Hinduism is the world's oldest religion, according to many scholars, with roots and customs dating back more than 4,000 years. Today, with more than 1 billion followers, Hinduism is the third-largest religion worldwide, after Christianity and Islam.
Adherents hold that Hinduism—one of the principal faiths in the modern world, with about one billion followers—is the world's oldest religion, with complete scriptural texts dating back 3,000 years.
Prehistoric evidence of religion. The exact time when humans first became religious remains unknown, however research in evolutionary archaeology shows credible evidence of religious/ritualistic behavior from around the Middle Paleolithic era (45–200 thousand years ago).
One idea is that, as humans evolved from small hunter-gatherer tribes into large agrarian cultures, our ancestors needed to encourage cooperation and tolerance among relative strangers. Religion then—along with the belief in a moralizing God—was a cultural adaptation to these challenges.
Before Christianity, two major monotheistic religions existed in the ancient Mediterranean area. Explore the similarities and differences between Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and emerging Christianity, and how the empire initially accommodated their teachings and actions.
Of course, Jesus was a Jew. He was born of a Jewish mother, in Galilee, a Jewish part of the world. All of his friends, associates, colleagues, disciples, all of them were Jews. He regularly worshipped in Jewish communal worship, what we call synagogues.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
There are also motivational reasons for religious belief. People who are socially isolated tend to have more religious faith, perhaps allowing them to feel they're not truly alone. Likewise, people facing death are more likely to express faith in God and an afterlife.
Some people argue that we need religion to be moral - to give us a sense of right and wrong, and help us be 'good'. It sets a standard for good behaviour and punishes the bad. Others would say that it is perfectly possible to be moral and happy without believing in God or gods.
Some scientists posit that “big groups” prompted the creation of “big gods” who could enforce order and cooperation in unruly societies. Other researchers hypothesize the reverse: that humans first created “big god” religions in order to coordinate larger and larger social groups.
Christianity developed out of Second Temple Judaism in the 1st century CE. It is founded on the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and those who follow it are called Christians. Islam developed in the 7th century CE.
Last but not least in our timeline of world religions is Sikhi. Around 500 years ago the Sikh faith was founded in Punjab, South Asia, by a man called Guru Nanak Dev Ji. At the time, Hindu Dharma and Islam were the predominant faiths in Asia.
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, "the Bible has been the principal source of the conceptions of God". That the Bible "includes many different images, concepts, and ways of thinking about" God has resulted in perpetual "disagreements about how God is to be conceived and understood".
The Church of the Firstborn was a sect of the Latter Day Saint movement that formed as an offshoot of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1861 and was involved in the Morrisite War. Its adherents were known as Morrisites, and schismatic sects have been defunct since 1969, excepting the Order of Enoch.
Humans can live without religion but they can't live without spirituality. These are two different entities yet get intertwined due to the lack of awareness among the people. It is a matter of fact that we humans are trivial in this universe.
Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social and historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence, the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief.
All human persons are naturally religious if by that we mean that they possess, by virtue of their given ontological being, a complex set of innate features, capacities, powers, limitations, and tendencies that capacitate them to be religious (i.e., to think, perceive, feel, imagine, desire, and act religiously), and ...
The Pew Research Center poll of scientists also found that levels of religious faith vary according to scientific specialty and age. For instance, chemists are more likely to believe in God (41%) than those who work in the other major scientific fields.
While the Nones include agnostics and atheists, most people in this category retain a belief in God or some higher power. Many describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious,” or “SBNR,” as researchers refer to them.
Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity or god, although there are supernatural figures who can help or hinder people on the path towards enlightenment. Born on the Nepali side of the present day Nepal-India border, Siddhartha Gautama was a prince around the fifth century B.C.E.
Jesus' name in Hebrew was “Yeshua” which translates to English as Joshua. So how did we get the name “Jesus”? And is “Christ” a last name? Watch the episode to find out!
Traditional Jewish exegesis such as Midrash says that Adam spoke the Hebrew language because the names he gives Eve – Isha and Chava – only make sense in Hebrew. By contrast, Kabbalism assumed an "eternal Torah" which was not identical to the Torah written in Hebrew.
However, perhaps the best witness to the books that Jesus would have considered Scripture is the New Testament, which cites and quotes the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament), many books of the former and latter Prophets, Job, Psalms and Proverbs.