Sumerians were the first organized system of magic and the first formal religion as we understand it yes. Tribes before them did have religious beliefs and magical traditions. These beliefs were more malleable and more based on the idea that the forces of nature were to be appeased and served more then the idea that some god with a personality cared about its followers..

Ask yourself though Kevin, where do those ideals come from? Do not men find these and right them down themselves? (Speculate all you want that "God" tells these people what to write down, is this the same "God" who informs people to kill loved ones or strangers? It's all in the mind I argue) Is it not coming from our humanity? Keep in mind that you are discussing the philosophies of religion. Go back to my earlier post, those are the things of religion which I said was neceesary. But you must learn to make the distinction because the necessary and unecessary before you can understand where I am coming from. The worship of gods is unecessary in my mind, simply because they don't aren't needed to impact day to day life. Don't you see how religious dogma often dictates what actions you do and do not take on an everyday basis? If this is true, then what go does it do one to follow a religion who's morals aren't given from a god, but dictated by a man? Could you not find the same fufillment in the writings of Sartre? The underlying truth of these beliefs that you mention is that they are geared for the best of humanity. We don't need a religion to tell us what we need to do. We can and should find meaning in one another rather than find it in texts which may or not be true. How can you neglect the tangible for that which can never be proven?

But then again, that doesn't mean religion has to be useless for you. It is HIGHLY useless for me, and you won't be changing my mind of that point. This is my opinion, and I have always stated it as so. I haven't stated anything of the such as a must be truth for humanity.

You know the funny part is that all religions claim to be the ONE. But why didn't God have men found the religions them sooner?

Not all claims to be the one. Infact if you talk to many pagans... we have the belief that what we believe in is right for us, but not all. We firmly believe that you should worship what you feel is right for you.

So as Gordon Geco said "Greed is Good"?

Man seems to worship money and power and then turn to God for forgivness when all goes wrong.

That seems to be the oldest religion.

*chuckles* that maybe so.

The falliability of the heart of man is hardly up for debate here... that's too easy of a subject to concur on.

From what I have been reading from this site and others.

It sounds like religion is made up as man goes along.

Therefore we will never truly know the first religion because no one really has spoken with god.

I can only hope that you're not using the opinions of others to come to this conclusion... Whatever you believe, make it your own. Don't let what's just good for someone else be just good enough for you.

No such thing I started out looking for the first religion and it seems no such thing exists. At least it was never recorded.

It just seems humans have made things up to control others as time has gone by.

Chariot remember I said religion is useful. I meant in a global sense not in every single person. I should probably more accurately say faith is useful. I'd also observe a lot of the oldest and most held to systems of ethics and morality are based in religion. You don't have to be religious to be ethical but ethics in general wouldn't be what it is if religion hadn't existed.

I once had a disscussion with a mormom missionary about their religion and they kept informing how theirs was the one chosen religion.

He also explained how the three kingdoms in their religion worked. And that only by being married in the mormom church can a person reach the highest kingdom.

And I asked if a man or woman lived 1000 years ago and never attended any church but lived a god fearing life and never wronged anyone and only thought of others then why couldn't they achieve this kingdom.

He said the church uses baptism for the dead. They take names and church members are baptised by proxy for the dead who never had a chance to become a member of the mormom church.

Then I asked how such dead people are married in the church to reach the highest kingdom. He replied they couldn't be.

So to make a long story short our conversation wraped up with him saying that anyone prior to the churchs founding were not worthy of the highest kingdom.

Basically no one had enough morals ethics prior to Joesph Smith and the Mormom religion.

And I bet almost every religion has simular beliefs.

