Worldviews and Cosmological Myths

Worldviews are composed of beliefs, belief-systems, social paradigms, and ideologies; each of which plays a large role in the make-up of a worldview. Each of these segments is dependent on and interrelated to each other.

Beliefs, the smallest aspect of a worldview, are ideas about life that its possessors are certain are true and/or “right”. When singular beliefs connect in order to deal with complex social issues, they become belief systems which can formulate into paradigms.

Paradigms are the perceptual and cognitive orientation that a “communicative community” uses to interpret and explain particular aspect

Ea, Son of Apsu, decides to protect the younger gods from Apsu’s wrath. Ea then kills Apsu and robs him of his tiara. Ea then assumes control of the cosmos and conceives his son Marduk. During this time Tiamat’s power is swelling and she has taken Kingu as her new consort. The elder gods then turn to the young Marduk and in exchange for absolute power over the cosmos, he accepts their proposition to battle Tiamat.

If the soul is successful, it will then shed its body and re turn to its “native” stare to have a “blessed and congenial existence” (pg. 23). If the soul is to fail at attaining control over its body it will be reincarnated as a woman. And finally, if the soul still fails to achieve control it will be reincarnated as a “’brute’ who resembles the ‘evil’ nature into which he has fallen” (pg. 24). This cycle will continue until the soul achieves control over its body in which case it will return to his first state (male human) and return to his original star.

A very interesting issue that is brought up in the Timaeus is that of gender equality. Not only are females portrayed as inferior to males but it is actually a punishment to be a female in that if one’s soul does not succeed in taming the body, they will be reincarnated as a woman. Though gender inequality is implied by both previous cosmological myths it is never so openly displayed as in the Timaeus.

The most abstract and philosophical of the three cosmological myths is Plato’s Timaeus. The Timaeus begins with the defining of reality’s two realms, the invisible realm of thought and the visible realm of corporeality. The more primal of these two realms is the invisible realm, which in the beginning it coexisted with the unstructured matrix of visible being, otherwise known as “space”. (pg. 22)

There were many new social messages brought up in this creation story that was not brought up in its two predecessors. First was that reality is divided between mind and body; mind being the primal source of good and the body as the source of all evil. This is because the mind is pure in nature and of the realm of the stars while body is the source of humanity’s flaws and weaknesses (i.e. mortality).

The Enuma Elish has as many similarities to as it does differences with the Hebrew cosmological myth. In the Hebrew creation story there is only one God, and He is the Creator. The conflicts between the gods and the pre-creation era of the Enuma Elish are altogether abolished and replaced by a creation story that is modeled after the “work week they (the Hebrew authors) wished to enshrine in sacred law”(19).

Some topics in this essay:
Enuma Elish, Creator Demiurgos, , Dialectic Model, Hebrew Creation, Kingu Marduk, Enima Elish, Thomas Kuhn, Timaeus Timaeus, Garden Eden, hebrew creation, enuma elish, creation story, creation myth, hebrew creation myth, day creator, social paradigm, cosmological myths, social paradigms, cosmological myth, hebrew creation story, hebrew cosmological myth, planets stars, social paradigms ideologies, complete social paradigm,