The lie

There are religious people who still believe that their religion was the first religion, and that theirs is the one true religion, and that the text for their religion was handed down, fully formed from their god.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The interesting thing about that hopeless understanding is that the leaders and elders in their religion will do nothing to dispel that misunderstanding because it suits them to keep the masses misled. It is also how they wish their religion originated.

The messy topic about how their religion originated is always glossed over by those in charge – usually by wrapping everything up in the neat little bow of (something like) “In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth“. There you go: that explains everything doesn’t it? Well, no.

Pretending that everything to do with origins is contained and explained by the religious texts themselves is, sorry to say, a lie.

Note that many figures and dates are presented on this page. The figures quoted are not meant to be absolutely precise; instead, they have been rounded to be close enough to present the concepts in an easy-to-read manner. No attempt to mislead has been made, but feel free to investigate the topics to get more precise figures if required (links have been provided). Further research is bound to refine any of the dates and figures mentioned, however the concepts raised based on those dates are expected to remain the same.

Some prehistory (science)

The fossil record shows that humans have existed with our current brain capacity for at least 250,000 years, so it seems amazing that not much seems to have happened for about 240,000 of those years, and then an explosion of development occurred, culminating in the 20th century in which we explored the moon and outer solar system, investigated the cosmos, measured atomic and subatomic particles, invented the Internet, combined mustard and tomato sauce in the one bottle, and of course many, many other amazing things.

There have been many ice ages in the history of the Earth, however in the past 500,000 years there have been five distinct mini ice age events, peaking in about the following years: 430,000, 340,000, 260,000, 140,000 and 16,000 BCE. Technically the Earth is still in a long-term ice age (we have ice on the poles), however the most recent mini ice age didn’t effectively wind down until about 9,700 BCE, and that date marks the start of the Holocene epoch – which is the interglacial period in which we all now live. Incidentally, it doesn’t take that much of a change in global mean temperature to define a mini ice age. Our current global mean temperature is somewhere just under 14°C, however the mean temperatures at each of the lows for the recent five mini ice ages were between about 4.5°C and 6.5°C.

In terms of science, Milankovitch Cycles (a Wikipedia link) define three long-term cyclical variations in Earth’s orbit that govern solar radiation:

• Eccentricity (very approx. 100,000-year cycle): Changes the shape of Earth’s orbit from nearly circular to more oval, which dictates our distance from the Sun.
• Obliquity (approx. 41,000-year cycle): Varies the tilt of Earth’s axis between 22.1 and 24.5 degrees. A greater tilt means more extreme seasons. Our current tilt is 23.44 degrees.
• Precession (25,771-year cycle): The “wobble” of Earth’s axis, determining which hemisphere is closest to the Sun during summer.

While these cycles only cause minor changes in the total amount of sunlight reaching Earth, they radically impact where and when that sunlight hits the planet. When the orbital cycles align to cause cool summers in the Northern Hemisphere, winter snow does not fully melt. Over thousands of years, this accumulation of snow forms massive ice sheets.

At the height of the recent mini ice age, the ice grew to more than 2.1 miles (3.5 kilometers) thick as sheets spread across Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and South America, and sea levels lowered by more than 130 yards (120 meters). During the most-recent mini ice age, more than three quarters of the large ice-age animals, including woolly mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed tigers and giant bears died out.

What was life like for humans during and after the most recent ice age? From having a planet which supported abundant hunting and food gathering, humans gradually were subjected to decreasing temperatures, encroaching ice sheets, lower levels of available food, and greater competition for that food. The extinction of many animal species was likely due to the dramatic change in habitat and also due to an increase in hunting by humans.

At a simplistic level, it is easy to believe that human civilisation took a major hit during the last mini ice age and that might well have been enough to “reset” society to pave the way for the introduction of multiple new religions. But if the end of an ice age is enough to cause humans to invent religions, then why didn’t religion get introduced after the end of the other mini ice ages over the past 250,000 years?

Well, perhaps it did, however there isn’t strong evidence for that. There is evidence of human burial from 100,000 BCE and of cremation from about 40,000 BCE, and by about 25,000 BCE there is evidence of burial with objects and of the use of red ochre  – which suggests that there were some thoughts about an afterlife and/or rituals. However if anything is likely to wipe away evidence of religious practices it is a prolonged ice age involving encroaching ice sheets and a more survival-based hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

In the (real) beginning

The obvious question based on the rest of this site is: how could so many religions have happened in such a relatively short space of time in the most recent part of the timeline of human history? The major answer to that question is fairly obvious, however the minor details (and dates) are infuriatingly obscure, and are (probably) lost forever.

