What is the oldest known religion in the world?

[ Next ] [ Last ]

(53) On January 27, 2012 at 1:12 am Make Thunder [0] said:

As per my study, Hinduism is not religion. It is just way of living life. Any one can use the practices mentioned in this to make his/her life complete and fruitful. Other religions are formed later on and hence, Hinduism also get called as RELIGION. If you want to know about this religion just search of Swami Vivekananda and Hinduism. Whatever your religion is, just read on thoughts or messages of this great man. If your upset, confused, feared, etc. read his thoughts, suddenly you get boost up. These thoughts are not religion oriented, thoughts just reveals your are part of god and hence you are. Try it instead of fighting on this stupid religion things.

(52) On October 5, 2011 at 5:15 am Sahoosunilkumar [0] said:

Hinduism is the oldest religion. If you see Mahenjodaro civilization which is around 4500 years before they used to worship the god which Hindu prays. Also Vedas are written far before other religion books (bible, quoran etc) were written.

(51) On May 29, 2011 at 7:27 pm Ansuz3 [1] said:

Two words: who cares?

I would like to add that many of you self-proclaimed experts and highly educated "professionals" that can't spell or put a sentence together only make fools of yourselves. Furthermore, if you want to claim education or being a "professional", please include your degrees, universities, and dates attended so they can be referenced. As well, any peer-reviewed journals you have contributed to, books or articles you have written, or your published thesis or dissertation would be more valuable than links to wikipedia or youtube. If none of this applies, please feel free to argue in a bar or with your teenage friends instead of polluting the minds of those who are asking a legitimate question.

(50) On March 11, 2011 at 7:53 am Metaphysical [0] said:

"This is easy to answer, Sumerians have the oldest KNOWN religion.Known is the key point, Sumerians have the OLDEST form of communication that told about thier religion. Therefore, Sumerians have the oldest KNOWN religion."

You are mistaken. Early hunter gatherer dated 100 000 years before the Sumerian's had communication in Africa (which is where we originated) You need to be able to communicate effectively to bring down big game, trust me, before humans could travel to Mesopotamia or modern Iraq, they could communicate with each other.

(49) On March 11, 2011 at 7:37 am Metaphysical [0] said:

I think the word "Pagan" or "Paganism" is more of an umbrella term for any sort of culture that was not one of the Abrahamic religions.

So anything other than those 3 religions (Judaism, Christianity & Islam) would be classified as "Pagan".

I also think we can push the human's (Homo sapiens) History back further than 200 000 years.

So at that time there was already experienced stone tools and advanced communication although not English. So I would assume that there already was sorts of ritualistic activity.

But the question is not very clear, I would also assume the Question is directed at "Organised Religion"

If this is the case I think it could be Zoroastrianism.

Quote from Wikipedia: "It is believed that key concepts of Zoroastrian eschatology and demonology have had influence on the Abrahamic religions."

But it could have even been a previous religion depending on how you define "Organised".

(48) On March 10, 2011 at 9:54 pm AnonTruth [1] said:

All religion comes from planetary worship.

Paganism is the oldest religion.

See Zeitgeist.

(47) On March 8, 2011 at 3:00 am Trey Calvin Hood [0] said:

Astrology and the study of stars is the oldest religion. People have always belived that the heavens swayed our lives that is what the Egyption religion comes from and all others. Their have been thousands of religions in the 150,000 years of man kind. We only know of about 14,000 years of our own history with only 7000 or so years of an actual writen language. All religions of today will be gone tomarrow in the eyes of time not men.

CH

(46) On January 12, 2011 at 7:20 pm Ankit09 [0] said:

Jainism is one of the oldest religions of world. It believes in a universe without beginning, without end and without creator. Rishabhdev, the first Tirthankar, is mentioned in Rig Veda, the oldest scripture of Hinduism believed to be at least 5000 years old. The last of the 24 Tirthankars of this cycle of time was Lord Mahavira. Jainism became prominent religion in India at the time of Mahavira , who was born in about 599 B.C. in the town of Vyshali , (in the present day Bihar ) in a royal family.

(45) On November 13, 2010 at 1:45 pm Provident [0] said:

The very word religion ,from Latin. religionem (nom. religio)"respect for what is sacred" is not the same as (nom.religare) meaning 'to bind'

(44) On November 13, 2010 at 9:01 am Provident [0] said:

(Another thing I found particularly interesting was the way both of you argued that Adam was "The First Man")

Realy? when did I ever say he WAS the first man I simply said IF he realy DID live he was NOT a MUSLIM.

But as the homo-genus evolved from Australopithecus In my proffesional oppinion.

