oldest religion?

Question

The oldest civilzation is the indus civilization, but wat is the oldest religion? My teacher said it was hinduism.

Hinduism also states in the vedas that it is over 100, 000 years old, and the adam's bridge is evidence.

i know that budhism came from hinduism and islam is very recent. Christianity isn't very old, because it came from Judaism.

Answer 1

The oldest surviving religion of the major religions in the world is Hinduism although modern-day Hinduism differs from what was practiced in the Indus millennia ago. Prehistoric artifacts that are believed to foreshadow certain Hindu beliefs (such as an image thought to be Pashupati, a form of Shiva) have been found. However, like apologists for all religions, certain Hindus like to give their belief systems and the scriptures very ancient dates--which cannot be proven and are more often disproven. The earliest Hindu scriptures date to the first millenineum BC. See the note by Laptop Jesus. He's got it right on target.

Buddhism and Jainism were offshoots of Hinduism, emerging in about the 6th century BC.

Animism and Shamanism are not "religions" per se but aspects of cultural and religious thought and practice.

Answer 2

It all depends on how you define "religion". Of the 5 biggest religions (Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism), Hinduism is certainly the oldest. However, there are certainly practices older than that.

The problem is that the further back you go, it's harder and harder to look at artifacts and decide what could be called an actual religion and what was an isolated belief or ceremonial practice. Burying the dead is believed to be the "oldest religious practice". But again, there's no fine line between a group of related ceremonies and an actual organized religion.

I have to laugh at the people here who actually take their religion's creation story as proof that their religion was the first in existence. Such a hopeless lot.

Answer 3

Hinduism is not a religion just like Shamanism..organized religion is made by man to segregate and manipulate(not saying they dont have divine inspiration but its foolish to take everything literally: hard to interpret meanings). God made Earth and the first people to live on it were dinosaurs not adam and eve, maybe other creatures existed before that too. Did A hot goat with big Ti**(satan) create them? People telling adam and eve to be the first are apparently high on weed. So my parents were not Adam and eve,probably it was tyronosaurus rex or bronchosaurus.
I believe the first to be bootism: i mean however back in time you go, the prevalent species have always gone after the the other gender lol

Answer 4

I would say Shamanism ...but it wasn't really an organized religion so to speak ... It was (and is) more like traditions and ceremonies ...

Hindu may be the oldest organized religion ... Shamanism dates back to the beginning of man...

Edit- I'm sorry I usually don't get into this. But please enough with the blind faith... this is an intellectual question. How can Christianity be the first when it started at the death of Christ ... OMG it's really mind numbing how some of you answer these questions ...

Answer 5

You People are funny, There is no BCE there is Only BC and that means Before Christ. So for some odd reason they are saying that Christ existed and He has it right. Why would people call it BC if there is no Christ? It s not about what religion is oldest to me, It s more about which is the right religion. The Christians got it right.

Answer 6

Hinduism is the first religion which came to the world and its is the most ancient religion known to mankind. Then came other religions like Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism which are all sects of Hinduism. Christianity came after Jewism and then came Islam which is the most modern religion of all religions known.

Answer 7

A little more about Hinduism:

The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism date back to the late Neolithic to the early Harappan period (5500–2600BCE). The beliefs and practices of the pre-classical era (1500–500BCE) are called the "historical Vedic religion". Modern Hinduism grew out of the Vedas, the oldest of which is the Rigveda, dated to 1700–1100BCE.

Answer 8

Hinduism is 100,000 years old? How cute. Do you believe that the earliest form of religion could still be around today? Sure.

Answer 9

Oldest ORGANIZED religion yes.

but local animistic and shamanistic beliefs are as old as human cognitive thinking.

For the people who are retarded enough to claim Christianity.. how about this... Neither Christ or any of his followers were even Christians. They were Jews plain and simple.

And for the other people who claim Adam and Eve as the first people thus making Judaism or again, unbelievably, Christianity... think again... the covenant began with Abraham. Not Adam and Eve.

Answer 10

Organized religion developed from folk religion, which is at least 45,000 years old (with at least some disputed evidence pointing to as old as 70,000 years).