I agree with you that faith in something is useful... whatever that may be I'm sure we differ on. (I tend to place faith more into humanity instead of a higher being) But I disagree to say that we needed religion to form ethics. That's, for one, impossible to prove. You and I can't conclusively say that people wouldn't have decided upon what should and shouldn't be done without belief in a god. Perhaps the easiest way to look at this would be that people would have always chosen to do what was advantageous to them. It would have been "wrong" to kill because there would always be the threat of getting killed themselves in revenge. Similar morality would follow out of this pattern of practibility I think. But like I said earlier, this is merely what I choose to believe. Considering how my crazy mind works, I don't expect many people to agree. And to be honest, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Chariot let me give you some thing to consider. Would you say the world today is more religious then before, or less? I'd say we are less. We've abandoned the quest for spiritual meaning and any true faith in favor for materialism. The most popular relgions of this day are money, bueaty and power. We in short live in a world ruled more by faith in what we can see and in man then in a world ruled by faith in God. Are we better for it? I would quite honestly say no the world is in a worse state now then ever before. Society is tumbling out of control and I personally beleive the decline in faith is a major factor in that.

As a species we are violent, cruel and sadistic . We have many characteristics that are not healthy to survival and are unique to man(a need to destroy each other and even more fundamentally a need to destroy ourselves). The founding fathers actually warned of much the same. Washington and Jefferson both wrote that they thought the us would be in serious trouble if it ever gave up its faith in God.

But here's the thing though, we haven't moved from religion to man... we have moved from religion to SELF. That is why we continue to languish in this existence, not because we are being punished or what have you for turning away from a god, but because we merely look out for self. We don't have a need to destory oneself or others inherently, but rather it is this greed that drives us away from others that ultimately seems to rule us. It is not because we are born this way, it is because we are conditioned this way.

Until we learn to care for self, which most important of all points IS possible, we cannot truly call ourselves a society. As it was once said, "No man is an island". Truly we can not expect to have a functional world that IS NOT full of suffering and pain when all we do is look out for number one. On that accord people who turn away from God are indeed foolish. At least there they are compelled to hold down the outward desire to achieve more and more for self under the belief that god doesn't reward that. But that doesn't mean that the concept of God is necessary, all it really means is that we have to look out for one another. If we do that, faith in God is irrelevant; we'll have that utopia we all really want.

Oh I had a great topic on religon a while back. Fun stuff.
Here it is

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...topic=18562&hl=

I would think so. Like in Moses'es hearing of God through a burning bush that talks...I would expect that to be God. Thats the only one I can describe, I have to do more reading .


I do think some of the inspirations of these religions were unknown. Although, some of the religions that exist today exist because their inspiration remains explained in religious terms, or is what they believe in to be true. That is a possible known inspiration. And i'm not trying to prove anything, I don't want to prove God. I only want to state my opinion on how these religions were formed.

In my opinion, some religions were made by man for man because I have my own religion, I don't generally want to believe in the others. But I believe that if we were to worship a God, maybe accepting the possible fact that there is a God would gain his favor and accept us into the afterlife. Thats what I think is the benefit. And I still don't think religions aren't useless because they can still instill order or wisdom through out a civilization.

I'm saying that some are. Some religions were made to explain the masses...some were probably made because their God actually spoke to them.

I think it depends on what you believe in to be true can be the truth. I think you believe that there is no God? Thats a completely okay and healthy belief.

I think that actually proved his point

In matters of religion, nobody seems to care about the truth, or making any attempt to find it...they're comfortable in their own little belief, and refuse to make any attempt to wager in a bit of truth...this applies not just to matters of science (I'm not even going to get started about the ignorance caused, and the massive harm done to humanity, when religion makes people shut their eyes and ears to new discoveries) but to tollerating other people's beliefs too.

The idea of "you believe what you believe, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!" is when religion stopped being organised, and having the potential to evolve and change, and started being a personal cult

haha, yea seriphina kinda like the way you call us ignorant for not believing in what you believe . This country was built on religion and I couldn't be any happier. Christian and Jewish societies always seem to excell above all others

And this... is a prime example of something I mentioned about a few.... people... earlier.

Alas, you should not have asked what is the first religion. This is because religions are created by men, not prophets. For example Christianity appear many years after Christ and Buddhism after Shakyamuni. Also there is no fixed history of a particular religion because it existed in many pre civilisational eras. Example: there are monks when Atlantis was prevailing.