(p.s try reading the words people use not the ones in your head, and look up peoples profiles before you think you can tell them what is what.)

(43) On November 13, 2010 at 7:57 am Raymond Winters V [1] said:

Dreamz24 and Provident: Your argument has descended into sophistry, name calling and sundry non-pertinent posts. That noted, I found that a couple of arguable facts appear in both of your comments. First, the taxonomy of the word "Religion" is debatable. I was taught and understood the taxonomy of the word to be as follows: "Religion" derived from the Latin religare, meaning 'to bind'. I believe it was even referenced in the piece that started this ridiculous debate. Another thing I found particularly interesting was the way both of you argued that Adam was "The First Man" and purveyor of any particular religion. This is laughable on both of your parts, if you search a little deeper and understand the WORD 'adam' means MAN, in Greek. Simply put, God (Goddess/gods) would not have created "a man named Adam", he would have created "adam, which is man". Kudos to you both for ignoring this simple, yet glaring tidbit of information.

The oldest form of documented worship or "deism" would most certainly have been a form of sun worship. The historical evidence points to this in a myriad of studies, archeological digs and even the the very histories of the religions for which you argue! After reading the long and varied histories of many civilizations and their religious traditions, it is painfully evident to me, based on the innumerable similarities of all monotheistic religions, that there is, more than likely, a common source for them. While I cannot state with absolute certainty, I would hazard a fairly well educated guess that Islam, and the Judeo-Christian traditions had a oral tradition that predates any of their written documents by one, perhaps two-thousand years. With that in mind, I would think that migration and separation of tribes as would have occurred in that region of the world, would result in variations among the "chanters' or storytellers,priests or whatever word you would care to use for the "Keepers of the Truth" (I like that one). Over the centuries these simple variations and mutations in an oral tradition may have become modern day Christians, Muslims and Jews. That does not seem to be hard to understand to me.

So what gives? Is Christianity the oldest religion? No.

Is Islam the oldest? No... How about Hinduism? Possibly the oldest "belief system" in a written language, but certainly not the oldest religion. Everywhere, and "everywhen" people have turned their eyes to the sky and watched the sun chase away the darkness they feared, give them food to eat and relief from the cold. ALL modern Western religions and the stories of certain Hindu gods are ALL allegories for the sun. The fact of this escapes you despite having debated and considered the purpose of Stonehenge. Do you realize that the Solstice marks the beginning of three day period that the sun is at it's lowest declination in the Northern Hemisphere? You follow that, right? THREE DAYS descended into darkness. After three days, what happens? THE SUN RISES FROM ITS LOWEST POINT.... Sound familiar? Does to me. Jesus, Krishna, Mithra, Horus... stories are all the same.

So your arguments are moot. We cannot and will not ever know "the oldest religion". The best we can do is speculate, surmise and fantasize about the answers. I for one take great comfort in know that no one can be correct in the debate, without owning a Flux capacitor, a DeLorean and 1.21 gigawatts of electricity in a single charge!

(42) On November 11, 2010 at 7:41 pm Provident [0] said:

P.S Plagiarism does not reffer to etymology or historical refferance.

(41) On November 11, 2010 at 6:45 pm Provident [0] said:

Dreamz24 is most active in these categories: Anal Sex | Sex | Ancient Religions

lol think this explains it all..............

(40) On November 11, 2010 at 6:42 pm Provident [0] said:

To answer this question would first takes a greater understanding of the question asked.

The very word religion ,from Latin. religionem (nom. religio)"respect for what is sacred" reffers to an outward search for answers to questions that at some time or another will cross everybodys minds at least once in a life time.(Modern [n] a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny)

(39) On November 11, 2010 at 6:31 pm Provident [0] said:

(As in your definition of religion, something sacred is recognized in worship. It is also something immune against violation, so that if you violate it's rights, no harm is done to it. Therefore, stones are something not included from this very definition, neither is another human, neither nature. If you violate one these things, harm does occur. So, all of that is ruled out)

Where did you find this definition ? secondly its not my definition it the definition of the ancient romans they made the word and gave it its meaning......

several things are clear by your comments 1, you know nothing of anthropological archaeology or even basic history.

2, stonehenge was built just like its predating woodhenges to aline with the summer and winter solstice and is STILL being worshipped at by the pagan druids of the wicca.

3, Etymology is based in fact not the will of a few ignorent people, so find me any original text using the word Islam or Muslim from before predating say the first knowen city states of sumer and ill convert on the spot.

you know nothing of my studies or the world around you, instead you take one narrow view and rave on about it and can provide no prof of any thing other than your total ignorance, or names say it all ia am Provident your a dreamer.......

