How do you believe the universe was created? Do you believe in creator god(s)?

[Atreides]

I go with whatever scientific theory has the most evidence supporting it.

That's pretty much how I feel about it.  The Big Bang theory has been well-supported for a long time, and I think such questions are best answered by science.  Plus, based on my (admittedly hazy) recollection of Greek mythology, the gods did not create the universe, but rather it was the other way around.  So I don't need a "divine" explanation for what "caused" the Big Bang, if anything did.   I've also always found the "creator God" hypothesis leaves more questions than it answers.

[Materialist]

  I've also always found the "creator God" hypothesis leaves more questions than it answers.

Like, who created god?

[Maulus]

So this was sparked by a debate on another forum.
I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

 
For me, the Universe was created in the Big bang, which was triggered by it's own collapse. Basically, spacetime is affected by gravity, so if gravity becomes so dense (like to the degree of a whole universe collapsing to the size of a pinhead,) spacetime warps in on itself and the beginning and the end are the same point. that does, however lead to the question of where did the universe come from originally.. simply, no idea!

As for my Path, I am Kemetic, and the Kemetic creation myth mostly focuses on the creation of the sun, which, if you read the creation myths, reads like someone trying to explain something extremely complex to someone who has no concept of the processes being described.

To my mind, Ntjr, the divine, is everything within the universe, however the gods are aspects of Ntjr, (the Sun, the Sky, Earth, Water, Harvest, Love, Hate, Trust, Betrayal, Vengeance and so on, ultimately everything is represented by some aspect of Ntjr.)

Other worlds, other stars, will have other gods (as we do here) but they are all part of the same thing.



Dan

[Abduzza]

So this was sparked by a debate on another forum.

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

Well the Big Bang is the physical cause of the Universe. Is their a multi-verse out there? I think so. Were any gods involved? Maybe. Myths say that Allah created the universe and moved on, creating other universes while the gods we worship evolved with us. So I guess I'll take that view, barring evidence to the contrary.

I'm an Arabic Neo-Pagan by the way.

[Cabal]

Yep, it's Truth as opposed to 'fact.'  Truth with a big T makes religion work for me in a way that strict literal interpretation does not.

I don't subscribe to the big bang idea personally, but I don't discount it either.  Whatever you want to call the creation event, I believe it was an effect, not the cause.  What was the cause.  Ex nihilo nihil fit.  I believe the cause to be God, or Gods, the Force, whatever, all Truths combined.  People ask: why a God?  To which I respond: why not?

 
This! Pretty much hit the nail on the head of how I believe it was created!

[Megatherium]

Like, who created god?

 
Yeah, I've always felt the argument that the universe needed a creator to be a bit disingenuous, because if one is going to assume that "God" does not require a creator, then why can't the universe itself exist without a specify entity to create it?

This is not to say that I think the idea of a Creator God is stupid (I don't agree with it myself, personally, but I can respect that viewpoint), rather that I don't find the argument that "the universe needs a creator!" to be a convincing argument for theism.

[RandallS]

Myths say that Allah created the universe and moved on, creating other universes while the gods we worship evolved with us.

That's an interesting myth and one I've never heard before. Do you know where/when it came from?

[Abduzza]

That's an interesting myth and one I've never heard before. Do you know where/when it came from?

 
I'll look up the reference later but it apparently comes from some of the carvings on a wall near Petra. There is debate on when it was written but it is probably early because it was written in Nabatean script.

[Nyktelios]

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?

"Believe" is a tricky word to use in this context, as it is more of a Christo-centric way to talk about religion. Most pagan religions view mythology as symbolic or allegorical, and there is more of an emphasis on what a person does rather than what they "believe," because unlike Christianity, pagan traditions don't require followers to believe specific things.

I'm a follower of Egyptian gods and practice witchcraft with British Traditional and Feri influence, and I generally view the universe's creation as a birth from the great mother goddess. I think of the big bang as the orgasm in the body of the Mother that initiated creation, and the universe as her womb in which we live. I see this as symbolism, as I personally have o idea about the specifics of how the universe came into being, aside from vague knowledge of the big bang theory and things like that. If alternate probable scientific theories arise, they wouldn't contradict this or change my "beliefs," they would just alter my understanding of the symbolism of the myths.

[MattyG]

So this was sparked by a debate on another forum.

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

 
Irish Recon here. I personally don't believe that the universe was created per-say. For the scientific/objective explanation, I go with the Big Bang. For the spiritual/subjective explanation, I find the universe to be more Organic than Manufactured. It's not a thing that was made, but a thing that has grown of its own volition through fighting, feasting, and fornication ;P. I see whatever existed before the big bang as the acorn that grew into the World Tree, connecting galaxies, stars, and planets together with its roots and branches. In a sense, the Big Bang is a god to me.

[Louisvillian]

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?

