Huh Neat
https://www.britannica.com/story/which-religion-is-the-oldest
Adherents hold that Hinduism—one of the principal faiths in the modern world, with about one billion followers—is the world’s oldest religion, with complete scriptural texts dating back 3,000 years. The oral tradition that gave rise to the Mahabharata, for example, probably dates to about 850 BCE, although its written Sanskrit form is about 400 years younger.
So Hinduism is around 3000 years old.
https://www.aboriginal-art-australia.com/aboriginal-art-library/rainbow-serpent/
Scientists have found that the first paintings of the Rainbow Serpent appear in Arnhem Land rock art between 6000 to 8000 years ago after the last Ice Age when the seas rose. After much research it was discovered that the first snake images would have appeared after the rising of the seas due to the direct climate change.
So, the worship of the Rainbow Serpent (The central figure in many Indigenous Australian religions) has Hinduism beat by at least 3,000 years.
Midnight1938@reddthat.com 4 days ago
Sadbutdru@sopuli.xyz 4 days ago
You might have a point about the rainbow serpent being the oldest continuously worshipped deity.
But there is evidence of religion in the form of ritual burial from long before humans first went to Australia. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion
I guess we need to think about how you define religion, but as I imagine the lives of early humans, their group’s success, or even survival, depended so much on the whims of forces they did not understand. Our brains are so good at pattern recognition and hardwired for social living, that we inevitably see the randomness of weather or prey migration patterns as the results of our actions, imagine some spirit/god has control over certain things, and then start to organise our society around ceremonies to placate these powerful forces.
Tldr depending how you define it, i think religion is the default human way of knowing the world
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 4 days ago
Yeah, I don’t think humans are ever getting all the way to antibiotics and moon landings without first using religion to acquire that fundamental knowledge which is so useful for survival. Jewish people don’t eat pigs because they carry disease. Indigenous Australians care for the environment so well because of their totemic connections to it (I could write a whole comment about this alone, let Me know if you want to hear more). Newton discovered gravity while looking for beauty in the Lord’s works. Greeks sacrificed foods to the gods, and thereby ensured their productive capacity always exceeded demand, limiting overpopulation.
Kill the first religions, and you either delay religion a few hundred years, or stunt humanity at the stone age forever.