav Jung note that the notion of sacrifice and combat are often associated with mythical creation of the worlds and the universe. Paramount energy is sacrificed to form the Univers. Many cosmogonies describe fights (combat of gods, paramount ancestors, hero, Gigantomachie extraordinary S and other combat). The opposition of opposites in the Twin X, being with two face or paramount couples sexués could thus also represent the opposites which clash in the man. These models can be found shifted in time, for example with God of the Christians presented like makes man, sacrificing him even, within the framework of a new will.

The egg (cosmic egg)

It is often represented like the germ containing the Univers in power, for example for the Orphisme. It symbolizes the periodic restoration of the Nature, the possibility of rebirth of the world. The blossoming of egg gives rise to the Universe ( Pan Gu in China, Partholon among Celts, Puruska in India, Nommo in Mali).

The Water

Symbol of life and Purity, water intervenes like paramount element at presocratic the Thalès and also like renovating element, by the means of the Déluge evoked by several myths founders and cosmogonies. He recalls to the man his weakness vis-a-vis the celestial powers and allows the renewal of the world thanks to best of human (king Manu, saved by Vishnu and transformed into fish, Noah and its arch, Deucalion and Pyrrha saved by Prométhée).

The tree

In many myths, a tree (Tree of life) or a divine, magic or crowned plant plays a role (which one perhaps finds with the tree with the forbidden fruit, of the garden of Eden in the Bible). The Arc in sky (passage or bridge between sky and ground, or two points of the large forest in Amazonia) is sometimes associated for them.

For example, a paramount giant bamboo, opened by the nozzle of the legendary bird sarimanok in the cosmogony of the Filipino folklore from which Malakas and Maganda go down the first man and the first woman.

In the Scandinavian Mythology, Yggdrasil is the Tree-World on which the nine worlds rest.

Others

In the majority of traditional cosmogonies, the creators are anthropomorphic gods who generate the Universe and the Man by the will of a spirit, the word, the gesture, the breath, a member, secretions…

Many animals (fish, snake, birds, lion. play an important role in the myths of the continents where they are present)

Traditional stages of creation of the world

Majority of the joint myths not to presuppose the existence of a incréé, immutable Universe and eternal; They suggest stages and possible evolutions of the world:

appearance of the Universe starting from nothing ( Ex nihilo ), of chaos, the unknown or an entity out of reach our comprehension;
birth of the Time and the space, the Light and the Matter. Starting from the inert chaos paramount, elements, Water, Ground, fire and Air (in Occident; in others Culture S, the basic elements are organized differently) become animated;
appearance of the Life starting from the meeting and of the mixture of these elements;
appearance of the Man;
possibility of creation of a new universe after a world cataclysm.

Some Mythe S leave the principle that the birth and the death of the Univers are a continuous creation. The universe appears, saw, disappears then leaves room to new a Univers and this ad infinitum. Each creation of universe would correspond to a kind of reincarnation of God. The physical body of God would be the entire universe. With each one of its reincarnations, it would improve and be able to thus create a universe better each time than the precedent.

The cosmogonic myths answer the eschatologic myths, who describe the End of the world, being able to precede another world.

Some cosmogonic myths

Cosmogony of ancient Egypt

Cosmogony varies according to the area, and the guardian gods often have the most important roles.

With Héliopolis; Resulting from the Noun, the paramount ocean, Re emerges which is at the same time the sun, Atoum the completed being or Khepri the rebirth. While masturbating, it puts at the world Shou dryness. From its spittle is born Tefnout, the wet one. From this couple is born from it another, Nout, the sky and Geb, the ground which them father separates while raising the arms. Come then Osiris and Isis, Seth and Nephtys. The first couple symbolizes the vegetable revival and with them the legend comes from Osiris, whereas second is sterile. See the Myth of creation héliopolitaine.

With Memphis; At the beginning of times, Ptah the demiurge, resulting from the Noun, the paramount ocean, became aware of its existence. Then it took the silt of the ground, creating and modelling the Man. At once its finished creative work, it yielded the place to its successor Re, the sun. Re, lord of Héliopolis, traverses each day its field exempting with humanity gifts and benefits. See the Myth of creation memphite.

In High-Egypt, Amon (father of the gods founders of the world) fertilized cosmic egg from which was born any life.

Cosmogony mésopotamienne

The myths of creation, origin sumérienne, put in scene two paramount beings: one female, Tiamat, salt water and other masculine, Apsū, fresh water. From their union are born all the gods, whose principal ones are Enlil, Adad, Enki (Ea), Ishtar, Mardouk, but also of the dominant gods Annunaki who exploit the gods Igigi by making them work hard in order to nourish all the gods.

