Religious cosmology

Religious cosmologies have often developed into the formal logics of metaphysical systems, such as Platonism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, Taoism, Kabbalah, Wuxing or the great chain of being.

In Zoroastrian cosmology, universe is the manifestation of a cosmic conflict between Existence and non-existence, Good and evil and light and darkness which spans over a period of 12000 years.

Knowing that the battle would continue forever, Ahura Mazda recited Ahuna Vairya, the most sacred hymn of Avesta and repelled him back.

[2] The universe of the ancient Israelites was made up of a flat disc-shaped Earth floating on water, heaven above, underworld below.

[5] In this period too the older three-level cosmology was widely replaced by the Greek concept of a spherical Earth suspended in space at the centre of a number of concentric heavens.

This cosmology is the foundation of its Samsara theory, that evolved over time the mechanistic details on how the wheel of mundane existence works over the endless cycles of rebirth and redeath.

[12] This included hells (niraya), hungry ghosts (pretas), animals (tiryak), humans (manushya), and gods (devas, heavenly).

[12][14] The "hungry ghost, heavenly, hellish realms" respectively formulate the ritual, literary and moral spheres of many contemporary Buddhist traditions.

[12][11] According to Akira Sadakata, the Buddhist cosmology is far more complex and uses extraordinarily larger numbers than those found in Vedic and post-Vedic Hindu traditions.

Hindu culture accepts this diversity in cosmological ideas and has lacked a single mandatory view point even in its oldest known Vedic scriptures, the Rigveda.

[20][21][22] The Vedic literature includes a number of cosmology speculations, one of which questions the origin of the cosmos and is called the Nasadiya sukta: Neither being (sat) nor non-being was as yet.

[32][33] Jain cosmology considers the loka, or universe, as an uncreated entity, existing since infinity, having no beginning or an end.

[34] Jain texts describe the shape of the universe as similar to a man standing with legs apart and arm resting on his waist.

If you say that he made this first, and then the world, you are faced with an endless regression.There is a "primordial universe" Wuji (philosophy), and Hongjun Laozu, water or qi.

The emanation of the Pleroma and its godheads (called Aeons) is described in detail in the various Gnostic tracts, as is the pre-creation crisis (a cosmic equivalent to the "fall" in Christian thought) from which the material world comes about, and the way that the divine spark can attain salvation.

[41] As farming people, trees play an important role in Serer religious cosmology and creation mythology.