In the beginning there was darkness.  Then there was light.  Then there was
consciousness.  Then there were questions and then there was religion.  Religions
sprouted up all over the world as a response to some of humanity's most troubling
questions and fears.  Why are we here?  Where do we come from?  Why does the world
and nature act as it does?  What happens when you die?

	Religions tended to answer all these questions with stories of gods and goddesses
and other supernatural forces that were beyond the understanding of humans.  Magic,  in
it's essence, were the powers wielded by these superior beings that caused the
unexplainable to happen.  

	Fast forward a few thousand years to the present.  In our age and time there is
little left unexplained.  Science seems able to explain everything with mathematical logic
and concrete evidence right before our very eyes.  The subject of science is taught in
almost every school on Earth.  Gone are the days of magic and wonder.  The magic of so-
called magicians like David Copperfield are a jest.  When people attend a magic show
everyone looks for the invisible wires and hidden projectors.  No one really believes the
magician has supernatural powers, except for maybe a handful of children in the audience
who still have faith in Santa Clause.

	Science does seem to explain all.  It has enabled humans to fly, cure incurable
diseases, explore the depths of the oceans, stave off death, walk on the moon and wipe out
entire civilizations with the push of a button.  It is becoming more and more widespread in
that people are putting their faith in science above that in the gods.  What parent wouldn't
rather bring their sick child to a doctor than have faith in the healing power of some
mystical entity that may or may not exist.

	However strong and almost perfect the view of science is in today's society it
cannot and does not cover the entire spectrum of the human experience.  Nor does it
explain some of the striking similarities present in the various religions of Earth.  These
similarities occur in civilizations not only far from each other but also in cultures separated
by seemingly impossible to traverse oceans of water.  Many of these similarities occur in
the cosmological or creation myths of the various religions.

	In the Bible and other in other comparable ancient literatures, creation is a theme
expressed in parables or stories to account for the world.  In almost every ancient culture
the universe was thought of as darkness, nothing and chaos until order is induced by the
divine creative hand.  The type of order envisioned varied from culture to culture.  In the
Biblical perspective, it was envisioned that light should be separated from dark, day from
night; and that the various forms of plant and animal life be  properly categorized. 
Although the figure differ from myth to myth, all the ancient stories intend to give a poetic
accounting for cosmic origins.  When viewed in terms of creational motifs, the stories tend
to be similar.

	Some myths of creation include myths of emergence, as from a childbearing
woman, or creation by the marriage of two beings representing the heavens and earth.  A
common feature of some Hindu, African and Chinese myths is that of a cosmic egg from
which the first humans are "hatched" from.  In other cultures, it must be brought up from
primordial waters by a diver, or is formed from the dismembered body of a preexisting
being.  Whether the deity uses preexisting materials, whether he leaves his creation once it
is finished, how perfect the creation is, and how the creator and the created interact vary
among the myths.  The creation story also attempts to explain the origins of evil and the
nature of god and humanity.

	An example of two different religions containing various aspects of each other
could be that of the creation myth of Christianity and aspects of creationism found in
African religion.  The creator god in the African religion is Nyambi.  Nyambi creates a
man, Kamonu, and the man does exactly as his god does in every way; Similar to the way
the god of Christianity creates man in his own image.  Also Nyambi creates for Kamonu a
garden to live in, the same way the Garden of Eden was created.  Another motif repeated
between these two religions is that of the Bible's Tower of Babel.  Kamonu, after his god
left him behind, tried to build a tower to reach his god but like The Tower of Babel it
collapsed and the humans failed to reach heaven.

	In Mesopotamian culture the epic tale Gilgamesh is almost totally identical to the
Biblical story of Noah and the ark.  In the tale of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh is warned by Enki
that a divine judgment has been passed and the world is to be destroyed by a giant flood. 
Gilgamesh is instructed build a boat to bring his family and animals so to escape the flood.

	Another powerful example of the commonality of myth transcending cultures is in
the Trimurti of Brahman in post classical Hinduism when compared to the holy trinity of
Christianity.  Brahman, the Hindu essence of ultimate reality is at the very core of
Hinduism, post classical Hinduism sees him in three aspects.  Each of these three aspects
of Brahman is expressed by a god from classical Indian literature:  Brahma, the creator;
Shiva, the destroyer;  and Vishnu, the preserver.  Very similar to the Holy Christian
Trinity of: God, the father;  Christ, the son; and the Holy Spirit.  In both Hinduism and
Christianity the trinities are three and at the same time one entity.

