What is the oldest form of religion? If you can answer this question you need read no further and I am honored with your presence. For the rest of our sakes, I will continue. Since time has no beginning or end we can really only start this quest at the beginning of recorded human history. As I stated earlier, the oldest form of religion among us earth people anyway is spirituality.
We as sentient beings have been curious about our higher selves since we have been conscience, but we didn't organize into groups until the discovery of fire. At that point elements worship began. It is recorded in some Pagan/Elemental religions that this knowledge came from "the stars." It is also believed by some that we used to control the elements.
Somehow from this status we have DE-evolved. "Paganism" (the worship of images) was the oldest and most organized of the systems currently in use today. Paganism consisted of offering services or goods to certain "Deities" in exchange for wisdom and "favors." We have to believe there is a certain amount of merit to this, unless you are an Atheist, because throughout history we see stories surfacing of people doing just these sorts of things. Paganism was accompanied by Elements worship and a really good current example is "Wicca."
In Wicca we believe that nature, or the elements, give us the strength we need to accomplish anything. The main law is "Do as thou wilt, but harm none." It seems simple but in fact it is very difficult if you fully understand it.
Eventually, cults began to form. Feuds about which deities were the best began. The losers became the cults and of course the winners were considered mainstream or the "religion."
This created a lot of conflict. People began to fight and kill each other. It is believed that this "desire" of ours to want to know higher beings attracted the attention of various deities. These deities or "GODS" in turn started to fight for control of us. The oldest record we have surviving today is the "Shivite" tradition. "Shiva" is a Hindu God. It is written that wisdom had radiated from a divine essence and those Gods that had the capacity (in the "world system") to understand, did so. Shiva was one of them.
The wisdom was that we should stop offering "blood" to the gods and the gods were to instruct us in the "TRUTH" and "proper" living. Before this, as I stated earlier, we fought, offered human sacrifice and pretty much abandoned the self. This is the cause for the ban on blood sacrifices and the elimination of the "Mundane God" worshipping. (A mundane god being one who knew not the "truth.") The new wisdom was that we are all interconnected to each other and, for lack of a better term, the "law of karma" was introduced.
This infuriated the mundane gods and war ensued. The mundane gods wanted to maintain control over us and were not about to let us go without a fight. Of course there are many theories of who these mundane gods were. Many religions talk about an "Armageddon" or "Great War" in the heavens. This maybe what they refer to. Eventually, the wise gods conquered the mundane ones and the spiritual state as we now know it began. NOTE (Not all religious systems in use today have strayed too far from the old "element worship" format because they managed to get the "truth" to their followers without much change.)
The truth moved west to the Middle East. The god known as "YHWH" (Yahweh) or "Jehovah" or the one that the Jews believe in the same as Moses, Abraham, Jesus and Mohammed, and the god Shiva are one and the same. The principal of karma still remained in the Ten Commandments, although slightly altered throughout time. Kabbalic and Sufi mysticism are still quite similar to mysticism in the Shivite tradition.
During this time (plus or minus 1000 years) a lot of transformations were taking place. In the "Americas" the natives (except the "Mayas") were beginning to receive wisdom about "The Great Sprit" and were eliminating needless killing. The cultures on this continent are other examples of religions that received the truth without much change. Beings were now being born into our plane of existence for the sole purpose of teaching. "Sakyamuni Buddha" and "Jesus Christ" were two of the most famous.
They brought teachings to upgrade the old systems and as always violence ensued. This time it started with us people. The Buddha was poisoned by one of his disciples and Jesus was crucified. Of course they dedicated their lives to the benefit and enlightenment of all sentient beings and some of their teachings still remain. Christianity came out of Judaism and Buddhism was born from Hinduism. These teachers did not want to start new religions (they actually just came to improve it) but with new truths come new views.
Violence ensued again, of course, as the Hindus tried to oppress the Buddhists. Also, the Jews, along with the help of the Roman Empire, tried to suppress the Christians. As we all know Christianity survived as did Buddhism. Mysteriously, the Buddhists and the Christians alike (maybe it was the times because the Celtic Druids also did this) formed monastic systems to preserve the teachings. The Buddhists believe in freedom of information to the public and that we are pure beings confused by ignorance that must learn evil. The Christians believe in suppressing information, for the sake of the people, and developed the theory of "Original Sin" that we are evil at heart and have to be taught to be good.
The Muslim and Islam religions formed also at this time embracing Kabbalic mysticism with Christian thought putting emphasis on the Old Testament portion of The Holy Bible. To be continued next month...