Here's a bit of informed speculation about things waaaaaaay back in the past, based on what remains have been found and the best standing theories we now have. We may never be certain but, as opposed to the un-informed guesswork and wishful thinking, there is at least a firm basis for this theory. There's no point in trying to apply todays values and mentality on people so closely knit with the nature around them, people who killed and got killed to survive, depended on each other and accepted teh natural order of things.

The stone age human tribes were living of the land, they were hunter-gathereres and lived in caves that protected them from the elements. They hunted and foraged for food, competed with and fell prey to large predators but they were more than animals as they held burial ceremonies for their dead, produced intricate designs and lived a well-organised life. So this was civilisation. The first form of religion was probably totem worship where individuals and tribes sought protection of powerful animals and identified with their qualities. American indians are not a bad example of this, although much more advanced.

All over northern euroasia, from siberian tundra to the north of germany, archeologists have found small figurines of overly voluptuous female bodies, dated some 30,000 years ago. This indicates a widespread and uniform worship of a female life-giving force, nature in the form of the Mother of all things so this was probably the first "proper" religion.

It was much later, when agriculture and farming was discovered and people understood more and exercised more control of their immediate environment, that the beliefs started to focus on the uncontrollable weather elements, sun worship and the politheistic pantheons sprung up. The progression of ideas from there froward is quite smooth but it's hard to generalise because they were of regional character.

The story goes on but i've typed enough!

You make us sound like enraged Klingons! There's more to humans than violence, noone can be blind to that. We are a competitive race, far from perfect in every regard but we try, and we learn by trial and error. We have become too self-centered and arrogant - I think we're in teh evolutionary "error" stage just now, but we do hold ideals of justice and beauty and I need to believe that we will find balance within ourselves and with the world around us.

We have learned to control the world, now we just need to learn to control ourselves.
How can anybody find fault with that?

PS Off topic, sorry!

Religion is attached to life as love is attached to our heart or as humidity is attached to water.

To lack religion is to lack love; it is to renounce the universal loving feeling of the unknowable divine.

Whatever the name of the religion, the Cosmic Christ is always represented within all religions.

The attacks, of which all religions have been victims, the persecutions, wars, and atheisms etc., are because of an overwhelming ignorance and lack of study.

Any religious form is always the vesture of the invisible divine. Religion can only harm the stupidity and ignorance of fanatic ignoramuses.

We must intensely love all religious forms; because all religious forms are only manifestation of a Great Cosmic Universal Religion.

That which is divine is Love and Wisdom within all Lodges, Orders, Schools, Sects and religions from the East, West, North and South, that worship the Cosmic Christ under whatever name.

i agree.. as the years pass, our people become more "of the world" and less of Christ. that is a shame, because nobody "of the world" can enter the gates of heaven. For it is said " it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter the kingdom of God.

You mean we're not?

Well.. damn... there goes my wish for some fire water...

The goddess worship idea is a weak theory and it is by no means the oldest religion. Look around at the societies that still live at a very primitive level(yano mamo for example). With out fail they are animists worshipping and living in dread of the natural world. The idea of gods or godesses didn't start until man kind entered the cities.

However, even with the shamanic animist worship... the earth was always concidered a female... thus as people settled and started using gods as ways to explain... the feminen earth became the Great Goddess. Or, to the greeks, Gaia.

Remember I said "widespread and uniform" belief. As far as I know, "mother nature" is the first actual consistent religion which left any trace in history. The Mother figurines were nearly identical across 2 continents, indicating that people that far apart shared the same belief.

Totemic worship is a more primitive form of worship and it did come first but it lacks the consistency and uniformity to be called a religion. Protective spirits vary from tribe to tribe as well as worship practices.

Not really animistic religions(like totemic worship its an example not the whole group) can be quite cohesive. Several are in fact quite famous and practiced in the US right now in as stable a form as any polytheistic religion(Monotheism is the least malleable religion even the pantheons we think of today were not stable structures when they were still widely worshiped) to name four: Native american shamanism, druidism, voodoo, and santeria.