The vault of heaven, the stars, the ground, the hells… were formed of the corpse of Tiamat, at the end of a war gained by Marduk. Then the man was created in his turn to serve the gods when Igigi revolted against Annunaki. The man was worked starting from clay soaked in the flesh and the blood of a sacrificed god, thus giving to the creature a little the divine intelligence.

Ancient cosmogony gréco-Roman

Gaïa - Stopwatches - Ouranos

According to the Théogonie of Hésiode, at the beginning was the Chaos, an incommensurable whole in which the elements constituting the current world were mixed. Four entities separated some: Gaïa (Earth), Eros (the Desire in love seen like forces creative paramount), Érèbe (Darkness of the Hells) and Nyx (the Night). Gaïa generated Ouranos (Sky), the first male fertilizing principle (for the Old ones, the Sky fertilized the Earth by its rains, comparable with a seed), and their pressures were born the Titans, of which Cronos, three Cyclops S and the Hécatonchires (giant with hundred arm).

According to the orphic tradition, water and elements formed the ground spontaneously, from where a Chronos monstrous emerges, which created the Éther, Érèbe and Chaos then generated an egg from which was born Eros, which gave in its turn birth with the Moon and the Sun then at the Night, with which it conceived Ouranos and Gaïa.

Hindu cosmogony

Time is seen in a cyclic way; there thus exists a cycle of creations and destruction. When Brahma awakes and that it opens the eyes, the universe and all that it contains creates, when it falls asleep, all destroys itself. Vishnou protects the universe. Shiva destroys it and thus leads to its rebirth. The universe thus knows a succession of births and destruction.

One represents the creative cycle traditionally implying the three gods of the Trimurti as follows: while Vishnou sleeps, lengthened on the Ananta snake (infinite), itself floating on the ocean of unconsciousness, its navel a lotus leaves in which is held Brahma. While sleeping, Vishnou dreams the world such as it knew it, and of its oneiric memories, Brahma gives rise to a new world, necessarily less pure than the precedent (from where the theory of the ages). It is Shiva which, by its cosmic dance, animates the Universe designed by the thought and, at the end of the cycle, destroys it.

For certain sects hindouists, our universe is only the dream of God, an illusion, the Mâyâ.

Cosmogony monotheist

The Creation of the universe

In this cosmogony, the creation of the universe is described in the book of the Genèse. It is considered today, in general, that this account is symbolic system. The Creative (that it is called Yahvé, God or Allah) is timeless, not having neither beginning nor end. According to the biblical vision, when it created the world, the universe was vacuum and vagueness, darkness covered the abyss, a wind of God whirled on water .

The first day, it created the light by the word ( That the light is and the light was ), rocking the world towards an alternation between days and night.

The second day, it separated sky and sea, thus creating the basic platform of the world.

The 3rd day, it created the ground, fertilized it and strewed the vegetation there, giving rise to the life.

The 4th day, it created the sun and the moon to indicate alternation between the two states of the world ( God made the two major luminaries: the large luminary like power of the day and the small luminary like power of the night, and stars. ).

The 5th day, it populated the sky by the birds and the seas by fish.

The 6th day, it decided to create the beings which will populate the dry land, giving rise to the animal kingdom like with the man, being with his image and intended to dominate the ground ( and that they dominate over fish of the sea, birds of the sky, cattle, all wild beasts and all the small beasts which crawl on the ground ).

Lastly, the 7th day, it rested blessing and sanctifying these days when it had finished creating the world.

The Koranic account indicates also a creation in six days: Your Lord is Allâh Which created the skies and the ground in six days

The six days in question are divided into three two days phases: Say: " Would you disavow (the existence) of That Which created the ground in two days and you would give Him the equal ones? Such is the Lord of the universe, § it is Him Which firmly fixed mountains above it, blessed it and assigned to him its food resources in four days of equal duration. (Such is the answer) with those which question you. § It then turned to the sky which was then smoked and says to him, like to the ground: " Come both, gladly, badly gré". Both said: " We come from good gré". § It issued to make seven skies in two days of them and revealed with each sky its function.

The Moslem theologists interpret the duration of the metaphorical creation of manner returning to the following verses:

However, one day near your Lord, is equivalent to thousand years of what you count.

and

The Angels as well as the Spirit go up towards Him of one day of which the duration is fifty thousand years.

