Posted: July 13th 2010
logicel
Belief in a creator is common because it is intuitive. Intuition is not always right, and this particular one is not supported with evidence. Extraordinary evidence for extraordinary claims, please.
Though belief in a creator was common in our history, what is more usual nowadays in the Western world is the modification of this ingrained habit of ours where the creator is morphing more into a nebulous force for good which somehow lives on some other plane than the one we are on rather than a concrete entity. God is love is one example of this perspective. Liberal versions of religion will often go down this route.
Certainly there are a sizable minority that takes the creator concept literally (particularly in America), but the very fact that we are moving away clearly from a literal translation to a more vague one, is that intuitively it is no longer working because the literal concept of a creator god is quite primitive and no longer fulfilling. The gaps where such a god can reside comfortably are shrinking which is taking a pronounced toll on what was once historically taken in stride by so many.
And the very fact that there are so many creation stories, featuring specific creators other than the Abrahamic one, signifies that though not all of them could be correct, they certainly could be all wrong, including the very in-vogue Abrahamic one.
As the concept of god becomes vaguer and vaguer, the number of gods believed in are being reduced, until finally the trend is that you go just one god further until you are a non-believer.
When this liberalization is noted by the powers-to-be—the ones that would lose out the most if their carefully wrought religious organizations lose members—they will clamp down and try to make their version 'purer’ as is going on with the ridiculous Catholics. They know that if they keep a tighter ship, their members will not be able to pry up a loose board and escape.
However, expanding, instant global communications allow many to know the dark holes where these religious bosses are desperately trying to stow away their silly god are either shrinking or being illuminated so rapidly that there is no place to hide this nonsense anymore.
Posted: July 20th 2010
George Locke
The Chinese had no creation myth. Daoist accounts of the world’s origin place “the way” at the root of things, not a creator.
Posted: July 19th 2010
SmartLX www
The majority populations of most civilisations have most likely believed in a Creator because of a very common human presumption that since we create some things and not others, that which we didn’t create ourselves was created by someone else. This idea gains popular support very quickly, if not evidential support.
Posted: July 19th 2010
Mike the Infidel www
The Pirahã tribe of Brazil don’t.
Posted: July 17th 2010
Reed Braden www
Not every civilization believes in a creator god, so your question is unanswerable as phrased.
Posted: July 17th 2010