: :Whoa, nellie. Besides the fact that many /much/ older religions : are still : :around (Buddhism, Hinduism, etc) you've missed a very important one: : :adoption. : : But in the scheme of human civilization say "n" years (where "n" is the : number of years ago that the rise of language skills and the gathering of : people into cohesive social groups larger than families), these : are relative : newcomers.
How do you know? Okay, we can date Buddhism, since we know roughly when Buddha was alive. Same with Christianity. However, Hinduism is a different story. The earliest written (as opposed to sketched) records from that area are religious texts from the Hindu faith. How long before being cannonized in text were these beliefs around? How can we know what was worshipped and in what manner before records were left? For all we know, neanderthals were monotheistic but illiterate. Yes, we get clues from cave paintings and other art, but that's hard to determine. Did Thog paint buffalo on his cave wall because he worshipped them, was a badass buffalo hunter, or just had a buffalo fetish? In my opinion, they were painted because they were an important part of his life and on his mind a lot of the time. In much the same way, if you look at my doodles, they tend to be geometric because I think mathematically. In any case, the point is that we don't really know what religion was like in prehistoric times, simply because the times were prehistoric. How's that for QED? --BenD ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?forumid=5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/index.cfm?method=subscribe&forumid=5 This list and all House of Fusion resources hosted by CFHosting.com. The place for dependable ColdFusion Hosting. http://www.cfhosting.com Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