	In the mythology of many of the Central Asian Pastoral Tribes the supreme deity
of their religion is confronted by an adversary representing the powers of darkness and
evil.  Very much like the relationship in the Christian mythos between God and Lucifer,
this figure of evil attempts to counter the plans of the celestial good being and aims at
gaining dominance over the world and at establishing a realm of his own in which he
would rule over humanity.  The forces of good and evil are not equally balanced, 
however, and there is never any real doubt about the final supremacy of the sky-god.  Yet
according to some myths the representative of evil and darkness succeeded in leading
people astray and bringing about a fall similar to that of Adam and Eve.

	Other mythological motifs not involving Christianity or the Bible is that of a god or
a hero making the dangerous journey to the underworld , or Hades, to retrieve a lost love. 
The Greek mythological tale of Orpheus and the Japanese Shinto myths both contain very
similar aspects.  In both of these stories, Orpheus and Izanagi, lose their spouses to death
and venture into the terrible underworld of Hades to try to wrest them back.  In both
stories they are on the way to getting back each his wife as long as they don't look back
towards her.  In both tales both Izanagi and Orpheus look back, losing the chance they
had at having their loves returned to them.

	These are just some of the universal myths contained within various religions of
the world.  How do all these myths seem to transcend the geographical and cultural
boundaries of Earth?  Carl Gustav Jung, a leading psychologist and contemporary of
Freud, came up with a theory involving the collective unconscious of a person's psyche. 
The collective unconscious, according to Jung, is made up of what he called "archetypes",
or primordial images.  These correspond to such experiences such as confronting death or
choosing a mate and manifest themselves symbolically in religion, myths, fairy tales and
fantasies.

	Joseph Campbell, considered by most to have been the foremost expert on world
religions and mythology, believed to be a fact that; "...mythologies and their deities are
productions and projections of the psyche".  It was his belief that religions and myths
come from one's own creative imagination and unconsciousness.  He further believed that
humankind is intrinsically linked in that some part of human nature creates these myths and
religions out of a need for them.  We all have the same basic psychological makeup just as
we all have the same basic physical makeup.	

	Recent scientific studies suggest that the average human uses only ten to fifteen
percent of his or her brain.  What happens to the other eighty-five to ninety percent of it? 
Does it just sit there and have absolutely no use?  Or does it perhaps contain the universal
commonalties of what links us all as a great big tribe of human beings;  containing our
greatest hopes, our worst fears, our dreams and creativity.  Perhaps it does contain a link
to the realm of mysticism and surrealism which artists such as Salvador Dali tried so hard
to render on canvas.  Science doesn't know what it contains.  It's in our skulls and we're
not even sure what it contains, maybe the answers to our own primordial questions.


	






WORKS CITED


World Religions From Ancient History to the Present
editor: Geoffrey Parrinder, copyright 1971, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd.

Essays On a Science of Mythology
Carl Jung,  copyright 1949, Pantheon Books Inc.

Myths To Live By
Joseph Campbell,  copyright 1972,  Viking Press

Religions of the World
Lewis M. Hopfe,  Copyright 1976,  Prentice-Hall Inc.

Mythology
Edith Hamilton,  copyright 1942, Little Brown Inc.

Encarta '95
copyright 1995, Microsoft corp.




















	In the beginning there was darkness.  Then there was light.  Then there was
consciousness.  Then there were questions and then there was religion.  Religions
sprouted up all over the world as a response to some of humanity's most troubling
questions and fears.  Why are we here?  Where do we come from?  Why does the world
and nature act as it does?  What happens when you die?

	Religions tended to answer all these questions with stories of gods and goddesses
and other supernatural forces that were beyond the understanding of humans.  Magic,  in
it's essence, were the powers wielded by these superior beings that caused the
unexplainable to happen.  

	Fast forward a few thousand years to the present.  In our age and time there is
little left unexplained.  Science seems able to explain everything with mathematical logic
and concrete evidence right before our very eyes.  The subject of science is taught in
almost every school on Earth.  Gone are the days of magic and wonder.  The magic of so-
called magicians like David Copperfield are a jest.  When people attend a magic show
everyone looks for the invisible wires and hidden projectors.  No one really believes the
magician has supernatural powers, except for maybe a handful of children in the audience
who still have faith in Santa Clause.

	Science d