If you have ever been fortunate enough to spend time with a young child, then you have witnessed their extreme curiosity. They are always touching everything in their surroundings and putting things in their mouth so that they may better understand the world around them. Even after they become familiar with their setting, their curiosity doesn't cease and they begin to question where they came from. One of the early obstacles for every parent is to answer their child's question of, "Where do babies come from?" Ultimately the reason children pose this question is because they want to find out their beginning. Even though this question produces an awkward situation, the question itself can be answered, which unlike many of the other questions that deal with our creation. As the child matures it will soon come to realize that there are many different explanations for the creation of the universe and time. Many such creation stories were established over thousands of years ago and are still believed to this day. .
The ancient civilizations were very curious, much like the toddler I referred to in the previous paragraph. They too had several questions about their beginnings; unfortunately, they had no one they could turn to for answers. This forced the early civilizations to answer many of their own questions. Some civilizations such as the Babylonians, Greek and Romans chose to create elaborate creation stories with numerous Gods who were constantly feuding. Other civilizations chose just one omnipotent God who created everything in the world and watched over mankind. Although these civilizations were spread throughout the entire world and isolated from one another, they all developed some kind of theology to help them explain natural occurrences. .
It is interesting to see that the same general themes are present in creation stories adopted on several different continents. It seems that the basic formula for almost any creation story calls for a creator and a large empty space referred to as the void.