Religion thread! Where when and how did the first "religion

The bicameral mind.

Basically at the very beginning, when laguange was just starting to be used, we were primarily right brained. When we were right brained oriented we would hallucinate voices, usually of the village leader or someone of authority. They were simple commands like "fight" and "run". The voices of the authoritative figure would remain for a while after death, which gave us the idea of life after death.

>>15606391
Some dude tripped really hard and realized he could control the world. Thus religion was born.

>>15606398
this

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>>15606391
Probably somewhere far away from our planet in location and time.

If you're talking about religion on earth it probably started about 12000 years ago when people started to think about how important the sun was instead of just knowing it was important...if you believe what them history boks say.

Religion was created when the first con man met the first fool

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>>15606428
lel 3pidgy5mewtwo bro religion sucks huh? All it does is control us and enact shitty moral parameters that keep us alive for thousands of years until we can grow out of the idiotic shit and keep the good lessons like don't eat shit...or babies.

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>>15606391
the first ideas that we would call 'religious' in nature probably started around the 50,000 BPE mark; lacking anything else but elusive archaeological objects, we can't say if there were any specific gods or higher beings. Around the middle to late palaeolithic there are more expressions of what could be termed a symbolic discourse with the world, and shortly before the neolithic revolution there is a noticeable increase in symbolic expressions tied to specific signs - the aurochs (bos primigenius primigenius) as masculine numinous power, the leopard and vulture as liminal guardian/enemy types (aka apotropaic beings), the human female form for the female numinous power...
if you're interested in that kind of stuff, look for stuff on Gobekli Tepe and Catalhoyuk, both in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey).. Earliest sites with clear cultic imagery and function(s).

After that, there's the pretty numinous era of the neolithic, fading gracefully into the chalcolithic and the invention of writing, and thus, history.

There wasn't a word "religion" in the ancient languages that were in use when what you probably think of as religion developed. The earliest records are from ancient Sumer, with incredibly long and complex god lists numbering more than 1700 gods, or administrative records informing us about the regular and special sacrifices made to gods within the all-permeating cult.

as a society mirrors its gods and gods mirror their society, the development of "religion" in the cradle of civilisation was pretty impressive.

The book-religions based on the OT have been heavily influenced by their bronze age levantine/canaanite religious surroundings, which were in turn strongly influenced by the Mesopotamian religious concepts. The exile in Babylon etc. exposed the jewish tribes to Mesopotamian culture, history and historiography as well as a politically charged religious rhetoric, thus in turn influencing the Jewish tradition, Christianity and Islam.

etc.

>>15606408
These right brainers sound like a real problem in need of taking of care of, no?! Them and their audible hallucinations?

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>>15606398
appealing theory

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>>15606398
>>15606408
>>15606452

>http://www.functionalneurology.com/materiale_cic/224_XXII_1/2108_the%20bicamiral/index.html

>>15606473
I'm far too drunk to read this all the way is it talking about how the brain works together all the time and not just one hemisphere at a time or what?

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>>15606478
it basically explains the bicameral mind theory and then explains why there's only very weak evidence for it based on the neurocognitive and philological ideas the original writer used in his argument.

with modern research into cognition and neuroimagining we are pretty much able to say that the bicameral mind theory isn't really that much of an accurately formed hypothesis at all. good ideas inside, but the idea of the bicameral mind has to ignore lots of modern sciences in order to remain standing.

and cheers. I'm far too wasted as well.

>>15606490
Thanks man preciate the explanation what the fuck are our drunk asses doing on /x/ right now anyway?

There's actually an old theory by the anthropologist, Sir Edward Tylor who believed that it first came from people wondering about the difference between a dead body and a living body. Why does man go into states of waking, sleeping, dreaming, trance etc?
There's also the appearance of human shapes within dreams and visions. Religion was merely a rational way for man to interact intellectually with phenomena that exists beyond common sense.

Animism. As soon as humans and our relatives became smart enough to wonder "why", and have, albeit basic, philosophy on life and death.

The first religious beliefs were probably related to therianthropy.

>>15606490

The problem is the human brain is far more dynamic in the relationship between its parts to divide into functions of "left" and "right"

I think the theory probably made sense though to people of a more Cartesian dualist persuasion, which is why it's probably stuck with us for so long.

It also serves as a good tool to illustrate the differences between the functionalist and creative aspects of human consciousness.

>>15606391
religion
A) knowledge and superstition woven together into a construct of deception and piety - organized
B) knowledge of the natural kept secret (like medicine) -> esoteric for outsiders - shamanic (witches, druids)

supernatural believes
lack of knowledge, mind altering substances/training and dreams
Plus either existence of other realities or simply a quirk of nature (body and mind corelated fallacies)

>>15606496
Oh you know how it is - early morning, fucked, ...

>>15607750
Definitely agree with you there.

>>15607736
Care to explain?

>>15607959
A) is only applicable to organised religions B) is just random and has nothing to do with religion.

>>15607959

Religion=an organized respect and veneration of the "sacred"

that's it.

>>15606447
Why would Godchan create imperfect humans, anon?

