Ideas and theories regarding human creation vary between different cultures and religions. Myths and legends regarding gods who were said to come from the heavens are found in ancient cultures around the world. In my Witches of Griffin series, the sisters’ creation beliefs come from Zacharia Sitchin’s interpretations of ancient Sumerian cuneiform that some believe explain human origins. But the sisters are also creationists, as they believe in God, the intelligent, secular Creator of souls and the Universe. Sitchin claimed the ancient Sumerian culture was created by the Anunnaki race of extraterrestrials. As I began to study creation theories, I found other cultures that believed an alien race seeded the planet. Various types of creation theories include Creationism, Evolutionism/Ape theory, Aquatic Ape theory, Seeded by Aliens theory, and Intelligent Design theory.
Creationism is a religious belief, which includes all the members of the three western monotheisms: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. They believe the order of nature exists because of God, the ultimate Creator. They commonly believe that God created Adam and Eve, who created the human race. This belief can contrast with scientific explanations like evolution theory. Mainstream scientists usually reject creationism. Old Earth creationists believe in deep time for the Universe and accept the scientific evidence for the age of the Earth, but they are likely to reject evolution. Young Earth creationists believe that the Bible holds historical truth and the Earth was created in six, 24-hour days and is between 6,000-10,000 years old, they also reject evolution.
Evolutionism describes the belief in the evolution of organisms. But evolutionism can mean different things to different people, as there are theistic evolutionists and atheistic evolutionists. Evolutionism is the concept that the universe was created by random cosmic events and life arose through a purely natural process. This is where the Big Bang Theory came into play, but that theory was axed about 40 years ago. Since the 1990s, the scientific community has been looking into 50 different Inflationary Universe Theories. Nevertheless, the belief that a “singularity” appeared out of nothing is still the same.
We evolved from the Great Apes in Africa theory. This evolution theory extends from our apelike ancestors since humans and primates have physical and genetic similarities. It is believed that humans first evolved in Africa and that much of the evolution occurred on that continent. Human fossils (genus Homo) dating from 2-6 million years ago have only been found in Africa. After 11,500 years ago, the human fossils found were Homo sapiens. Darwin’s Theory of Evolution claims that organisms change over time as a result of changes in physical genetics or behavioral traits. Darwin’s theory was actually taken from an older view of Anaximander, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, who postulated the development of life from non-life and the evolutionary descent of man from animal. Darwin brought the new concept of natural selection to the previous theory. It’s true we share a common ancestry with apes, but that does not necessarily mean we evolved from apes. Most in the science community recognize 15-20 different species of early humans.
The Aquatic Ape theory is the belief that humans evolved from the oceans. This theory is largely disregarded as there’s no fossil evidence to prove such a claim. Alister Hardy, a marine biologist, argued that many of the features of modern humans are characteristics of aquatic adaptations.
Seeded by Extraterrestrial Beings. In Sitchin’s interpretation of ancient Sumerian, he hypothesized that the gods of old Mesopotamia were astronauts from the planet Nibiru. He stated that about 400,000 years ago, 50 Anunnaki came to Earth to mine gold for their planet. The story claims that these aliens genetically engineered workers and created Homo sapiens from Homo erectus and their own DNA. As I mentioned, the Sumerian texts are filled with myths discussing these beings from heaven, this concept was also found in Native American legends and folklore. The Star People were said to visit the Native American people to share spiritual teachings, stories, and star maps, while the Hopi believed their ancestors came from the Pleiades star cluster, which is located in the constellation of Taurus.
Intelligent Design theory is a scientific method that involves observation, hypothesis, experimentation, and conclusion. It’s the belief that certain features in the universe and living organisms are best explained by intelligent cause and not by undirected processes like natural selection. The intelligent cause is often assumed to be God. Some creationists are advocates for intelligent design, although it is considered a nonreligious explanation. Proponents of intelligent design believe the designer need not be the Christian God, but a secular God. They believe the Earth had to have a designer since science has yet to explain how everything evolved.
When examining religion and peoples beliefs it is important to remember that everyone’s beliefs can differ in faith and practice so this is a general overview of how various religions view creation. Buddhism is agnostic when it comes to the creation of the Universe and they believe creation beliefs should be left to the individual. Judeo-Christians follow Biblical text laid out in the Old Testament, although those that hold to the Judaism faith sometimes reject the idea of creationism as they don’t look at the Book of Genesis in the literal sense and perceive it as a fable or embellishment of a historical event. Islamic beliefs in creation are usually Old Earth creationists who reject evolution and common descent.
A special thank you to: https://www.allaboutphilosophy.org/evolutionism.htm, https://qz.com/1328806/scientists-developed-a-new-theory-of-human-evolution-because-they-werent-afraid-to-be-wrong/, https://geminiresearchnews.com/2017/07/human-evolution-in-the-sea-at-bioko/, http://humanorigins.si.edu/education/introduction-human-evolution, https://www.collective-evolution.com/2017/01/02/the-star-people-extraterrestrials-from-a-native-american-first-nations-perspective/, https://intelligentdesign.org/whatisid/, https://ncse.com/library-resource/young-earth-creationism, https://ncse.com/library-resource/old-earth-creationism