Retorting with the idea that the creator would have felt tiredness and that a rest was necessary, Coran affirms: Indeed We created the skies and the ground and what exists between them in six days, without testing least lassitude.

and

Don't they see only Allah which created the skies and the ground, and which was not tired by their creation, is able in truth to give again the life with deaths? But yes. It is certainly Omnipotent.

The creation of the man

As we saw, the sixth day, God created the man. This being, of male sex, is designed with the image even its creator ( Let us make the man with our image, like our resemblance ) and takes life when God insufflates the latter to him. Other translations (TOB) lets think that the first man was hermaphrodite or that the woman was created at the same time " God created the man with his image, with his image it created it; male and female it created them (TOB, GN I, 27) It was placed in the Paradis, also called “Garden of Eden”, green place where fauna and flora abound, thus being able to live without being concerned with its vital needs ( I give you all the grasses carrying seed, which are on all the surface of the ground, and all the trees which have fruits carrying seed: it will be your food ). However, God gave the order never not to taste with the fruits of the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil . Let us note all the same that God left in Adam the care to name the elements which surrounded it, i.e. fauna and the flora. Unfortunately, Adam was bored and God created the woman (Eve) to hold company to him, working the latter starting from a dimension which was removed with the man lasting his sleep. Eve, thus named, was unfortunately convinced by a snake (metaphor of the evil) to taste with the prohibited fruits. She convainquit the man to taste with this fruit, they there tasted and thus made the Original sin (the first fault of humanity). God punishes them by driving out them of the paradise, condemning them to work, suffer and die.

The specialists say today that there are other accounts of creation in this first book of the bible. For example the account of Caïn and Abel: indeed, the murder of Abel has consequences for the whole ground, for all the inhabitants who pain from now on to draw their food from it. However, the descent of Caïn (protected by a sign from God) will give rise to civilizations (cf all chapter 9 of the book of the Genèse ).

It will be noticed that God of the Bible is external with the world which it creates and which this creation is made without breaking of member . There is its originality compared to other cosmogonies.

In the Islam, the Coran includes the concept of creation of the World by God: Sourate II, verse 164 affirms Certes in the creation of the skies and the ground, in the alternation of the night and the day, in the ship which sails at sea charged with advantageous things to people, in water that Allah reduces from the sky, by which It returns the life to the once died ground and spreads animals of any species there, in the variation of the winds, and the clouds subjected between the sky and the ground, in all that there are signs, for people which reason . Sourate 23, verses 12-13 evokes the creation of Adam in these terms: We created certainly the man of a clay extract, then made of it We a drop of sperm in a solid resting place. Then, We made sperm an adherence; and of adherence We created an embryo; then, of this embryo We created bones and We covered the bones of flesh. Then, We transformed it into very an other creation. Glory with the Best God of the creators!

Cosmogony of the aboriginals of Australia

The cosmogony of the Aborigènes of Australia rests on the concept of “Temps of the dream”, in English Dreamtime or Dreaming, local language “Tjukurpa”. At that time mythical, the supernatural ancestors, like the Rainbow snake or the Men Flashes, created the world by their displacements and their actions. Tjukurpa provides an explanation of the world, defines the direction of the life, which is well or badly, which is natural or what is true. These definitions regulate all the aspects of the life of the Anangu, people of Australia Centrale.

Tjukurpa interprets each site and each element of the landscape in terms symbolic systems, it mixes the past (i.e. history of its creation) with the present and its significance. Many of this information are secret and do not have to be revealed with the not-aboriginals, the “Pyranipa”.

Uluru was created during Tjukurpa. This monolith 3600 m height length and 348 m would come from the set of two mythical children in mud one day of rain. All around this rock, of many sites are crowned and carrying memory and legends.

In this cosmogony, the thought created any matter. The ground, the men, the animals and the plants are only parts of same all. Thus the men cannot have grounds nor animals. This cosmogony caused serious conflicts between the colonizers and the aboriginals which did not include/understand the concepts of delimited private properties or of breeding.

Scandinavian cosmogony

Dogon cosmogony

Following work of the Ethnologist S Marcel Griaule and German Dieterlen in the years 1930-1950, certain authors whose Eric Guerrier in France and Robert Temple in the United Kingdom have advanced the assumption that the Dogon had been visited by extraterrestrial to hold as many information and such precise on the Astronomie, in particular on the system of Sirius, the solar system, the Galaxy, etc

The majority of the scientists opposed to this assumption, which concerns the Pseudo-science, that Dogon owed their knowledge with a Européenne influence. The research undertaken as from the years 1990 showed that the work of Griaule suffered from inaccuracy. Other share, it was shown that a " contamination culturelle" had occurred well between the end of the 19th century and work of Griaule.