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As other anons specified, I'd speculate that religion was originated to appease the fool and please the conman.

As for supernatural beliefs--I'd speculate that what the Stoned Ape theory is viable; as for one to reach an altered state of consciousness, one must induce those states by substance or death/dreaming.

I'm more upset that no one seems to have an honest clue what's going on around here.

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around the time we apreciated the idea of things and projected idea's as you know im going to screw that girl someday. the first firtility idols were made, ancient dildoes and 'venus' figurines.

>>15608614
so around the time we were planning, and art.

>>15608580
>As other anons specified, I'd speculate that religion was originated to appease the fool and please the conman.

The problem I'd say here is that this is a complete redefinition of the term "religio" which is the origin of the word "religion"

The use of the term religion to refer in a strictly negative sense to a controlling socio-political institution is a mostly modern one in which the definition has been defined in such a way as to confirm certain biases which have been formed by the experiences of a single group. That's why you have people who for all intents and purposes fit the profile of the sociological phenomenon known as "religion" but still insist they are not a religion and why some people want to categorize shamanistic religions as "spiritualist" rather than "religious" movements.

Part of the issue has to do though with a lot of Western European conceptions of religion as synonymous with the power, authority and organizational structure of the Catholic Church. Thus, any movement which doesn't quite match the Catholic Church in terms of structure or clerical organization tends to cause confusion for Western minds, especially when some of these traditions don't have a real world for "religion" as a separate aspect of life because their "religions" tend to encompass every aspect of daily life. In Catholic Europe, one could say there was always a separation of church and state because "the church" was more or less an independent social and political entity. This kind of separation between the secular and the religious can't really be applied to traditions like Shintoism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam or Judaism, maybe to Buddhism or Hinduism, but that might be a stretch too.

Summerians were one of if not the first recorded civilisation. Look into their religion.

I would say, since people first realized what birth and death really meant.
I imagine the first burial was the result of a religious thought

>>15608681

Death is pretty fucking scary when you think about it. And in an age when you didn't have TV, movies, comics, vidya games and all sorts of other distractions from the thought of your own imminent demise, it was probably twice as scary.

>>15608677
This.

>>15608690
Yeah this is why people succumb. Now and then. Back then would have been a lot more chaotic though and lawlessness would be rife.. They needed a means of control

>>15608747

>They needed a means of control

is that wrong though? People need some kind of control and they need something to believe in, some kind of flag to rally under. Also, does the fact that a religion can be a sufficient means of social control mean that those who established the world's first religions didn't ultimately have a sincere desire for knowing what the meaning of life was?

I think the main reason why the Marxist understanding of religion falls flat is because it assumes that the motivations for religion were purely materialistic and economical, which I think history has shown is not really the case. People believe and die for religions even if it doesn't serve their materialistic needs. And not all religions placed value on social and political concerns, it's just that the ones that managed to develop a code of ethics and governmental regulations happened to survive because they were most relevant for the greatest number of people. Early Christian Gnostics weren't very politically savvy, nor were groups like the Manichaeans and never managed to form any kind of strong relationship with any local rulers, which is probably why their religions eventually gave way to other religions who managed to develop a doctrine of government that could appeal to both the commoner and the ruling and intellectual classes and at least tried to balance this world and the next a little more.

Religions need to be political in order to survive. They always have been. But this doesn't automatically mean that the concerns of the religion or its origins are purely political and this worldly.

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I believe in reincarnation. As for god nah not really, but I've seen a bunch of weird shit about people having memories of their previous life when they're really young, and then losing them as their brain starts retaining information for their new life.

>>15608797
I like this photo could you kindly explain what is going on in it?

>>15608665
Are these your thoughts?

>you're wrong /x/

bamp

>>15608780
I agree with you. I just feel the powers that be have warped most religions over the years. But if a religion makes you a better person then I'm all for it

>>15606391
Religion began in one of six ways, or more accurately, all religions stem from five, possibly six sources. 1: Someone died and people lved that person so they made rituals to pretend they were still alive. 2: Someone died and people despised/feared them and made rituals to ensure they stayed dead.

3: People needed nature to provide something, so they made spirits tp pray to to give them that. 4: People seriously needed nature to stop doing something, so they made spirits to pray to to get it to stop.

5: A huckster realized he could get sex, money and fame by claiming to be a holy mam. 6: Someone thinks they actually spoke to god.

>you're wrong /x/

bamp

>>15608614
Lemme guess, you read Taylor's Prehistory of Sex?

>>15608677
I posted this shit more verbose, no fucking reaction. Seriously, has it gotten to the point where /x/ needs everything predigested in tiny bits and pieces without causing independent thought to occur?

Fucktards. And I say that with the enthusiasm of a professional in that field.

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Religion springs from spiritual practice leading to enlightenment, and not the other way around. Religion is a symbolic instruction to the ascension towards divinity. Therefore, the first religion had to be postulated by someone divine.

