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What do you think is the oldest religion in the world ?


I think it's the worship of trees which predates humanity and goes back to our ape ancestors who lived in trees and humans just inherited it and carried on with it.

That is my theory, and it belongs to me. - Anne Elk


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Animism and ancestor worship - the golden oldies. Later, sol worship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_deity

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Yes the worship of trees is a subset of animism I guess. That was one of the downsides to monotheism in that it took the sacred out of the world we live in and made it an externalised thing ( God was out there and the embodiment of all that was sacred ) so the world was no longer sacred but just a thing. Talk about your Original Sins.


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Interesting observation, Quasi. I suppose it reflects the impetus to sequester the sacred behind various corporate 'fronts', starting with the priests in the villages & city-states, going forward. Early oligarchy.

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Thanks but it's not my observation. I got it from the English historian Tom Holland who writes and talks about the ancient Greeks, Romans and Christians and Christianity as well, among other things.

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He got it from his uncle Ben, actually.

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Lol. I thought Holland's spiderman didn't have an Uncle Ben anymore. They took him out of spiderman movies because of the racism of Uncle Ben.

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Uncle Ben was a racist?

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So they say. That's why they had to take him out of the Spiderman movies and off of the front of instant rice pouches. He used to be a slave and we shouldn't be making money off of him.

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There is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Is a simple worship a religion? Were they even actually worship the trees, or just some kind of agriculture?

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I'm sorry, I only want questions about the actual trees.

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Religion is politics, politics is religion. I think the one feature to distinguish a worship of trees was religion or not is that were there some kind of ape overlord that forced the other ape people to also worship the trees regardless of what they actually believe.

One day king ape knocked his forehead into this tree, a few months later it fruits. Now everybody must knock their forehead into the trees so that we get all the fruits. Everyone that don't do it will be shunned from the community and excommunicated.

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You're not taking this seriously.

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Ok, let's change it into everyone that don't do it will be cancelled on Twitter. NOW it's a serious business!

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That's better !

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Maybe I'll take a leaf out of your book. OTOH it might make me a sap.

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You wooden want to go out on a limb.

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some dude worshipping a stick or rock

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Maybe both a stick and a rock at the same time. After all there's nothing to say that our ancient ancestors weren't just as sophisticated as we are !

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Judging from the box office returns looks like some people still worship the rock today.

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ha ha ha

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Sun worship

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Sun worship probably came after pretty advanced (at the time) agriculture.

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But maybe I would have worshipped something that brought warmth after a chilly night...even if I was a lowly hunter-gatherer!

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That actually makes total sense. Probably after a long dark night in the winter, people would cheer when the sun rises.

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But you see, we have it all wrong...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llI-W8CuEUg

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Funnily enough the only full on religious experience I have had was with the Sun God. And I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it. Go to Egypt ? Try to resurrect the cult of Ra ? I'm in a quandary !

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Go to Japan. They still worship the sun to this day. It's even their national flag.

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It’s a very pretty flag, it’s quite lovely.
Oh What a flag!

One of my Great Uncles saw a Japanese Imperialist bastard carrying that flag and shot him dead and brought that ‘Rising Sun’ flag home and hung it in his shed.
The old Lads drank beers and admired it.

True story.



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I was just about to say the same thing.

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That would be my guess as well.

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The oldest religion in the world involved magic spell rituals wishing for successful hunting. There are numerous stone age cave paintings around the world showing these successful hunts which they wanted turned into reality.
https://pammy658.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/ec84ad1f72f218a770c2859306f47891.jpg?w=384&h=297

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Looked like a 5 yo drew that.

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Cave paintings have lasted for thousands of years. They did something right.

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An interesting, enjoyable movie I saw recently https://moviechat.org/tt3014910/Altamira

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Onanism

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Ah, so that's why Kowalsi is looking for OnanTheBarbarian! It all makes sense now!

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It's all falling into place.

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trees have dna and bleed if you shoot them

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