(38) On November 8, 2010 at 3:26 pm Dreamz24 [0] said:

Provident, I wouldn't need a lot of logic to go into an Encyclopedia and a dictionary to find a few words that match the words in the question. Seriously, a 5 year old can do that. You logically have to have a brain whether it's artificial or real before you can use your brain to quote anything. I'm using my logic and my brain for my answers. I didn't plagiarize anything, unlike you. You also have to have logic and brain, don't forget that, to listen to someone else and try to understand what they are saying.

You don't to copy and paste something from another language that you don't understand yourself. When you look something up in a dictionary you have to use your brain to interpret the meaning.

As in your definition of religion, something sacred is recognized in worship. It is also something immune against violation, so that if you violate it's rights, no harm is done to it. Therefore, stones are something not included from this very definition, neither is another human, neither nature. If you violate one these things, harm does occur. So, all of that is ruled out.

Everything as we see it can harm done to it. Where does that leave us? God. If you look at it without the Quran and the Bible or other books, the only proof of someone superior to us is own creation. Where did we come from, we didn't create ourselves. Did the sky make us? No. What about the dirt? No. But we're all made up of similar elements. We have water, carbohydrates, sugars,nucleic acids, proteins,etc. So, we're made using the same materials. We're all creations. We can't make ourselves, we have our own functions and have strong and weak points. Too hard of a job for us. So, who made us?

That's when you find all these books. They have different timelines and their own stories. Most stories are similar and some are not. The one's you rule out are the ones a person wrote themselves. How do you know which ones they are? Judge them by human features. What looks like your inner thoughts, fantasies, etc.

Now the rest are a mystery. They have information we couldn't possibly have known at the given time. How can a human know these things? That's where you look at descriptions of the author. Most revelations do speak of a wiser, superior, infinite being, of whom is not like us. He may speak of his relationship to his creations and we see ourselves as them from our own logic,etc. There is most likely where we find the God we're looking for. That's just an example of the modern humans. The human from the past, we can't be sure, except for what we can read of them in these literature. Just like with dinosaurs, we have to put the pieces together ourselves using the pieces we find. Our Earth's history is not like the globe you see where all the world is mapped out for us with names and capitals. So, if we read from a trusted source that this happened at a particular time, we will have to take that word for it. If YOU don't believe that's your choice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEGPOaAilvc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiLBGHwX_4c

(37) On November 8, 2010 at 2:55 pm Dreamz24 [0] said:

There's no stable proof Stonehenge was for worship, that's why it's a wonder of the world.

(36) On November 8, 2010 at 2:53 pm Dreamz24 [0] said:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIdfrKJv1VI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmLhTFcvrxw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1HBeiPJEOY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b01kOFTWYAw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwQR3RugNso

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIHDXFeFbyU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUSlPhMGo_o

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyoVRBXSxJM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOiQUaeKi0E

(35) On November 8, 2010 at 2:42 pm Dreamz24 [0] said:

Also, Provident , how does it make sense that you would find out about my religion from a lie made up from someone that's not even Muslim. How does a person trust that someone's enemy would speak the truth about them. Is that logic to you?

(34) On November 8, 2010 at 2:40 pm Dreamz24 [0] said:

Provident, those things don't matter to you because you simply don't understand it. You want me to google some words and find that it says whether or not one Islam is the first or not. That is not only non nonsensicalness but disrespectful. How can you just look at a few paragraphs of people feuding with other about who's right or wrong. Remember the internet is user-contributed. It's not filled with scholars. I can't just type in a few keywords and expect a genius to write back to me with a complete idiot's guide to everything included. If the whole world can't agree on the true relgion and true God, why would you expect to find something here and believe that you yourself would be able to recognize and accept it. Have you even read the Quran for yourself, with no previous bias thoughts in your mind about it. Have you even looked at the other side just to know the other side of the story?

If you look at all the answers, some one from the past found proof for all the mentioned religion's existence, but does that mean they're all true religions? Or that they are all from God? We didn't dig up any bones yet, an archaeologist did that for us.

You first need to understand why that is the way it is, for you to be able to find out if it's true or not. Otherwise you'll just do what you've already been doing , which is scrutinizing by YOUR own rules. You have to look at how it says it came about then you look into someone else's opinion and how they got there. If you look at the latter first , then it's a sure way to have lies told to you.

It seems you're already sided with Christianity, so it's difficult for you to be more open minded about any other way of life. It's just like a rocket scientist explaining the format for his ship to a cardiologist. Or someone living in India speaking to someone born in France.They try to communicate having only a few words known, but they still don't comprehend each other.

[ Next ] [ Last ]

Sign in to add your own comment. (This only takes a few seconds.)