I have read about, studied, and seen so many different types of religion both currently practiced and long ago dead. Religions with a singular god and religions with multiple gods. But what is the first religion?

"I Thak Mak! Cheif of all cave men! You sun! Big fiery ball in sky that give us light! You our new god!"

The first religions likely would have worshipped such visually impressive objects as mountains, lakes, the sun, or volcanos (or perhaps even large animals in the area). There's no real way to say for certain.

I would be inclined to say it was worship of nature... and the way it basicaly has the hold over how our life develouped. The as we became more adapted, more refined... settled down and made villages and cities.. we came up with the notion of gods and goddesses to explain how nature works. And eventually, the cult surrounding a single god branched from one sect into three.

Pretty much the glue that holds mankind together to help save us from our own fears

Pretty much. Faith has away of doing that. Though in this day in age... it's becoming more of a hinderance then help *in some cases* There are others that it helps a great deal

It seems to give most people an excuse or a way to blame another person or religion for something that they disagree with.

Some do.. some don't. You have to look pass the ones who do... and manage through life as best you can.

I posted this a few days ago...

Pagan I think it would be called right?

Pagan is accually what was called those who still lived by many gods by christians. And it stuck. But yeah, for all intents and purposes, pagans

rofl. I may believe in the pagan gods of old... but I also take a very scientific view on life and biology.

What are the orgins or the concept of the singular God come from that the Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in?

Reality right. Same here.

Scientists somehow figured that a neanderthal was buried (probably by other neanderthals) and somehow the scientists figured out that flowers were put on the corpse. Forgot where I heard this, do you think the Neanderthals had a religeon?

No just a desire to not have their dead eaten by animals.

Well, some has said before that this god was one of the old tribal god, and his cult followers became aggressive enough to have sway to make him the primary god for them.

This happened in Egypt once. One of the Pharos had all the other gods denounced and the only god allowed to be worshiped was this sun god. Though the name was not Ra. According to a few anthropologists, Moses was accually an Egyption prince during this time. And when he became outcasted, and wandered out into the desert (which he has been known to do.. alot) he came across the judaic people. And fit in with them because of this single deity worship.

While spending his life with them, and taking on a wife the pharohship changed in Egypt, and the worship of the pantheon was braught back in. They say Ramses doing. And well then the whole Moses freeing the slaves and stuff... There are two differnt stories about it. One that the bible says, and one pieced together by scientific methods and records found in verious sites in Egypt.

Ok so if through out time the dominant religion is chosen by the group or leader who is dominate. How can anyone truly believe in a religion? And if they believe that theirs is the true religion then why didn't these believers one true religion start out as the FIRST religion?

You're applying FAR too much logic to religion man, dumb it down a bit and try again...

Just a bunch of slow witted people looking for a leader?

The belief in any religion is to bring faith when it's needed. People either accept the faith they are raised with and learned by thier elders.. or explore the other faiths and religions out there and take up which ever one brings them that comfort they need.

As for why the monotheistic three took over, well.. one could say the polotics of the romans did. It was a basis of control and people moving to what they feel is a better promis. And it got way out of hand when polotics was introduced. As far as Constentine converting to Christianity. It wasn't because he saw it as the true religion, but as away to keep his empororship over his subjects. The proof of that was when he converted back to Apollo and the roman gods before he died.

Yes. Primitive man and his close relatives probably would have formed some kind of religious belief. Although it's unlikely they would have had a deity as such...they probably would have worshipped forces of nature and so on, as mentioned by Silvercouger.

Pretty much. The formation of gods pretty much didn't come about until people settled down and formed civilizations.. towns cities...

Not necessarily "slow witted" as much as ignorant... Whoever was behind the first religion of sorts, was merely doing what they felt to be logical at the time. They saw the sun, the moon, everything working in perpetuality and figured that SURELY there had to be something guiding them. Can you truly blame them? They couldn't have known how the universe came to be, big bang, brane cosmology, etc. Of course they founded a higher being, they needed it. Even at that stage of our dear ancestors, they were logical enough to know that for the most part things must have a beginning. Though their assumptions were inherently flawed (they didn't use anything other than speculation to prove these things to themselves), they were still good enough for their people.

