quote:

Originally posted by babthrower:
Oh yeah, sorry, 'explain our origins'.

Sorry, can't do that. Not mentally equipped. Not enough room in the brain-box for the hardware necessary for the task.

I've decided the universe must have always existed. The 'big bang' was just an event. Of all the wild, mystical explanations I like the Hindu cosmology/cosmogony best.

How could it always exist? Isn't that impossible? Well, if not, who created it? But if a creator created it, who created the creator? Since an uncreated thing is impossible.

Mankind is the animal that's always looking for reasons.

From a Hindu Q&A site:

http://www.hindunet.org/srh_home/1997_12/0045.html

Re: REQUEST : Hindu Creation Story

* Maybe in reply to: Posted By Dennis Curran: "REQUEST : Hindu Creation Story"
* Next in Thread: Posted By athiest: "Re: REQUEST : Hindu Creation Story"

The Hindus believe that the world was created a very long time ago, as you already seem to know. As you may know, Hinduism belives heavily in
the cyclical nature of things and so, it is said that the world has been created 9 times. I am not sure when (the number of years) it is said
that the earth was created, but I can tell you that it was much bigger number than tens of millions.


The mythology of the story proceeds as follows. In the beginning there was nothing, but the undifferentiated and unmanifested. Everything was
in perfect harmony. Lord Vishnu lay on his serpent, Shesha, his eyes were closed as he rested. When Lord Vishnu opened his eyes, the
creation began. A lotus stock emerged from his navel and blossomed into a beautiful lotus. From the lotus was born Brahma. Brahma is the
creator, in Hindu mythology. Brahma then proceeded to create the universe. Brahma created the entire universe in a little golden egg
called the Hiranyaagarbha (the golden womb). Brahma created the heaven and the earth, the gods and the demons, the gandharvas and the humans,
the plants and the animals, the stars and the planets and everything else.

The reason I explain the mythology is because I think it bring up several interesting points in science, which I will address since you
expressed interest at the common ground between science and religion. First point is that the universe it said to be entirely located inside
the golden egg. This says that the universe is finite. Today we believe that the universe is after all finite, but ever-expanding. The
universe doesn't go on forever, as we had once perceived. It is expanding into emptiness and taking over. Since today we believe that
the Big Bang occured some 14 billion years ago, the universe can only be 14 billion light years in radius. What lays outside? In this
mythology, what lays outside is nothingness. The universe is expanding into nothingness. Also I think it is quite interesting that the
universe is contained in an egg because that may signify the infintesmal size of the universe. We see the same principle in the electron that
revolves around the atomic nucleus as we do with planets revolving around stars and the stars themselves revolve around something bigger.
Who is to say that the universe isn't doing the same thing. The universe may be big to our proportions, but it may in reality be like an
electron that revolves around something, in a yet bigger universe. The final point that I would like to bring up is the serpent in the
mythology. The serpent is named Shesha, which literally means the "remains." What eventually happens when the univese gets too big? The
gravity pulls back upon itself and the universe begins to collapse into what is termed the "big crunch." I am sure you are familiar that it is theorized that the universe will collapse into a single point, ever so dense, which accounts for the remnents, the "remains."

I know that doesn't really answer your question. I will try to look up the answer to your question, if possible and get back to you.
-------------------------------------------------------------

After science proved that the earth had a beginning, Hinduism changed its creation story. The above is commonly accepted by the Hindus.

Teshuvah

Thank you for posting the results of your research, Tesh. It does illustrate the similarities between the Hindu creation myth and current scientific cosmogony.

I think that it's worth mentioning that the electron does not 'revolve around' any nucleus -- that's just a metaphor, and the metaphor was actually based on the solar system model. The electron is manifest in the 'field'. Here, for example.

But ultimately there is the little mannikin -- Lord Vishnu. Shown here as seen by one artist. Interesting to compare it with the ceiling of the Sistine.

I respect the vision that the Hindu thinkers had of an immense and virtually limitless universe, and their sense of the vastness of cosmic time. It makes other creation stories seem very primitive and unimaginative.

But even the Hindu thinkers could not get away from the notion of the mannikin!

quote:

Where are we? How'd we get here? What platform do we exist upon?

===================================
How the God created our terrestrial world?
============ ====
The God is unknown materialistic thing.
At first He took "clay" and made a figure of a man
and only after He gave him a "soul".
How can we understand this scientific?
============ ==
1.
The "clay" is a proton.
2.
The "soul" is a quantum of light / electron.
3.
Interaction between proton and electron is created
simplest atom - atom of hydrogen.
4.
And atom is alive design.
The atom of hydrogen lives 12 minutes.
5.
After is created a complex atom.
6.
The evolution is continuing.
7.
And someone a long time ago has already said, that if
to give suffices time to atom of hydrogen, he will turn into Man.
============ =========

I haven't read the entire thread, so if I repeat what others have said, I'm sorry. To the original question: no matter your beliefs or lack thereof, you have to accept the existence of something pretty huge without "creation." Either the universe simply exists, having originated, as understood, with the "big bang" or some other way, or "god" exists without a creator. And it seems more reasonable to accept the big bang than it does to believe in the infinite existence, without a prior creator, of a creator capable of designing and implementing all the details of life. If creationists claim that a thing as complex as a human must have been created, then surely the thing which created it is even more complex. How can such a thing exist without a creator? And so it goes.

So. We are here, because if we weren't, we wouldn't be. If not this, then maybe something else. But it is this, so it's not something else. If that seems too "zen," I nevertheless think it's perfectly sensible: the world, the universe is as it is because if it were some other way, it would be different. That there's no over-arching purpose does not take away the micro-purpose of each life, and the obligation to make the most of it, and to be good while doing so. It's only religion which has superimposed rules and superstitions that have led to the likelihood that man will destroy it all.