Creation Stories in World Religions
In today’s world, people follow many religions. Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam make up five of the most followed religions in the world (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 5). It is interesting to compare and contrast the creation stories of these five religions in order to better understand them and develop some personal thoughts about them.
According to the Buddhism, the world’s creation began when a queen from the kingdom of Sakyas had a dream about a silver elephant entering her womb, and when the queen recounted her dream to some priests; they predicted that she would have a son. The priests also predicted that the queen’s son would grow up to become a Buddha. The Buddhist’s creation story says that the queen’s son witnessed certain incidents later in his life that resulted in his renunciation of his life as a prince. According to the story, the queen’s son was later referred to as the “Enlightened one” (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 6).
In my view, the Buddhist story of creation is in many ways similar to the Christian story of the birth of Jesus. This is because both in both Buddhism and Christianity there is the common characteristic of women who conceived through supernatural means. However, it is important to note that the Buddhist story of creation does not talk about the origin of the queen and the priests. Therefore, the question remains if the story really explains about the origin of the world and its inhabitants. The story does not explain the origin of people who lived before the birth of Buddha, so as a creation story it is confusing.
The Christian story of creation seems to explain more about the origin of the world, including light, darkness, water, and so forth.. The Christian story of creation proposes that it was through the supernatural power of God that everything came into existence. According to the story in the Bible, the holy book of Christianity, nothing existed until God willed it to be created, and everything created in the world was created by God (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 8).
In contrast to the Buddhist creation story, the Christian version of creation begins with the supernatural force of God creating all that there is in the world, not with a human eventually reaching a god-like state of “Enlightenment.” It offers more detail about the origin of the world, including both inanimate things like light and living creatures like human beings, compared to the Buddhist’s story of creation, which does not appear to explain these things.
The Hindu religion has a very different explanation concerning the creation of the world compared to the Buddhist and Christian stories. According to the Hindu religion, the world and everything in it originated from a supernatural being known as Purusha, who was a “primeval being” with many heads, feet, and eyes. The world and human beings came into existence after Purusha’s sacrifice, with the atmosphere originating from Purusha’s navel, the earth originating from his feet, and the sky originating from his ears (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 10).
There appears to be some similarity between the Christian and Hindu stories of creation. This is because both stories propose the notion that the world and everything in it originated from some form of supernatural being. However, it is difficult to believe that that the world and human beings came into existence resulting from the splitting of the body parts of some supernatural being. The story says this being was a sacrifice without explaining who could sacrifice it if there was nothing else in creation.
The Islamic story of creation tells the story of the Guardian-Lord whose name is Allah, who created everything in the universe in six days. This story from Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, explains that Allah is the rule of everything in existence because he created it (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 12).
After becoming familiar with the Islamic version of creation, it was easy to see it is virtually the same as the story advanced by the Christian religion. Every detail about creation in both religions is similar. This causes me to believe that the Christian and Islamic versions of the world’s creation have a higher probability of being true compared to the stories proposed by the Hindus and Buddhists. The increased probability of the likelihood that the Christian and Islam versions of the story of creation are true is supported by the fact that both religions explain more specific creation aspects such as how the sun and moon were created, and not just people.
The Jewish creation story is identical to that of Christianity’s. Both religions explain the creation of the world through the same book, Genesis, which is included in the Bible. According to the Jewish religion, the supernatural being God created all that there is from nothing (Diversity Committee, n.d., slide 14).
It is interesting that two of the world’s five biggest religions share the exact same creation story. It is also interesting that they are separate religions even though the source of their creation story comes from the same text, the book of Genesis. It seems probable that Christians and Jews were once members of the same religion who ended splitting up due some reasons unexplained by the basic creation story.
After the analysis of the creation stories of these five religions, I wonder what versions and details of the stories are true. A major challenge facing people in current times is how to prove the validity of the creation story advanced by their religion. However, it is almost impossible to prove the validity of the stories of creation advanced by the five religions today. Although it is difficult to prove the validity of the doctrines and stories proposed by the religions of the world, almost everyone in the world belongs to some form of religion, most likely one of these five, and find comfort and guidance in all of the stories these religions tell.
References
Diversity Committee. World Religions: A Six Part Series [Powerpoint Slides].
Lohr, C. (2009). A World Religions Reader. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Smith, H. (2009). The World's Religions. California: HarperCollins.