What is the first religion?

Judaism, Judaism, and uh Judaism.

I was not going to post here until I saw that, and I'm sorry Ashley, that is the biggest BS I've ever heard. You're going to tell me cave men were Jews, and baked latkes, and worshipped one single god? I don't think so. The first religions were 100% nature religions, because people knew nothing else. Such religions like what Native Americans have, druids, hundreds of African religions (hoodoo, voodoo) and other spiritual beliefs. Judaism is a NEW religion, I'm sorry of this sounds rude, but I hope people haven't had to suffer in it since the dawn of time.

My understanding of Native Americans, African religions and such are that they didn't so much worship any god but respected and honored the spirits of the land and all being.

But hey I'm wrong on a consistant basis.

Exactly, that is why I said and other spiritual beliefs. On the other hand, I do think druids differ from the list. Native Americans, as far as I know on what I've studied on them, do not worship any gods. They cherish and revere the world around them and have utmost respect for everything, even a little pebble on the ground because all things in nature are equal and must be respected. The only thing close to a god they follow is the Great Spirit, which is more or less the massive power of all the spirit of nature and life.

I can only wish modern people had this much respect, atleast for eachother.

I know actually nothing of the druids so I left them off of my response.


You know most people believe that most of the harmony with earth and nature is bull. I didn't till I started to read about "and this sounds stupid" Tesla and his experiments and I gained a greater appreciation for what can't be seen.

It is next to impossible to generalize on Native Americans. Some were animalists, some had rudimentary concepts of Gods, and some had full blown religions with multiple Gods and Goddesses (Hopi, Inca, Aztec, Olmec, Mayan, etc). Shamanism is probably the first organized "religion" and interestingly enough some Shaman "sects/religions" worshipped a Mother Earth Goddess as their central concept - go figger. Maybe everyone (but Ashley) is correct!

Good point, I feel terrible that I totally left them out and forgot about them, and if anyone was offended I apologize.


LOL! That is so rude it's hilarious.



What does that mean, that you believe we should revere nature or destroy it? What you said contracdicted itself. If you want to break a reverance to it, that stupid -- Nature brought you onto this world.



Here is an interesting link, I'm confused about it but it has a wealth of information -- just be careful.

http://druidry.org/

I see what you're saying and i guess noone here can claim to know the truth but I do find one fault with that line of thought. You can use todays primitive tribes only for reference, no belief can stay the same over millenia. And these animistic religions practiced in the "civilised" world are cohesive but also now we wear the same clothes all over the world. Everything we do today is more elaborate and uniform because of easy communication (books, media, etc.). But here we are talking about an age where communication was scarce. Man traveled on foot, not even on horseback, barely knew fire, was superstitious about very basic phenomena so each tribe would find its own relevant set of spiritsto appease. A northern tribe would revere the mammoth, cave lion and ice, while the ones to the south would depend on the annual migration of big fish and river flodding, for example.
Even if you look at the old testament which came some 20-30 thousand years later, each tribe carried its own distinctive idol/protective spirit.
This is not politheism, these are tribal relgions.
Guess what I'm saying is that it counts as a same form of religion but not A religion.

Raven...........

What I meant was that I did not realize just how little humans understand there surroundings. We think because we can build rockets and computers and have electric that we are superior.

And currently we are superior on the food chain.

But understanding what the earth and universe actually offers can do more to advance the future for humans than any missle or plane ever built.

Ahh, I feel positive thinking coming back into this thread!

You know, your post actually made me smile, just for that fact that someone else understands this. I hate the superiority deal, it doesn't help us at all. Imagine if its possible to get here, but use nature and the natural world instead of our arrogant beliefs. It makes you wonder if extremely advanced science will ever be able to stand up to the power of the mind, wisdom, and imagination.

Life is too short to go through without truly checking it out from all sides.

