There have been thousands of cultures who formulated their own answers to all of the big questions (how did it all begin, why are we here, how will it end, what is lightning and thunder, what is an eclipse, what is a tsunami, what is a whale etc. etc.). The belief system depends only where you were raised and when. Were you a Maya in the year 900, a Navajo in 1400, a Bantu in Africa in 1500, did you live in Japan in the year 200, or in Mohenjo-daro in 2000BCE, perhaps an Aborigine in Australia etc. All of these cultures, and thousands of others concocted explanations that were wrong, and they were just waiting for science to help provide the correct answers. It is ridiculous for Christians or any other group to try to defend the original mythology, or to pretend that they old cultures didn't really mean or believe what they said.

Science has developed most of the answers to the big questions and to millions of other questions the old cultures did not even know how to ask, but science does not, and probably will never have all of the answers. So if you want to fill in the blanks for the unanswered questions with "God", or "Heaven", be my guest. All of the rest is total nonsense, and should be understood for what it was --- primitive people trying to make sense of the world with no access to scientific data and methods.