Most North American aboriginal cosmogonies image a demiurge, such as Tortoise, lifting mud from the bottom of "the water" to form land, upon which animals, and eventually humanity, appear or are created by another demiurge. None of those traditions explain the origin of the water, nor the mud beneath, nor the demiurges which make the land and the plants and animals thereon.
This is the article from the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy on Indian cosmogonies--which i chose because it's brief. There are, of course, many more detailed articles available online:
Quote:Theories of the origin of the universe have been told as stories, riddles and instruction in India since early times. The three prominent religious movements, Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism each had their own myths and speculations.
In the Hindu tradition there was never one single theory. Among the divergent ideas we can distinguish: an early stage, which included themes such as there being nothing at the beginning, or the universe being created by mutual birth, or creation as the dismemberment of a sacrificial victim, or the gods arriving after the first moment of creation; and a later stage, in which Viṣṇu or Brahmā was regarded as the creator of the universe. Simultaneously, the old Sāṅkhya idea of the self-creating universe, in which the original material stuff transforms itself into the different parts of the universe, coexisted with the idea of a god creating the universe.
The early Buddhist tradition neglected questions such as ‘Does the universe exist?’ The first mention of such topics occurred in the Pāli Canon, where they were condemned. A few centuries later, these cosmological ideas were taken up by Vasubandhu, who collected them and formulated them in a comprehensive way. Without a creator god, the universe is primarily a reflection of meditational experiences of the world, a Single Circular System. There are several other systems, such as the Thousand Universe System, the Immeasurable Universe System and the Pure Land.
The Jaina tradition had a very detailed theory of the spatial arrangement of the universe. This was essential for understanding where all the individual selves travel to after death, given their spiritual accomplishments (or lack of them). From earth they go to heavens or hells, the aim being eventually to reach the place of bliss and thus to gain final freedom.
Specifically, Jainism does not imagine any sort of creation at all. See the Wikipedia article on the subject, and see also Hinduwebsite-dot-com.
From Patheos-dot-com, the beinning of the article on Shintoism reads:
Quote:Shinto ("the way of the Kami") is the name of the formal state religion of Japan that was first used in the 6th century C.E., although the roots of the religion go back to at least the 6th century B.C.E. Shinto has no founder, no official sacred texts, and no formalized system of doctrine. (emphasis added)
Kami are spirits, and there is no cosmogony to explain where the spirits come from, nor the world in which they operate.
From Religious Tolerance-dot-org:
Quote:Taoism is an Eastern religion/philosophy with perhaps 225 million followers. Although it is more accurately referred to as a philosophy, books on world religions inevitably include it with other religions from Buddhism to Zoroastrianism.
The exact number of followers is impossible to estimate because many of its followers also identify with other religions -- often Buddhism and Confucianism -- and because it is impossible to obtain reliable polling information from individuals in China.
Taoists were heavily persecuted in China for years after the Communist victory in 1949, and during the cultural revolution from 1966 to 1976. Some religious tolerance and freedom has been restored over the last three decades.
Two hundred twenty-five million adherents, perhaps? You call that a major world religion? You're stretching.
I can go on into more detail--and the Genesis account of the garden of Eden assumes an already existent cosmos and more than one deity--the "earlier" account of creation was in fact added later, after Judaism had become monotheistic.
But why should i bother? You usually come along like this, shooting your mouth off as though you have expert knowledge, but providing no sources, no substantiation for your claims. Basically, you just want to sneer at someone, and maybe pick a fight--although you usually play the coward and run off after a few posts.
Next time you try that, don't bring a knife to a gun fight, show up with some sources--back up your claims, which otherwise are just bullsh*t.
