All the creation myths I've glanced at on wikipedia seem to have some kind of deity involved (though not always a humanoid). Is this selection bias, since creation in this context always presupposes a creator/agent/god and are there other historical myths about how everything came to be? The same question applies to how humans came to be (if they were not already part of "everything" coming into existence).
Basically, I was wondering what an atheist/agnostic would have thought on these subjects throughout history/cultures (apart from a kind of steady-state approach).
The Chinese have multiple, conflicting creation myths, some of which mention no creator.
The daodejing, for example, record that first there was the Way. The Way gave birth to One. One gave birth to Two. Two gave birth to Three. Three gave Birth to Many.
On the other hand, they also have creation myths that involve what might be called a "god", in the tales of Nuwa and Pangu.
I was wondering what an atheist/agnostic would have thought on these subjects throughout history
I think you're applying modern views to historical periods - 'an atheist' in, say, Europe in 1500 would be 'a heretic'; persecuted, victimised, probably tortured and killed. The further back into the past one goes the more important and world-view-defining religion becomes; would Neolithic man, surrounded by hostile elements and wild animals, aware that life could be snuffed out in a moment, have questioned the presence of spirits and gods in his everyday life?
Actually, we can't know. It's impossible to truly reconstruct the thoughts of those who have gone before (although some archaeologists have tried; see Towards an Archaeology of Mind, Renfrew, 1982). In addition you have a 'visibility problem'; any atheists in the past would have been in an extreme minority, and as such any record of their views - or even their presence - that might have existed is far less likely to remain extant after four, ten or twenty hundred years than those religious works which were copied over and over again.
hi! there are anthropologists in this sub, but you might consider x-posting this question to our sister sub /r/AskAnthropology to catch the eye of a few more