Quote:
Originally posted by Chewbacca:
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
quote:
Originally posted by Chewbacca:
Here is a clear identity. Shamanism in its myriad of forms is the oldest religion in the world.
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Sorry, doesn't wash. It's never been codified, is a collection of nonrelated beliefs, and has had huge gaps between periods of popular practice. You brought no proof of your historical claims, no quotes or bibliography, and yet expect us to believe you? On your word alone?
[/QUOTE]I would think if you really cared you would research shamanism without bias. It may help. It is correlated and documented. It is fact that many shamanic practices and beliefs are similiar, although cultures may have existed on different continents at different times. What is also fact is there was as much variance as similarity. One example is belief in an unseen realm that intersects with the seen. Plants, animals and the earth itsself all have spiritual counterparts, spirits. Now while different cultures placed specific symbolism upon the archtypes available in their enviroment, the general ideology is the same. Native American Trikster is a coyote, where as an african example of a trikster is a spider-godess. In recent times fundamental beliefs inherent to shamanism have pervaded thought in many cirles. Books like the Doa of physics and The Psycology of Shamanism have linked many modern humanistic schools of thought like quantumn physics and psycology to the ancient Shamanic belief of how humans, life and nature work.
The practices of Native Americans, untarnish from christianity until near history in the scope of things is a prime example of a shamanic civilization thats endured from prehistory into practice today.
Worldwide, Shamanism certainly wasnt the first Organized religion, It certainly is the original religion. Unless the world is only 7,000 years old like some claim.[/QUOTE]G'kar that's like me lumping all monotheistic religions under on umbrella. We all believe in a creator. Heck, it's like me lumping all the monotheistic religions AND pantheistic religions together. When you get down to it, people of have have much in common with each other.
What we are talking about is CODIFIED RELIGION, passed down in an unbroken line. Judaism and Hinduism are the only two which can lay claim to origin of belief. All cultures have a creation myth, I'm told most have a flood myth too.
These have writings and standardised practices. There is no way at all of telling whether shamanism, or monotheism existed first with records of them. All we can do is go back to the earliest writings, and say which is the first codified religion.