Comparison of Chinese and Western Civilizations: A Case Study of Mainstream Creation Mythologies

Abstract

Creation myth not only records the birth of all things in the world, but also reflects the understanding of different nationalities on the origin. Due to the differences among nations, the creation myths reflect different national characteristics with universality. This paper makes a comparative study of Greek creation myth, Bible creation myth, Chinese mainstream myth of creation, "Pangu opens heaven" and "Nuwa creates humankind". It is found that the hero worship color dominated by nature worship in Greek mythology and the three classes of "Superman-Nature-Mortal", the nature worship color dominated by hero worship in Bible and the binary opposition between God and man, and the absolute nature worship color in Chinese mainstream mythology. In addition, based on the comparison between Chinese and Western myths, this paper also finds that Western myths embrace duality and systematic feature, while Chinese myths have the characteristics of fragmentation and naturalization.