Hell who knows, maybe they had it right all along... I merely choose not to believe in the path that they laid down.

I have also read that most religions are formed around myths and storys that as these myths and storys were written down characters were created to cement the stories.

Allot of biblical storys relate to other myth and storys from other cultures and religions.

How is it everyone has studied or followed some religion at sometime. But no one knows were the First religion started?

There are tons of theorys but you would think that it could be tracked.

Because there hasn't been any writen records found.

The bible and dead sea scrolls not withstanding because it's not the first religion.

But there was an old cave painting of a man with what looks to be a deer head mask and cape on them. More then likely a shaman. So that could be evidence of the first emerging belief and religion

The oldest form of religion is called animism. Basicly its the belief that all things have a spirit(humans, wolves, rocks, trees) and worshiping the spirits of the natural world. The oldest religions are the ones rooted in African tribal belief(Voodoo, Santeria, Orisha, Palo Mayumbe, etc). These were brought to the new world by slaves and have there roots in traditional tribal beliefs that go back thousands of years.

there is suppose to be be something in the dead sea scrolls that religious leaders do not want others to know

Basicaly edited out laws that didn't make Levidicus...


And here's the picture I was mentioning.

As to how monotheism evolved there are a lot of theories but none are proven. Personally my guess would be that religions altered with society. As we moved into the cities we went from being at the whim of the natural world to learning an increasing controll over it. When that happened we started to see the universe as commanded by very human like gods like us in personality but more powerful. Most ancient religions(unlike today) tend to absorb each others gods as well. Its extremely unlikely that the Greek pantheon(for example) as we know it today developed all at one time. Instead different regions would ahve there own set of deities which would grow and change as they came into contact with other religions(this can still be found in many traditional polytheistic systems for examples its not unusual to find hindus who worship there ancient gods side by side with Jesus Christ with out seeing any real different). Monotheism probably began when different societies decided there God was the most powerful of all the gods around(this is considered the way Judaism started that they thought all gods existed but Yhwh was the god of there people and greater then any of the others). Eventually people began to do away with multiple gods some time relegating them to the status of angels demons some times eliminating them entirely. Eventually monotheism probably came out of this mess.

Because the Dead Sea Scrolls are so recent compared to the majority of religional texts (they are dated between 200 - 100 BC), I doubt there is anything TOO groundbreaking held within them. Could be wrong though.

Given the scrolls are copies of the books of the old testament I would think lots of people today don't want to know about whats in them. Even if nothing new is there.

I know one problem with ever finding out which religion if any is the first is as simple as the Ten Commandments. Because of mans corruptabilty and greed Christians use a version that suits the Catholic religion where the Jewish religion uses the original versions.

The monotheist religions were created by a hearing of their God, well at least they didn't know at that time. The Jews were founded when Abraham, whom lived in Mesapotamia, received a hearing from God. God told Abraham to travel along the Fertile Crescent into the promised land of Canaan. Thats where I think Judaism was raised until a Jewish person himself gave birth to Christianity. That person, born in bethlehem and raised in nazareth declared himself the messaih. He was cruscified for spreading the teachings of God, and he was Jesus. That is the birth of Christianity.

And Islam was also founded by a hearing of one monotheist God named Allah. Mohammed was meditating near a river fall where he received an encounter with the ArchAngel Gabriel whom spoke to Mohammed about the worship of Allah, and so sprung the monotheistic religion of Islam.

And yet though Judaism and Christianity declare Abraham as their founders, Christanity rose from Judaism, in which rose from a hearing of God. The same thing with Islam, the hearing with God, but through Mohammed. All three religions are familiar with the ArchAngel Gabriel, Moses, Abraham, and other prophets of God.

But in Islam, Jesus is seen as a prophet of God, not the son. All three religions however are also familar with the Virgin Mary.

The Torah, Bible and (Q)Koran are all somewhat linked to the same God that spoke to their prophets. The stories in the (Q)Koran, the teachings and sayings of their prophet Mohammed, are also somewhat similar to the stories in the Jewish Torah and the Christian Bible.

That, in my opinon and from my learnings, is where the Monotheistic religion came from.

