“Windows To Spirituality”
Chaos In Cosmogony Chaos in Cosmogony refers to the void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, or to the initial “gap” created by the original separation of heaven and earth. Etymology Greek χάος means “emptiness, vast void, chasm, abyss”, from the verb χαίνω, “gape, be wide...
Creation Myth A creation myth (or cosmogonic myth) is a symbolic narrative of how the world began and how people first came to inhabit it. While in popular usage the term myth often refers to false or fanciful stories, members of cultures often ascribe varying degrees of truth to their creation myths. In the society in...
Geocentric Model In astronomy, the geocentric model (also known as geocentrism, often exemplified specifically by the Ptolemaic system) is a superseded description of the Universe with Earth at the center. Under the geocentric model, the Sun, Moon, stars, and planets all orbited Earth. The geocentric model was the predominant description of the cosmos in...
What Is Creationism? Creationism is the religious belief that the universe and life originated “from specific acts of divine creation“, as opposed to through natural processes, such as evolution. Creationism covers a spectrum of views including evolutionary creationism, but the term is commonly used for literal creationists who reject various aspects of...
What Is Social Darwinism? Social Darwinism is any of various theories of society which emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, claiming to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and politics. Social Darwinists argue that the strong should see...
Naturalism In Philosophy Naturalism in philosophy is the “idea or belief that only natural (as opposed to supernatural or spiritual) laws and forces operate in the world.” Adherents of naturalism (i.e., naturalists) assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage...
Evolutionary Ethics Evolutionary ethics is a field of inquiry that explores how evolutionary theory might bear on our understanding of ethics or morality. The range of issues investigated by evolutionary ethics is quite broad. Supporters of evolutionary ethics have claimed that it has important implications in the fields of descriptive ethics, normative ethics, and metaethics....
Evolution Of Morality The evolution of morality or origins of morality refers to the emergence of human moral behavior over the course of human evolution. Morality can be defined as a system of ideas about right and wrong conduct. In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior, and not...
What Is Cosmic Ancestry? Cosmic ancestry is a hypothesis of the origin of life on Earth, based on the panspermia views of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. Cosmic Ancestry speculates that life, like the universe itself, has no date of origin, and has always existed and can only descend from ancestors at least as highly evolved as itself. Under this belief,...
Divine Purpose Of Human Races This article covers the answer to the question: What Is The Divine Purpose In Creation Of Human Races? “O mankind! We created you from a single [pair] of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other...
The Highest Aim Of Creation Be certain of this, that the highest aim of creation and its most important result are belief in God. The most exalted rank in humanity and its highest degree are the knowledge of God (Ma’rifa (Knowledge of God)) contained within belief in God. The most...
What Is Hindu Cosmology? In Hindu cosmology, the universe is cyclically created and destroyed. Its cosmology divides time into four epochs or Yuga, of which the current period is the Kali Yuga. See also:Hinduism and Cosmology Description According to Hindu vedic cosmology, there is no absolute start to time, as...
Buddhist Cosmology Buddhist cosmology is the description of the shape and evolution of the Universe according to the Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It consists of temporal and spatial cosmology: the temporal cosmology being the division of the existence of a ‘world’ into four discrete moments (the creation, duration, dissolution, and state...
Jain Cosmology Jain cosmology is the description of the shape and functioning of the Universe (loka) and its constituents (such as living beings, matter, space, time etc.) according to Jainism. Jain cosmology considers the universe, as an uncreated entity, existing since infinity, having neither beginning nor end. Jain texts describe...
Adam And Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. It also provides the basis for the doctrines...
Spiritual Evolution Spiritual evolution is the philosophical, theological, esoteric or spiritual idea that nature and human beings and/or human culture evolve: either extending from an established cosmological pattern (ascent), or in accordance with certain pre-established potentials. The phrase “spiritual evolution” can occur in the context of “higher evolution“, a term...
Sufi Cosmology Sufi cosmology (الكوزمولوجية الصوفية) is a Sufi approach to cosmology which discusses the creation of man and the universe, which according to mystics are the fundamental grounds upon which Islamic religious universe is based. According to Sufi cosmology, God’s reason for the creation of this cosmos and humankind...
What Is Tzimtzum? The tzimtzum or tsimtsum (צמצום ṣimṣūm “contraction, constriction, condensation”) is a term used in the Lurianic Kabbalah to explain Isaac Luria’s doctrine that God began the process of creation by “contracting” his Ohr Ein Sof (infinite) light in order to allow for a “conceptual space” in which finite and seemingly independent...
What is “Ex Nihilo”? Ex nihilo is a Latin phrase meaning “out of nothing”. It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in creation ex nihilo, meaning “creation out of nothing”, chiefly in philosophical or theological contexts, but it also occurs in other fields. In theology, the common phrase...
Intelligent Designer An Intelligent designer also referred to as an intelligent agent, is the hypothetical willed and self-aware entity that the intelligent design movement argues had some role in the origin and/or development of life. The term “intelligent cause” is also used, implying their teleological supposition of direction and purpose in features of...
