[kouru225]

In the first volume of Masks of God, Joseph Campbell points out that you can break all creation myths down to 3 categories: Creationism (where there is a god that created the universe), Animism (where the universe itself is alive), and Participationism (where the universe is the result of some interaction).

He then points out that if you ask random children to make up the story of how the universe was created, the story they tell you will (essentially without fail) fall under one of these 3 categories, and you can also categorize which one the children tend to favor based on stages of development. Very young children tend to favor animism and participationism, while older children (who are becoming more self-aware of their dependence on their parents) tend to favor creationism of some kind.

[stvltvs]

Joseph Campbell was not an expert on every creation myth ever. His ideas had large cultural blind spots, and he was prone to over-generalization. A sibling comment pointed out an exception that doesn't fit into the assumptions behind Campbell's leading question to the children.

[m463]

what if the universe was never created, and always was?

[digging]

Doesn't that fall under participationism?

[noncoml]

We would have to come up with a better explanation/understanding of time in order to make this argument logical.