-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What was the First Religion?
- Thread starter Sunstone
- Start date
I think that's a good point.
It wouldn't surprise me if other social animals have the foundations of religion, particularly other primates. But since we can't exactly communicate with them that well, it's hard to say. And I'm not up on nonhuman animal cognitive science right now. I do know that the mourning/burial rituals of some nonhuman animals are suggestive, though.
Indeed.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I think it was fire. It held "power" keeping predators at bay, and provided warmth and comfort for early man. If it extinguished, they would need to seek fire again for it's protection and benefits.
dyanaprajna2011
Dharmapala
If we're talking about actual religions, Hinduism, or rather, the Vedic religion, is the earliest, still practiced religion. All religions of today can be traced back to that.
If you're talking about religious practices in the earliest man, burial rituals seem to be the oldest form of religion.
If you're talking about religious practices in the earliest man, burial rituals seem to be the oldest form of religion.
outhouse
Atheistically
I stated natural events here once and was chewed out LOL
Fire is a powerful tool. But I think a fraction of what were really dealing with. You have fertility and death, besides natural events all combined with human emotion and parental insticnts.
Maybe early religion was a combination of these elements out of their direct control in different degrees depending on geographic location as we see now.
outhouse
Atheistically
Or burial rituals are the oldest that anthropology has found.
Next would be possible fertility deities with the Venus figurines found predating any civilization.
At this point were really just having fun poking in the dark on this topic
Depending on how you define religion exactly, it was probably something in the sequence of
1. fear of natural events ->
2. desire to communicate with / control them ->
3. establishment of concepts ->
4. establishment of powers and social roles ->
5. establishment of administrative structures and politics
Paganism involves all five levels.
Shamanism involves levels 4 and 5.
Animism involves levels 1 to 3.
Theism involves levels 2 and 3.
Monotheism is hinted at in level 1 and fully developed in levels 3-4.
Politheism IMO developed after Monotheism at some point of level 3.
So, in approximate speculative historical order:
Animism, (embrionary) Monotheism, Theism, Paganism, (fully formed) Monotheism, Politheism, (ritualistic and politically-oriented) Monotheism, Shamanism.
I consider Monotheism to predate Politheism and even Theism itself because I see the concept of God as being anthropologically tied to the concept of self, and human beings have an odd tendency to see existence as an direct extension of the self. So embrionary Monotheism actually predates the concept of God, existing as a vague sense that it must possible to bargain with Existence itself.
1. fear of natural events ->
2. desire to communicate with / control them ->
3. establishment of concepts ->
4. establishment of powers and social roles ->
5. establishment of administrative structures and politics
Paganism involves all five levels.
Shamanism involves levels 4 and 5.
Animism involves levels 1 to 3.
Theism involves levels 2 and 3.
Monotheism is hinted at in level 1 and fully developed in levels 3-4.
Politheism IMO developed after Monotheism at some point of level 3.
So, in approximate speculative historical order:
Animism, (embrionary) Monotheism, Theism, Paganism, (fully formed) Monotheism, Politheism, (ritualistic and politically-oriented) Monotheism, Shamanism.
I consider Monotheism to predate Politheism and even Theism itself because I see the concept of God as being anthropologically tied to the concept of self, and human beings have an odd tendency to see existence as an direct extension of the self. So embrionary Monotheism actually predates the concept of God, existing as a vague sense that it must possible to bargain with Existence itself.
dyanaprajna2011
Dharmapala
Or burial rituals are the oldest that anthropology has found.
Next would be possible fertility deities with the Venus figurines found predating any civilization.
At this point were really just having fun poking in the dark on this topic
Yep.
Hitchey
Member
I wonder if the Venus figurines were more about sympathetic magic and less about representing female fertility deities?
Hitchey
Member
Jane Goodall witnessed something interesting during her time observing chimps in the wild. One of those sudden, violent, tropical storms we hear about elicited an unusual group behaviour in a troop she was studying. The females and young gathered in a clearing, huddled together, while the larger males grabbed branches, hurled sticks and noisily rushed about screaming and attacking the vegetation near them. Goodall simply described the event without providing comment on it in her book, but for me it caused me to wonder whether this was how religion began and whether this exhibition the chimps put on was their effort to ward off the storm. In the end the exuberant males joined the females in the clearing and waited for the weather to clear.
God teaching Adam and Eve, and His Eternal Law was and still is the the main characteristic of it.
