Oldest Religion

Alright, currently I am watching Escape from New York, and it’s 10:40 pm. My roommate came out and we watched a couple of tik tok and the discussion of what is the oldest religion came up. Now I have stated before that I am a Theravada Buddhist. As well as a spiritualist, so this did make me question. It’s not Christianity nor Judaism, well none of the Abrahamic faiths really, including Islam.

So I did a little looking up, and just from a cursory google search, it’s Hinduism. However researching it, it really isn’t, because Hinduism is more of a modern take of an older religion. So, the oldest is more of primal Hinduism.

Looking up a timeline of religion, the oldest is from 10,000 BCE. That’s a huge time span between the Baghor stone, and Sumer, in the 4th century BCE. Even Göbekli Tepe wasn’t a religious sight until the era of 9130 BCE and 7370 BCE, as far as they can tell. It’s a wonderful game of telephone.

Even the Baghor stone, which may be Kali, is so old, we cannot be sure. Then also take into account the Proto-Indo European language theory, and everything just is covered in darkness. It is one of the frustrating things, we’ve lost so much, and sometime we loose things because of how damaging wars can be. Even now during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, they are targeting museums. We are lucky to have any information from the past.

It is true though, that religions from the Middle East, share similarities to Hinduism. Religions do that, even early Christianity did that. Zoroastranism, really did shape early Abrahamic religions. There are so many paths to spiritual learning, and we all act like we know the right path. But, honestly, what is the oldest religion question, showcases how silly it is to be certain about anything. Go far enough back in the story that is the human race, and everything become fuzzy and disappears. Just like the question, what is the oldest country, it’s a question, that cannot be answered. There are so many factors that could be considered.

Even asking this question, I am still a Buddhist, I still view it as the right path towards understanding. Even if as a spiritualist I try to also understand by tracing religion backwards. It is also a question that makes me feel humbled, because it shows how much history the human race has, how much it’s endured. And how much could be lost. I don’t know, I feel like understanding, learning, and growing is something that the human race should strive for.