Worst Creation Story Ever
Really, I don’t think it’s even a competition. Every other creation narrative I know of is preferable in comparison to the “Hymn to Atum,” an Egyptian creation myth whose roots are in the Old Kingdom (2575-2134 BCE).
When I first began to create
When I alone was planning and designing many creatures,
I had not sneezed Shu the wind,
I had not spat Tefnut the rain,
There was not a single living creature.
I planned many living creatures;
All were in my heart, and their children and their grandchildren.
OK. We’re good at this point. There’s nothing, and Atum is planning stuff. Fair enough.
But then comes column 27:
Then I copulated with my own fist.
I masturbated with my own hand.
I ejaculated into my own mouth.
Ummmm…
Errrrrrr…
I sneezed to create Shu the wind,
I spat to create Tefnut the rain.
Old Man Nun reared them;
So Atum masturbates into his own mouth and spits out other gods? Hmmmmm…
I’ll leave inappropriate commentary on such a creation text up to the readership. Jokes a’ plenty to be had. Brian, Jake: this is the post you guys have been waiting for.
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Can you imagine trying to raise a teenage boy in that religious world?
Mom: (walking into room) Oh Ramshes, what are you doing? Stop!
Son: (not stopping) WWAD Mom? What would Atum Do?
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How about the poor Egyptian who has to debate the Hebrew?
Egyptian: So how to you believe the world began?
Hebrew: Our God YHWH spoke everything into creation and created man in his image to have a loving relationship with him. What do you believe?
Egyptian: You know… it’s not really important to argue over differences
Hebrew: No really, I’m interested
Egyptian: Ha ha, ah, um. You know you have your beliefs and I have mine, and that’s OK…
Hebrew: C’mon. Don’t be shy. Seriously, how do you think the world was created?
Egyptian: Promise not to laugh?
Hebrew: Of course!
Egyptian: OK… Atum masturbated into his own mouth and spit out his semen creating the other gods
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…awkward silence
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Hebrew: And we are now mortal enemies
scotteriology.wordpress.com 
So how would you launch an evangelism program when your theology is rated NSFW?
You’ve discovered the preferred religion of wankers everywhere! Nice.
Is there any place on the web where I can read this myth?
I think you might have to hit the library to read this.
So, did the autoerotic Atum have a big dick or was he just very flexible? I think we should be told.
I’ll let you decide: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ECE6/assets/images/atum.gif
I’m glad I’ve never had to do that pose in yoga classes!
Okay, I think we’ll put it mainly down to size. 😈
Joe Rogan said it best when he said that being able to blow yourself was overrated. Basically, Ron Jeremy told him that he “used to be able to do but can’t anymore” cause his gut had gotten too big. In essence, at some point a sandwich becomes a better alternative to what Atum is doing here.
The moral of the story here though is that there’s nothing I could possibly say that would be funnier than what’s going to happen when Iara does a web search for this particular incident by combining “Masturbation”, “Self” and “Mouth” into google. My kingdom to be a fly on the wall in that room at that moment…
I’m guessing that point came right about the time Atum did…
What gets me is how the heck he got to the point where mastubating into his own mouth seemed like a good idea. Was he just that bored? That hard up? Was his wife out of town for a week, leaving him with nothing but leftover turkey to eat?
Have you read the creation myth of Tarvu??
http://www.tarvu.com/
Half an hour later… still laughing….
The Egyptian story probably arose far earlier than Genesis 1.
Mark S. Smith in The Priestly Vision of Genesis 1 (2009) reminds readers that scholars recognize the Bible contains more than one account of creation. The book of Psalms, for example, includes creation hymns that were composed earlier than the account given in Genesis 1. Those and other creation passages in the Bible may, in fact, represent some of the earliest beliefs that the Israelites held about creation. However, because Genesis 1 was composed with greater sweep, significance and priestly precision, and placed at the beginning of the Hebrew Scriptures, those other creation passages lost the prominence they once held.
Some of the earliest creation passages in the Bible depict Yahweh in conflict with watery foes, not unlike Marduk’s battle with the primeval water goddess Tiamat, or Baal’s battle with the sea-god, Yam. Professor Smith has an excellent discussion of such biblical passages in a section of his book subtitled, “Creation as Divine Might.”