Gaura Priya
IRL
If I may, I would imagine that the First Religion, the Primal Religion, was that of self-awareness.
I feel that as human beings evolved to our modern-day homo sapiens, we became aware. We became aware of self and aware of mortality, as well as our own presence and place in the universe.
It was because of this awareness of mortality and self, and the very fear that we may as well be alone, that humans began developing a sense of the mystique. This evolution of conscious thinking began to characterise forces of nature, animals, and even other human beings as entities with spirit, with the spark of life-essence. That not only were we ourselves brimming with spirit and life, but other things did too. We personified life to cope with it.
Then human beings began explaining away the causes of life and death, and of natural and cosmic occurrences. To me, this is probably the first institutionalisation of religion.
Inasmuch as I am religious myself, I must say that I feel religion and spirituality are psychological coping mechanisms, and a cultural-sociological structure that originally had utilitarian benefits. But maybe, just maybe, there is a spiritual abode, the realm of Vaikuntha out there?
I feel that as human beings evolved to our modern-day homo sapiens, we became aware. We became aware of self and aware of mortality, as well as our own presence and place in the universe.
It was because of this awareness of mortality and self, and the very fear that we may as well be alone, that humans began developing a sense of the mystique. This evolution of conscious thinking began to characterise forces of nature, animals, and even other human beings as entities with spirit, with the spark of life-essence. That not only were we ourselves brimming with spirit and life, but other things did too. We personified life to cope with it.
Then human beings began explaining away the causes of life and death, and of natural and cosmic occurrences. To me, this is probably the first institutionalisation of religion.
Inasmuch as I am religious myself, I must say that I feel religion and spirituality are psychological coping mechanisms, and a cultural-sociological structure that originally had utilitarian benefits. But maybe, just maybe, there is a spiritual abode, the realm of Vaikuntha out there?
Last edited:
painted wolf
Grey Muzzle
I don't think we can ever know, nor would we recognize the first religious experimentation of our deep ancestors.
It's all well and good to label us animists as "primitive" and somehow our religion evolved into the more "advanced" religions of "civilized cultures".... but it's a crock of dung.
Animism has been evolving as a set of beliefs and practices and modern animism is not the same as what would have been practiced even several hundred years ago. Animism is a deeply personal form of religious practice that evolves quickly as new generations pass on information and personal ideas. It tends to adapt rapidly to new situations.
wa:do
It's all well and good to label us animists as "primitive" and somehow our religion evolved into the more "advanced" religions of "civilized cultures".... but it's a crock of dung.
Animism has been evolving as a set of beliefs and practices and modern animism is not the same as what would have been practiced even several hundred years ago. Animism is a deeply personal form of religious practice that evolves quickly as new generations pass on information and personal ideas. It tends to adapt rapidly to new situations.
wa:do
johnhanks
Well-Known Member
Odd that this "main characteristic" was so readily forgotten by the vast majority of Adam and Eve's descendants around the world.
Kilgore Trout
Misanthropic Humanist
I doubt "religion" was meaningfully distinguishable or separate from all other aspects of living for vast swaths of our early history.
There's no way of knowing. But the Neanderthals had what MIGHT be considered a belief in the spirit world. Their dead were buried in fetal position and there were artifacts- like knifes found buried with the bodies. What it means would only be speculation, however.
Last edited:
arthra
Baha'i
There is a Hidden Word which was revealed by Baha'u'llah in Persian on the banks of the Tigris that I think may relate to the question.. and I quote it below... There may be a sense in which we as humans in a primordial sense were present.
O My Friends!
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in
those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all
gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life,
which is planted in the all-glorious paradise?
Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words:
O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine,
never desire that which I have not desired for you,
and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings.
Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present
hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth
of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.
In the Qur'an Surat Al A'raf has:
And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes, we have testified." [This] - lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were of this unaware."
O My Friends!
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in
those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all
gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life,
which is planted in the all-glorious paradise?
Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words:
O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine,
never desire that which I have not desired for you,
and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings.
Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present
hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth
of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you.
In the Qur'an Surat Al A'raf has:
And [mention] when your Lord took from the children of Adam - from their loins - their descendants and made them testify of themselves, [saying to them], "Am I not your Lord?" They said, "Yes, we have testified." [This] - lest you should say on the day of Resurrection, "Indeed, we were of this unaware."