Konrad Gatt wrote that “To think otherwise”, that is not to believe in a ‘Creator’, “is pure folly” (November 25). Perhaps the “folly” lies in believing in a “Creator” in the first place. The view that the universe came into existence without the intervention of a deity is ancient.

In the Hindu Puranas, first written 2,500 years ago, we find a very modern theory of the universe. There was no “creation” in the sense of Genesis.

The universe developed by natural means and processes and by natural means and processes decays.

Heracleitus of Ephesus wrote that “this world was not made by a god but it ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled, and in measures going out”.

William of Ockham, the most influential theologian in the 14th century, found no conclusive force in any of the arguments used to prove the existence of God. He rejected Aristotle’s notion that a chain of causes compels us to assume a ‘First Cause’.

“Leave to theologians their ‘First Cause’,” wrote Jean Meslier, a French parish priest. “Nature has no need of First Causes to produce all the effects which you see... It is not necessary to go beyond matter and ask who created it; the puzzle of origins would be merely put back a step further to the child’s natural question. And who created God?”

The Jains, in ancient India, observed the following: “It is not necessary to assume a Creator or First Cause; any thinking man can refute that assumption by showing that an uncreated Creator is just as hard to understand as an uncreated world. It is more logical to believe that the infinite changes and revolutions of the universe are due to the inherent powers of nature rather than the intervention of a deity.”