Concerning Psalm 74:12-17, for example, he says that it “makes the divine conflict over the cosmic enemies of the water the basis for the establishment of the sun, moon, and stars as well as the boundaries of the earth.” Elsewhere Professor Smith states “Other early texts, such as Psalm 89:11-13, Job 26:7-13, and 38:1-11, likewise refer to a divine conflict at the beginning of creation.”
Though the Lord’s defeat of cosmic foes was sometimes applied metaphorically to the Hebrew defeat of the Egyptians (as in the tale found in the book of Exodus about Yahweh splitting the waters of the sea in half and then closing them to smash the Egyptians), the names of the sea monsters defeated by Yahweh in Psalm 74 are found in texts from ancient Ugarit where they are identified as foes whom Baal defeated. Mythical tales of Baal’s conquests of sea gods and monsters also parallel those of Marduk, who conquered Tiamat (ocean goddess and monster), subduing her with his mighty wind and then piercing her. Compare such tales with the image in Job 26:12–13 (from the Jewish Publication Society Tanakh):
12 By His power He stilled the sea; By His skill He struck down Rahab.
13 By His wind the heavens were calmed; His hand pierced the Elusive Serpent.
Professor Smith goes on to explain the evolving nature of the creation story in the Bible:
Genesis 1 built on and supplanted other Israelite versions of creation that understood the primordial universe as a field of battle between two divine wills. It envisions instead a royal priestly power beyond all powers, enthroned over the world and understood as a holy place similar to a sanctuary…The royal politics of creation expressed in texts such as Enuma Elish and Psalm 74 were replaced partially in Genesis 1 with a priestly order imbued with the proper religious life of the Sabbath (‘rest on the seventh day’), and sacred festivals of the priestly calendar (the ‘appointed times’ of Gen. 1:14).
Secondly, Aside from masturbating creators, a HIGH creator god can also be found in both ancient Egyptian and Babylonian myths, and the Hebrews evidently borrowed many of the same phrases used by other ANE cultures to lift high their reverence toward their deity. I supply examples in a chapter that I contributed to a book to be published in April 2010, titled, The Christian Delusion.
The difficulty with high creator gods is that they need a motivation to create something. If they are perfect in and of themselves, why meddle with perfection, why create anything else? For the spectator sport? But if everything comes directly and solely out of a perfect high creator god who already knows everything, of what possible interest is there in creating anything? Out of love? But god already IS love, doesn’t need more, can’t obtain more than the perfect love that god already is. Is god lonely? Perfection is not lonely.
The Hindu’s believe god is in a sense omni-bored. Perfection itself contains the seeds of imperfection, and hence nothing is perfect, not even god, and god wants to forget about being god, wants to lose himself, forget perfection. Maybe that’s what masturbating into one’s own mouth could be taken as meaning.
Think about it.
Christian apologetics has it’s own weirdness that Christians do not see because they are too near it. And take all of Christianity’s weird beliefs and portrayals of God and his “reasons” for granted.
Ehh, not everything is simply taken “for granted.” But God’s self-revelation in the Bible certainly does not make sense to the mind of someone who doesn’t know Yahweh. This much we can agree on. That’s because no person could have come up with the Bible. Despite all his idiosyncrasies, or maybe because of them, Yahweh is a god that can relate to humanity. He has nearness to humanity, yet he is completely “beyond” creation, of a higher and unique category of being.
And so what if the Hebrews borrowed the phrase “most high God” as a title? To not do so might imply that Yahweh is a great god, but some idol deserves that title instead of him. That wouldn’t be fitting.
One of the problems with the internet compared to real life (say at a social get together or a party for example) is that it’s hard to really grasp onto the awareness that, at some point, you’re just talking to yourself.
Wow, Jake! you mean you get invited to parties?
Lucky….
I would pay money to watch an ancient Egyptian and an ancient Hebrew debate creation stories. That would be hilarious!
This is the origin of Genesis – its not a Creation story as such, but the metaphorical Creation on MAN from the Act of Orgasm, when Hot Sperm enters the Womb, Cave of Creation.
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