It's somewhat believed that Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) predates those religions and was monothestic... But the times of all of these religions are seemingly always shifting, and next year that might not even be true anymore. Regardless, just thought I'd throw that in here.

Also, as of early this year, there are some scholars who claim reason to believe that Zoroaster himself was nothing more than a follower of the popular religion of Iran at the time, Mehr, and that this was indeed the earliest monothestic religion dating over 11,000 years ago. This is still being discussed however.

Actually zoorastrianism is a form of dualism not monotheism(belief in two oppostie but equal deities one good the other evil: Ahura Masda and Ahriman in this case) unlike in CHristianity there "devil" is a god equal to there power for good. Thats a common mistake. Also theres a lot of debate about how old the religion is. Some scholars date it very recently making it older then christianity but younger then Judaism.

The funny thing about religion is that it always seems like someone heard from God. Prime example the Mormom religion. Just newer than the rest but still believes it is the one true religion and continues to build it's followers.

But they all seem to have a common root.

Well they have to have heard from their "god"... Otherwise, they wouldn't have any reason to create the religion in the first place. What good is a religion without its inspiration? It's useless really.

If you meet a tribe of primitive natives on an island that has never seen any other human beings and you have a flashlights, a radio, a cigarette lighter, glow sticks, a helicopter, and so on and so on you would be a GOD to them for sure.

Is this how the first singular religion started by a superior being coming upon the scene.

But is it a god they;re accually hearing...

It's just as easy to say you are, and play off of people who are already very impressionable to such things. It's like with all these "I see Virgin Mary in *insert some mondane item here" or I saw Jesus in *insert mondane item here*

They already have it in thier mind about these things... all it takes is a creative bit of imagination to spark a frenzy.

Let me post it again...

The religions of Hindu, Buddha, Greece, Egyptian, Norse, or other religions out there were sometimes started to explain the unexplained, to ease the civilizations in a time of conflict, to intruduce a philosophy that would inflict high wisdom among a population.

Religion doesn't always have to have an inspiration. Its not useless, it sometimes proved successful in installing a safe wisdom.

Well that's pretty much the heart of it all right there...



Each of those "religions" you named has an inspirtation; the unknown. If that was the point you were trying to prove, that religions don't need divine inspiration, then I don't think you proved it. All of these religions, ended up creating little divine beings out of an attempt to prove the unknowable. On that note, religions DO need to have an inspiration. All you have shown is that they can vary.

And I believe that the worship of a god often is useless... It is the philosophy that we can recieve from the religions, the golden rule, thou shalt not kill, etc, that we should take from these. These are the things that can better our relationships with one another which should be our purpose more so than selfishly seeking salvation for yourself in my opinion. So I suppose from that angle, religions aren't useless because they gave these things. Yet, they weren't necessary in devising them. We still created these ideals on our own. They were made for man, by man.

So Halio are you saying that religion is just made up to calm down the masses

The sumerian religon as far as I know is the first religon, at least its been dated back the furthest. Its also been shown the Egyptian,greek, roman, hindu, christian religons stem from the ancient sumerian belief system.

Did the sumerian worship onr or many gods?

The Sumerians worshipped many gods, among them were...

An, the god of heaven
Nammu, Mother Goddess
Inanna, goddess of war and love

Among other ones...

They also believed that the gods created them from clay for the sole purpose of serving them, and that they were punished through the use of earthquakes. Basically, they believed they were powerless against the gods. This depressed viewing of life is also continued in the afterlife where the Sumerians believed that you would live out a miserable existence as a ghost, or Gidim.

(It is important to note that their "gods" varied differently between the towns because each city had their own twist on them)

But if you go further back before them... you'll see shamanism among our develouping ancestors. Pre civilizations.

Shamanism is like the belief in spirits not necessarily gods I thought

I'm sorry but Religion is many things useless has never been one of them. Many of the greatest endeavours were driven by ideals, belief and faith. Reverend Matrin Luther King Jr was spurred by his faith in God as was Gandhi. Thousands the world over find hope and the strength to keep going in a world that simply doesn't care any more through religion(its not the only way but its one of the oldest). It also gives us a way of answering questions science simply can't(why are we here for example).