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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> >The universe is a wonder and to think a god had to build it takes it to the
> level of a Southern California strip mall. 

We go amuck in such discussions because of conditioned mindset past which we 
can by no means easily see.  We are conditioned by our society and colletive 
culture to think that reality is a two sided coin.  On the one side there is 
science and the other side there is religion.  The two really have very 
little 
meaning without the ohter just as light has no meaning if there is no 
darkness 
with which to compare it.

So is it the wonderment of the nanoseconds at the big bang (all of which is 
just as neat a mythology as any) or a human like Guy-Named-God that rolled 
out 
the blue prints and tugged at His white beard and said "Let's see now ....."

Neither is necessary.  We have an underlying view of reality that it is a 
mechanism that must needs have been created.  Other cultures around the world 
or 
in history did not have this particular focus.  For example,  in stead of a 
mechanism that must needs have been made, some people saw existence as a 
drama 
in which we are playing parts.  To such a one it would never occur to ask, 
"Who 
made us?"  but rather "What part am I playing?"

When Europeans with their mechanistic view of reality met the American Indian 
cultures, they would ask them how the world came to be.  When they heard the 
allegory they perforce thought that what they were hearing was a "creation 
story".  In most instances this was not so.  

When pressed to sum up how the world came to be, they employed such pharases 
as the Algonquin 'Gichi Manitou' and the Lakota 'Waka Tanka' both of which 
passed through the European's worldview and were translated "Great Spirit".  

"Ah, see," they said, "They believe in (this Guy named) God just like us!"

But Manitou was also translated 'medicine' when it suited, and sometimes 
'soul'.  Likewise  with 'waka'.  Having no native word for 'horse', the 
Lakota 
called it 'waka-can'  = 'medicine dog', 'unusual dog', or 'spirit dog'.  

So the phrases in those languages (and many others) that through European 
eyes were referring to God, in reality were referring to something beyond the 
inquirers mindset and so were misunderstood.

Asked how the world came to be, the answer was 'Gichi Manitou!' or 'Waka 
Tanka' that is "Very mysterious!"
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