The world, so some people say, is supported on the back of a turtle. But what supports the turtle? Another turtle -- and so on and so on. As the little old lady said to the philosopher, it's just turtles all the way down.

Some Hindus say, No -- it's elephants, not turtles. Meanwhile, in America, there is an ongoing controversy about whether the world was created in six days or several billion years. The six-day idea comes from Genesis 1 ... but Genesis contains not one creation myth, but two. The start of the second story is not easy to find; it actually occurs halfway through Genesis 2:4. In this second story, it is made clear that nothing has yet been formed, and God commences his creation by making man. Then God makes a garden and plants, and places man in the garden. Next -- because man is lonely -- God creates the animals, and then brings them to the man to see what he will call them. There is no time-line here. It's a pretty story, so it's odd that it should be overlooked by creationists.

But there are other creation myths in the Old Testament besides these. There are tantalizing fragments in Job 38, and in Psalm 104:26 there is an appearance of the ancient dragon of chaos, Leviathan, now quite domesticated after the primal struggle between him and the forces of creation at the beginning of the world.

Many years ago, a good friend in Program went to his sponsor with the usual tale of calamities and woes which he could not handle. His sponsor listened for a while and said, "Well, all that may be the case ... but you'd still better not drink!" We may be greatly exercised by the issue of where the universe came from, but if the answer we come up with is going to determine how we behave, it might be advisable to stop studying cosmology and work our program instead. As another friend said, it may or may not be turtles all the way down, but you'd still better work Steps 10, 11 and 12.