RELI 216 Lecture Notes - Moral Evil, Culture Hero, World Egg
18 Feb 2013
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Document Summary
The autonomous and self-created nature of the deity appears out of the void or out of nothingness. The incubation of the egg implies a time-ordered creation and a specific determination regarding the created order. The meaning of creation in megalithic cultures is expressed in the form of a sky father and an earth mother as sexually differentiated deities. Another stage is when the parents are separated and may reside within the egg as twins: earth-diver myths: water, in its undifferentiated indeterminacy, covers everything in the manner of chaos. A culture hero, usually an animal, dives into the ancient waters in attempt to bring up sand, mud, or earth. Several animals make an attempt and fail; finally one succeeds. While the animal comes up it expands into great proportions, as a result making up the landmass of the world on which all beings reside. Evil: two major forms of evil: moral evil and physical evil.