One may wonder how this person became divine. If we look at Kabbalah, the rabbis tell that it was delivered to them by the archangel Metatron. The founder of the Nath Yogis, Matsyendranath, is said to be have been created by Lord Shiva. Many, if not all religions, claim divine roots.

God, in His omnipotence, appears in different forms to different people, because what might appear attractive to one people would appear repulsive to others.

How did He appear first? No one can tell for sure. First off, remember that the magical and mystical traditions have for very long been 'mouth to ear'. Nothing was written down and thus we have nothing to dig up from the sands of time. But even before such matters became systematized, cave paintings hint that the neanderthals was familiar with states of trance.

My guess is that the first religion was highly shamanic in it's practice. Natural forces, such as lighting hitting the oaktree and producing fire, snakes, sun and moon are very prevailent in numerous pantheons, and these archetypes had to come from somewhere.
Many believe that the different mythologies are explanations for natural forces by the primitive people, but it's quite plausible that the notion of divinity was clad in the form of natural forces, in the symbolic language of imagination, still used today in all religions.

Shaivism is said to be 8.000 years old, but the earliest textual exposition is dating between 400-200 BCE. The Sumerians have older writings, and much of their mythology has made it's way into the old testament. A certain authority says the Tarot is the oldest book of wisdom. There is reason to believe that the Tarot has roots in the Mesopotamian civilization. Pic related.

>>15606391
I thought what I would do is I would go on /x/ and ask a question nobody could possibly answer, because I knew the do-it-for-free's wouldn't ban me because they're shitheads.

>>15606391
When the first humanoid did shrooms

You want to learn about some old shit do it here
http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/

>>15608614
The ass was fat

>>15610005
and so he saw it was good.

>>15606398

>mfw I was hardcore atheist for 6 years and now I believe in god.
>mfw used to watch, read Hitchens/Dawkins every day
I guess it's a phase I went through. I'm still opposed to Religious fundamentalism and organized religion and conversion. Atheism is for certain people I guess but for me it led to hedonism and nihilism. New atheism has been mostly a political reactionary movement in response to Fundamentalist Islam and it's effects worldwide.

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>>1560639

Religion did not originate in one place or at one time. A similar event happened again and again through out early human existence.

Someone realized they could make up stuff and get people to give them things.

"Booga Booga.
The Sky Wizard is angry.
Give'um chicken or bad ghosts come.

>>15606391
Have you ever had a dream so real that when you woke up from it you weren't certain that it hadn't been? Have you ever had a nightmare so bad you had to check the doors and turn on all the lights?

People have always lived as much in their dreams and imaginations as in reality. As long as we've had speech, we've lived vicariously through stories of others' exploits, some real, some fictional, and us often not knowing quite where one ends and the other begins.

It's only in the past few centuries that people have cared about hard science and its mechanical view of reality. And little wonder, because while that's a mindset that gets results, it's an unsatisfying way to live. Atheists can say what they like, but it's not really trading up to exchange being the plaything of a violent and capricious god for being a speck in a vast and uncaring universe.

>>15609735
Yes.
*snicker*


But seriously though, it's not just /x/, it's society as a whole... really gone down the shitter as far as thought is concerned. Too many nanny states, too much work done for us.

>>15610031
>I guess it's a phase I went through. I'm still opposed to Religious fundamentalism and organized religion and conversion. Atheism is for certain people I guess but for me it led to hedonism and nihilism. New atheism has been mostly a political reactionary movement in response to Fundamentalist Islam and it's effects worldwide.

More or less. I was the same, hardcore atheist (although I detached myself from the movement when I realized how many people were getting in on it just to jump on the bandwagon) until I had a spiritual experience and started investigating such matters further.

>*Or supernatural beliefs)

From experience. Early societies didn't have the scientific tools to explore the nature of the universe externally the way we do these days, but a few used meditation to explore the internal and higher aspects of reality and to gain knowledge of and experience with them.

What we consider "paranormal" was also much more common back then, as people were living more in tune with the natural world, instead of cutting themselves off from the Earth and the flow of her energy, living unnatural lifestyles and filling themselves with artificial chemicals they hadn't evolved to ingest, the way we do now. Every tribe had a shaman to act as a bridge between the material world and the spiritual world, and so they didn't require faith because they experienced what we call "supernatural" directly.

>Where when and how did the first "religion originate?"

Religion was created as a kind of "shell" for spirituality, as society began to move away from tribal living and no longer had their shaman to allow them direct access to the spiritual aspect of reality. Religion worked to convey symbolic concepts to the masses that they didn't have ways of understanding (deities as representations of natural forces, etc. Hinduism is a good example of this) and to introduce them to concepts that they would otherwise need to learn through personal spiritual exploration (duality, unified consciousness and universal love, life after death, the mental nature of reality, the immortal spirit, etc etc).

Guys like Jesus, Lao Tzu, Buddha, Moses, etc. were highly attained spiritual masters who used their understanding to create religions as a tool to increase the spiritual understanding of the majority of people, who weren't ready to devote their lives to spiritual growth, and they reinforced these teachings by performing "miracles" (which, as Apollonius of Tyana said, were really just manifestations of higher natural laws).