which religion is oldest throught out the world and first in earth ( Archived) (22)

From Ask Yahoo:

Dear Yahoo!:
What is the oldest organized religion?
Praying for an Answer
Omaha, Nebraska

Dear Praying:
Hinduism is generally considered to be the oldest religion still being practiced today. This ancient religion was born when the Aryan peoples migrated to Northern India and first put their religious tradition into writing. The texts they created are the Vedas, which were written around 1,500 B.C.E. (before common era) and have greatly influenced Indian culture ever since.
Several other religions are almost as old as Hinduism. Judaism traces its roots back to the patriarch Abraham, who lived around 1,800 B.C.E. While the Jewish people are descended from Abraham, it was Moses who first recorded the Torah, the Jewish holy text, in 1,400 B.C.E. Most sources consider the date of the Torah as the beginning of Judaism.

Zoroastrianism is sometimes called the world's oldest prophetic religion. It's certainly one of the earliest religions founded by one person. Scholars are not certain when the founding prophet Zarathustra actually lived. Some believe Zarathustra lived in the 6th century B.C.E., while others trace his writings to the 14th or 13th centuries B.C.E.

India has been a veritable cradle for world religions -- in addition to Hinduism, both Jainism and Buddhism originated in India. The first of Jainism's sacred lords, called a Tirthankara, lived in the 8th century B.C.E. The last of these lords was Mahavir, who lived in the 5th century B.C.E. and was a key figure in spreading the religion. The philosophical teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, spread around Asia after his death in 483 B.C.E.

Oddly enough, the two religions that dominate the world today are relative newcomers to the spiritual scene. Christianity began with the teachings of Jesus Christ around 30 C.E., and Islam started in 610 C.E. with the prophet Muhammad's revelation.

well my thoughts would be that Sun worship probably came first back when homosapien was just thinking about standing on 2 legs, and they were most likely pure and grateful thoughts. But religions probably were not invented till mankind wanted an excuse to start killing each other!

Those guys probably had it right.

It's there

It's real

. . . . . and without it we'd be pretty well stuffed.

The oldest religion on Earth, would of necessity be the first one on this planet. It was the Sumerian as they are acknowledged as the first recognized civilization to appear.
There is no other name which has come down through the ages other than Sumerian...The ancient "Babylonian" religion(s) that were of original Sumerian ancestry had no official name for their religion that they basically inherited from Sumeria. A few thousand years later the name of Marduk was briefly attached to the general religion but when Babylon collapsed, so did their God Marduk...one could say that then, the oldest was a 'no name religion', sort of the world's first generic religion. Study ancient Sumerian civilization; it is the primeval source of all civilizations and religions.

Religion began when primates evolved enough to notice things happening but were too ignorant to explain it, such as solar eclipses:

Child: "Why is the sky getting dark in the day, daddy?"

Father: "Be...because 'god' is angry!"

Child: "What's a 'god'?"

(The father then proceeds to cut out the child's heart with a stone knife to appease the sun. Seeing the sun return, he assumes cause and effect and continues worshipping and killing.)

Read Joseph Campbell for a better explanation.

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I would think that the people that made the "Venus of Willendorf" probably worshipped some form of Mother/Earth Goddess. And that was around the end of the last ice age 25,000 BC.

Unfortunately the english Wikipedia site on this figurine has a completely different content then the german (austrian) one. On the german site there are more details regarding the time it has been dated to and further figurines around that area.

From my studies [as listed by some here] I have found that the word religion comes from 'religare' which means to bind or have unionization.

Since Sanskrit is the oldest language recorded, it is believed today that Vedic Hinduism and Zoroastrianism are considered the oldest organized religions.

Of course being a Messianic Jew, I still believe that the Abrahamic religion is still the oldest as Adonai's creation was ordained [set forth] before the foundations of the earth was laid.

Elohim Kedoshim