“Many of the conflicts throughout history have been caused by differing religions and beliefs; therefore it is ironic that

many ancient religions, myths and beliefs, often have more in common than they do in difference”

Karan Kumar

There are many different ancient religions from all corners of the world, which all have their own myths and beliefs, but even though many of these ancient religions come from completely opposite sides of the world and would not have had any interaction with each other in ancient times, many of the myths and legends are in fact very similar.1 For many people this fact leads to the hypothesis that while people and cultures from around the world may be very different, the thought processes and reasoning of humans from every culture are not dissimilar.

One of the most common religious myths in the ancient and even the modern world is the creation myth. Almost every single religion in the world believes in some form of the creation myth, the basic form of this myth being that some deity or god rose out of chaos and created the world as we know it. For Greeks and Romans, creation centres around the myth that Gaea, the earth, and Uranus, the sky, rose out of chaos and had children who eventually created mankind. The story is relatively similar for Egyptians who believe that the gods rose out of the bubbling waters of chaos called Nu. This story does not change even as we

go all the way around the world to India where the Hindu’s believe that Lord Shiva came out eternal darkness and set about create the earth and cosmos. Even in ancient religions that still have prevalence today such as Christianity, the creation myth centres around God creating the entire universe as we know it.2 This universal tale of creation is known all around the world and was assumably formed from humanity’s need for a point of inception and beginning, which perhaps stemmed from the fact the most humans often want knowledge, answers to mystery’s and closure.

Another basic myth which can be seen in near all ancient religions is the concept of a great evil. In almost every religion there is some form of greater evil which opposes the deity that is worshipped by people. In Christianity the great evil is incarnated as Satan, in Greek and Roman mythology the main incarnation of evil is Kronos or Saturn and the titans, in the Egyptian religion the god Set is seen as the deity of evil and chaos, in Norse mythology Loki is seen as the trickster god of chaos while in Hindu mythology there a number of Rakshaka’s or demons which signify evil. These manifestations of great evil often cause great cosmic battles in many different cultures. The Christians had the great battle between God and the fallen angels led by Satan, Greeks and Romans believe that there was Great War between the Titans and the Gods with the Gods fighting for good and the Titans for evil, the Egyptians believed that Set was constantly causing conflict between himself and the sun god Ra, the Scandinavians believe in a series of wars in which the Asguardians (the gods) fought the god Loki and the evil race of giants called frost giants, while the Hinduism details many wars and conflicts between goods and demons where the Gods would fight epic battles for good and just causes against the evil demons. All these myths apparently point towards the fact that humans of all cultures believed in some inherent form of evil, it seems that ancient people all manifested there fear of evil and chaos in the form of one chaotic and evil deity. The fact that these evil deities often came into conflict with other deities shows the nature of the ancient world with war and bloodshed being a prominent part of ancient society all around the world. The fact that these evil and chaotic

1 http://listverse.com/2014/01/16/10-universal-myths-of-the-ancient-world/ (MORRIS M. JANUARY 16, 2014)2 Another very common myth related to the creation myth is the story of the first man and woman. Many ancient religions have a known first man and first woman such as Adam and Eve from Christianity, Epimetheus and Pandora and from Greek mythology and Manu and Shatarupa from Hinduism.

The Creation by James Tisot

deities were defeated or suppressed in each religion also shows how the people of the ancient fears of the ancient world allayed their fears of evil. They believed that evil would always be defeated, a fact clearly show in each religions myths and legends.

One of universal myths of ancient and even the modern world related to good and evil is the existence of the afterlife, mainly heaven and hell. The existence of heaven and hell is one of the most common factors in every religion know to man and is a trend that goes back to ancient times. While the basic heaven and hell is a Christian concept each religion has its own version, The Greeks have Elysium and the fields of punishment; the Hindu’s have Svarga and Naraka. Many religions do not have a physical representation of hell and instead consider the opposite of heaven to be an eternity spent in purgatory. This hold true in Egyptian mythology, with their version of heaven being called the Fields of Aaru, and also with other ancient religions, such as Norse mythology, which has Valhalla as its version of heaven. Through this multitude of afterlife myths it is clear that death was quite an important matter to ancient people and people from all over the world had speculations about what would come after death. The fact the average life expectancy in ancient times were much lower than they are today, due to poor living standards and medical ignorance, most likely caused this fixation on death for ancient people and the idea of Hell or eternal purgatory most likely stemmed from humanity’s inherent fear of the unknown while heaven was most likely humanity’s form of hope that there was something or somewhere better than where they lived their life, which in ancient times was often a place of poverty, famine or war.

