15.14: Views on Creation
It is interesting to explore various religious cosmologies, especially since astronomers cannot answer the question “where did it all come from” or “who did it? ” The laws of thermodynamics provide us with a certainty that something can be created out of nothing.
Buddihism
Nothing is really there… The Buddhist belief of emptiness; lacking reality, substance, meaning. So is there a relationship between the early, empty Universe and Zen Buddhism?
Daoist
The Way gave birth to unity; unity gave birth to duality; duality gave birth to trinity; trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures.
Daodejing, 4th century BC.
Hindu
Brahmā is the god or deva of creation. At the beginning of the process of creation, Brahmā creates the four Kumāras, the four sages. However they refuse to procreate, so Brahmā creates in his mind ten sons to carry on the creation.
Islam
The Qur’an contains numerous verses describing creation of the Universe. Muslims believe Allāh created the heavens and Earth in six separate eras, with the Earth being created in two eras, and in two other eras (for a total of four), Allāh furnished the creation of the Earth with mountains, rivers and fruit-gardens.
Judeo-Christian
The Bible has several creation passages; the most-well known is in the book of Genesis. This is also the most controversial, where the Genesis passage describes creation and development of the Universe in time periods identified as days. In other biblical text, such as the book of Job, the Universe is described as “created out of nothing, and then being stretched. ”
One of the religious cosmology controversies is the age of the Universe . Some interpret the Biblical Genesis passage as a literal six days of creation. Those who espouse this idea – called Young Earth proponents – point to other Biblical text in the Psalms and 2 Peter, which states, “a day is to a thousand years to the Lord. ” They reason that there were six days of creation, thus 6,000 years plus another 3,000 to 4,000 years of documented civilization, therefore a young earth and Universe of about 10,000 years. An age of the Universe at 10,000 years is extremely young in comparison to a 13. 7 billion year old Universe. This is a ratio of 1 to 1,370,000.
Yet other Biblical and religious scholars contend that the passage has been incorrectly translated from the original old Hebrew text. If one examines the original Old Testament Hebrew text, the term “day” was not used; instead the Hebrew text uses the term Yom .
In Hebrew, yom takes on three meanings, depending on the terms preceding or following its use:
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The Genesis use of yom appears to be a “period of time”, which means it could be a long period of time, or a short period of time. This yom period of time is not specified. Old Universe proponents contend that this interpretation of yom is the correct one, in addition to the fact the Genesis days cannot be 1,000 years because the seventh day of creation as recorded in Genesis is still ongoing.
Consider this…
—Michio Kaku (1947- ) Physicist
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
God does not play dice with the Universe…
—Albert Einstein (1879-1955)