Druids had gods, even the shamanistic celts had gods. Cernnunos being one of the more prominent. Dagda, the father of all gods, Brigid, The Morrigan... all just to name a few.

They Eqyptians took their nature worship beliefs (which is older the judaism) and formed gods out of each aspect of nature around them. Inclueding life and death, even rage.

See, we don't just have modern tribes, that have held the same beliefs over the millenias to draw from, we do have archiological evidences. Stone statues, temples, paintings on walls, people who were buried with certain artifacts that show weither he or she was a preist/ess or a shaman or medican man. (As told by quite a few out here, Native American medicanmen don't generaly like being called shamans. That isn't thier word for it. Shaman is accually a derivited from Chinese or some asian language.)

And as for people who say spirit worship isn't a religion, it is. The worship of spirits is a very strong religion in many asian countries. Shinto is along that lines. And it's also a very old nature based religion at that.

Druids originally were animists personifying nature as the spirits they worshiipped. Yes like many cultures they developed the idea of gods but in the beggining things began with fear of the natural world. I think thats some thing a lot of people misunderstand here. People paint a very loving picture on the godesses and mother nature religions of old. This is largely the modern ages need to sanitize every thing. Lets remember some details: the Egyptians kept slaves, the Romans slaughtered Christians and destroyed Jewish holy sites becuase these people wouldn't worship there gods, the druids practiced human sacrafice(I"m aware most modern people don't accept it but I'm personally not inclined to dismiss the accounts of Ceaser he was a careful recorder of many cultures no reason exists to assume he started making dramatic changes suddenly), voodoo and its related religions practice animal sacrafice and in some branches human sacrafice as well(another often forgotten fact is that sorcerers and witches have been dreaded for thousands of years look at how the Greeks depicted Circe for example). In the earliest religions people were afraid of the natural world. We were at the mercy of the elements, predators and the random destruction of natural disasters. As we learned to better control our enviroment our understanding of religion changed to accomadate a world view where man had far more power.

The oldest religeon is pagan.

Define pagan. If you mean neo pagansim as its practiced today no way. It is a creation of Gardner with heavy influence from Aleister Crowley and Mary Blativsky. If you mean polytheism in general again no. IT was a later development in religion then the animistic religions found in tribal cultures.

In essence you first said basicaly what I did.

And no... there is no pretty picture. Humanity has always been rather cruel to eachother and the world around them.

The only difference between the pagans of old, and those today is really... we don't go off and harm anyone in the name of our faith. We don't desicrate, we don't insult or belittle someone because of thier faith. Atleast the ones who are truely on thier path... not the 14 year olds who turn to "witch craft" to make thier high school rival sick... They tend to give a rather bad name to those of us who do abide, and don't use our beliefs as a way to harm... but as a spiritual guidence.

You'll notice parralelles. With the religion that rules, there is recorded violence. Romans were very violent towards those who were not. Egyptians, same thing. Aztec, Mayans, Incas... all sacrificed and even ate thier enemies. Druids did do human sacrifices, as did the romans and Eqyptians.

Fast foward to when Christianity was the leading religion. Burnings of witches, homosexuals, even cats... The inquasition, Crusaides, Salem trials.. manafest destiny, slavery, the murder and removal of many native americans....

It's human nature that drives these things, and religion to use as a backing. We do this because Ra/The Morrigan/Cetzilcholt/God wanted it to be done.

It happens even today.

There are several differences between neopagans and historical ones actually. For example: neopagans are far more acepting of other religious beliefs(not saying its a bad thing), often practice magic(most ancient pagans left magic only to the priests and considered general practicioners to be evil, dangerous people the Romans even outlawed Sorcery), borrow gods and practices from many different traditions. Its a revival of ancient beliefs not a continuation. The Christians have crimes in there past true but the majority of christians(like the majority of neo pagans) are non violent people. Extremists exist but thats true of every religion.

Worship of Nature was first

...and I do believe that Crowley was inspired mainly by Egyptian/middle eastern mysticism, not nature worship.

Nature worshipping done in the Paleolithic Age had to have been the first.