The readings for this class stood out to me more than the others. Having great personal interest in our modern understanding of ‘The Cosmos’, I signed up for this blog date as a way to compare my present day understandings of the workings of the universe, to the beliefs of civilizations long ago.

Upon beginning the reading on Aten, I noticed that it credited much of the plot of the hymn to being created as an example of how people should live their lives when faced with confrontation. Since the tale speaks of gods, it is meant to act as a guide for certain situations in life. Gods are rarely wrong.

As I read the more familiar ‘Genesis’, the story acted less as a guide, and more as a simple explanation of how things came to be. In my eyes it serves less as a guide, and more as irrefutable history. This can raise the question of what is the inner purpose of these cosmos stories; is it to guide, or to educate? And how does this purpose have an effect on how the stories are used and applied?

With the Rig Veda, we see yet another attitude. Here, the story admits that nobody can truly know how everything came to be, for even the gods were not around for the creation of the universe. Here the tale presupposes the gods with the creation of the world, and not the other way around.

Important to think about what societal or cultural influences can be the cause of the content and ideology of the various creation stories?