Wiccan here, also echoing the polytheistic yet hard science approach. Human cultures assigning "creator" as a title to certain gods does not necessarily mean that those gods created the universe. Ancient cultures simply didn't have the knowledge of modern astronomy. The Big Bang is the fact on the ground.

Now, do I think that the gods were involved in some way? Yes, but not as a causal, creative force. I'm of the opinion that the universe is constantly being created, if that's the right term, by the gods and that the gods are a part of it. To look at it another way, just as living things (under some views) have a "soul" that is the spiritual side of their physical selves, the gods are the spiritual side of the physical universe.

[Khep]

Creation is a funky concept if one's dealing with immanent deity rather than transcendent.  If the "creator" is treated as coextensive with being itself, such that "creator wakes up" and "universe exists" are synonymous, that does not seem at all like the same thing as a transcendent "I made that thing" sort of power.  If the "creator" is something like Hesiod's Chaos/Void, is that really an entity in the same way that things we point at and say "creator" usually are?

I'll have to look into Hesiod, as the above coincides with my view of things.  And I also like the -magnetism *is* the god- (of attraction) idea.

I'm a pantheistic animist.  

To me, the scientific theories are fascinating, but lacking, because they are, after all, simply mechanistic. Albert Einstein said “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
 
I prefer the view of Jungian analyst, Marie-Louise von Franz, who wrote a book on creation myths.  From her depth-psychology perspective, the myths have a lot to tell about human evolution and development, including the individual's development of ego consciousness out of the "void" (or "all") which is the infant's experience until a sense of "I" (ego) develops.

The only universe we humans can know / experience is the one that gets filtered through our human awareness and ego consciousness. As I see it, that universe is created anew every time an "I" realizes it has a seperate, individual existence and viewpoint.  That's when form / light & dark appears out of the chaos.

Khep

[Fagan_the_Pagan]

So this was sparked by a debate on another forum.

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

My views:

I'm a medium- hard polytheistic, somewhat animistic witch but I don't do much with the gods. I have shrines set up and I do acknowledge them but I don't really involve them with my workings.

As far as I'm concerned about the creation of the universe, it was the big bang and all that jazz. No deity involved. I'm a bit unsure about where I believe the  gods came from. I sort of have the belief that they came along with life when it started on this planet, whether they kick started that I don't know or really care. I don't really believe that they have much, if any, influence outside of the Earth's atmosphere and I kind of think they sort of evolved with the Earth. (And for that case, for life on other planets, those planets have their own gods.)  
I'm a bit wishy-washy about the whole thing because it's not an important part    of my beliefs or practises so I don't really give it much thought. Bit like how I don't really hold firm beliefs about what happens after death because I'm more concerned with the here and now.

 
How was the universe ORIGINALLY created?  I have no idea.  Maybe we came out the other side of a black hole.  Though I lean towards the idea that the "Big Bang" happened when the old universe collapsed on itself and then exploded.  This can be expressed mythically in all sorts of ways, though.

[EclecticWheel]

So this was sparked by a debate on another forum.

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

My views:

I'm a medium- hard polytheistic, somewhat animistic witch but I don't do much with the gods. I have shrines set up and I do acknowledge them but I don't really involve them with my workings.

As far as I'm concerned about the creation of the universe, it was the big bang and all that jazz. No deity involved. I'm a bit unsure about where I believe the  gods came from. I sort of have the belief that they came along with life when it started on this planet, whether they kick started that I don't know or really care. I don't really believe that they have much, if any, influence outside of the Earth's atmosphere and I kind of think they sort of evolved with the Earth. (And for that case, for life on other planets, those planets have their own gods.)  
I'm a bit wishy-washy about the whole thing because it's not an important part    of my beliefs or practises so I don't really give it much thought. Bit like how I don't really hold firm beliefs about what happens after death because I'm more concerned with the here and now.

 
I also accept the Big Bang Theory, though I can't claim to understand everything about it - who does?  As far as I understand it, there was energy, infinitely dense, that expanded, some of the energy became matter, from this our universe was formed.  So the energy of the universe is eternal and didn't have a creation.  Time and space are dimensions of the singularity that expanded to become everything.

I consider this process itself to be Divine creation and activity.

I am a Christian within the Episcopal Church and in many ways tend to be an Anglo-Catholic.  I am a panentheist and also believe in some form of animism, such souls being individualized expressions of God.

[Elizabeth]

I'm interested in how you guys think the universe was created and whether you believe there was deity involved with it at all?
Also, if you could say what path you are that would be great.

This is an interesting topic that I do not ponder too often, but when I do, I always come to the same conclusion: I absolutely do not know, and may never, but I tend to lean towards Big Bang.

I do tend to think that a deity (God) initiated it. I am panentheistic in that I believe God is greater than the Universe, while also being a part of it. However, I cannot imagine what that would look like pre-Big Bang.

Interesting topic indeed.