Another preposterously popular religious myth that is seen in religions all round the world, and which may in actuality have stemmed from some grain of truth, is the flood myth.3 The flood myth basically consists of the gods or God flooding the earth once it had become too sinful, and only one man or family surviving because they had been forewarned of the flood and had build themselves a boat to withstand the flood. These survivors would then restart the human race as we now know it. This myth is most commonly known as the Noah’s Ark myth from Christianity, but a lesser known fact is that almost every religion has their own version of this legend. The Greeks had Deucalion, the Hindu’s Manu; the Scandinavians who worshipped the Norse gods had Bergelmir and the Egyptians had Toth. These are only some of the variations of the flood myth with the Assyrians, Mayans, Sumerians and even the Aboriginal Australians having their own versions of the flood myth. While the creation of many ancient myths can be put down to inherent human fears, wants and needs, the origin of the flood myth is not so easy to interpret. Many scientists and historians actually believe that there really was a “great flood” perhaps at the end of the last ice age when the polar caps started to melt causing water levels to rise.4 5While this hypothesis is certainly 3 “It has long been known that legends of a great flood, in which almost all men perished, are widely diffused over the world ...” James George Frazer, Folk-Lore in the Old Testament, Vol. 1, (London: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1919), p. 105.4 http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/great-flood.htm (Maria Trimarchi)

5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

"The Deluge", by John Martin, 1834. Oil on canvas. Yale University

plausible it is unknown whether it has any legitimacy considering that we do not know whether the flooding could have been as widespread as the myth seems to be.

One final ancient myth or belief is the apocalypse myth. It is a common belief between all ancient religions that eventually there will come a day when the world is destroyed and many religions believe that the worthy will be taken to heaven and the unworthy will be destroyed along with the rest of the world. This belief in an apocalypse can be seen in very single Ancient religion from Greeks and Egyptians to Hindus and Buddhists and to the Norse apocalypse known as Ragnarok. This worldwide idea of an apocalypse most likely emanates from humanity’s somewhat self depreciating view of itself. In ancient times most cultures were usually in varying states of war, conflict, poverty and famine which would perhaps have given humans the idea that they were sinful or being punished.6 The concept of the apocalypse could also be a result in humanities desire for a better quality of life, especially in ancient times, and the hope that they would have a new beginning in a better place after the apocalypse.

This dizzying array of myths and legends are all similar to the point where one wonders if they are not in fact the same story changed and twisted over time.7 Yet the fact that these myths all originate from cultures who would have lived hundreds of thousands of miles apart and would have had no contact at all until modern times seems to negate this possibility, though some scientists and historians have hypothesised that this distance would not be an issue if these myths were actually much older than ancient times and originated to Pangaea when the world was made up of one supercontinent.8 9Many people also believe that these myths are so universally known because they are real events and that all religions are simply different versions one reality. Whatever the real reason for the similarities in myths and religions from around the world, it is clear that, different cultures in humanity are not as different as we may have thought, and that looking into mythologies from around the world can provide us with more knowledge about different cultures than we would normal expect from legends, stories and make believe.10 (Word count 1821)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis 4/07/14

6 This concept is supported by the fact that many apocalypse myths include a number of ages. In both Greek and Hindu mythology there are different ages, all of which end in an apocalypse once the people of that age become too corrupt and sinful. Once an age has ended a new age that is already more corrupt that the last begins. Hinduism states that this age is the last and most corrupt age while Greek mythology places this age as the second last.7 Womack 2005, p. 81, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the universe and its inhabitants came to be. Creation myths develop through oral traditions and therefore typically have multiple versions."8 This theory is based on the fact that people from different continents share some similar DNA traits and the fact that the same animals can be found on different continents. 9 http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-migration-history-of-humans/ (Gary Stix)10 As proved by Thom Absolm in his theory myth and history, http://newhistories.group.shef.ac.uk/wordpress/wordpress/myth-and-history/

picted in Christian Orthodox traditional fresco scene in Osogovo Monastery, Republic of Macedonia

http://www.egyptartsite.com/crea.html 4/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_creation_myths 4/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afterlife 4/07/14

http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/ehh.htm 4/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naraka_(Hinduism) 4/07/14

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/life_history/age-specific-mortality-lifespan-bad-science-2009.html

4/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flood_myths 4/07/14

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html 4/07/14

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Fi-Go/Floods.html 4/07/14

http://www.billstifler.org/HUM2130/files/2D-003-00-apocalypse.htm 5/07/14

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/great-flood.htm

5/07/14

http://www.icr.org/article/why-does-nearly-every-culture-have-tradition-globa/

5/07/14

http://www.nwcreation.net/noahlegends.html 5/07/14

http://www.grisda.org/origins/11009.htm 5/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth 5/07/14

http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ab83 5/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragnar%C3%B6k 5/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse 5/07/14

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology 5/07/14

http://newhistories.group.shef.ac.uk/wordpress/wordpress/myth-and-history/

5/07/14

Book of Greek Myths by Edgar Parin D’Aulaire’s 2/07/14Children of Odin: The Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum 2/07/14