The development of religions and religious practices following the end of the most recent mini ice age is undeniable. The following is a list of events, religions, and dates of those practices:

• Between 9,100 and 7,400 BCE there was apparent use of Göbekli Tepe (in modern-day Turkey) – one of the oldest human-made sites of worship yet discovered, and evidence of similar usage has been found in a nearby site at Nevalı Çori. To young-Earth creationists: are you appreciating the devastating importance of this?
• Between 7,500 and 5,700 BCE the settlements of Catalhoyuk (also in modern-day Turkey) developed as a likely spiritual centre of Anatolia, and possibly involved practicing worship in communal shrines.
• Between 3,500 and 2,500 BCE settlements showing religious practices were developing around the Mediterranean, the Indus Valley, Ireland, England, Sumeria and Egypt.
• Between 2,494 and 2,345 BCE the first of the oldest surviving religious texts, the Pyramid Texts, was composed in Ancient Egypt.
• In 2200 BCE the Minoan Civilization developed in Crete, with citizens worshipping a variety of goddesses.
• Between 2,150 and 2,000 BCE the earliest surviving versions of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh were written.
• Between 1,700 and 1,100 BCE the oldest of the Hindu Vedas scriptures, the Rigveda was composed.
• In 1,351 or 1,353 BCE the reign of Akhenaten in Egypt is sometimes credited with starting the earliest known recorded monotheistic religion.
• From 1,250 the Upanishads (Vedic texts) were composed, containing the earliest emergence of some of the central religious concepts of Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
• From 1,200 BCE the Olmecs built the earliest pyramids and temples in Central America.
• Between the 8th to 6th centuries BCE the Chandogya Upanishad was compiled, significant for containing the earliest mention of Krishna.
• Between the 6th to 5th centuries BCE the first five books of the Jewish Tanakh, the Torah were probably compiled. These are also known as the Pentateuch. This is the first mention of what will become the first books (including genesis) of the Old Testament of the bible. To any Christians, Jews or Muslims reading this: do you still think yours was the first religion? If so, have a careful read of the above points.
• The 6th century BCE marks the possible start of Zoroastrianism, however some date Zarathustra closer to 1,000 BCE.
• Between 600 and 500 BCE, the earliest Confucian writing, Shu Ching, incorporates ideas of harmony and heaven.
• In 551 BCE Confucius, founder of Confucianism, was born.
• In 300 BCE the oldest known version of the Tao Te Ching was written on bamboo tablets. This is the birth of Taoism.
• Between about 40 and 110 CE, the books of the New Testament of the bible were written. Note that this is the first entry after “BCE”.
• Dated 350 CE, the oldest record of the complete biblical text (the Codex Sinaiticus), surviving in a Greek translation called the Septuagint.
• In 393 CE a council of early Christian bishops (at the Synod of Hippo) created an approved biblical canon.
• In 650 CE the verses of the Qur’an were compiled in the form of a book in the era of Uthman, the third Caliph of Islam.
• In 1,054 CE the Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches was formalised.
• 1,469 to 1,539 CE marked the life of Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism.
• From 1,486 to 1,534 CE Chaitanya Mahaprabhu popularised the chanting of the Hare Krishna and composed the Siksastakam (eight devotional prayers) in Sanskrit.
• In 1,609 CE the Baptist church originates in England and the Netherlands.
• In 1,823 CE the Mormon “prophet” Joseph Smith claimed to see the angel moroni and prophesied what is now the Book of Mormon.
• In 1,879 CE Christian Science was granted its charter in Boston, Massachusetts.
• In 1,954 CE the Church of Scientology was founded by L. Ron Hubbard.
• In 2,005 CE the Flying Spaghetti Monster is proffered as the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (Pastafarianism). Pastafarianism (a portmanteau of pasta and Rastafarianism) is a social (non-religious) movement that promotes a light-hearted view of religion and opposes the teaching of intelligent design and creationism in public schools.

Of note in the above list is the fact that the major religions of today: Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Judaism are late players – with thousands and thousands of years of other “religions” and precursors in existence before the “majors” made an appearance.

If you are one of the 4.5 billion people who believe in one of those six religions, please take one thing away from this page: your “religion” is a derivative and embellishment of the “religions” that preceded yours by thousands and thousands of years.

That is a fact that none of your “holy” men will ever tell you because they want you to believe that your religion forms the only basis and starting point of human civilization. Perhaps enquire of them one day: “why did god allow so many people, for so many thousands of years, to believe in something other than our one true religion“?

Reasons for the advent of religion

There are many reasons why humans invented religions. The rest of this page will investigate those reasons.

Reason: Agriculture

The birth of agriculture (as we know it) occurred at the decline of the most recent ice age. There are a number of verified stages for this:

• From around 9,500 BCE, the eight Neolithic founder crops – emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas, and flax were cultivated in the east Mediterranean region (the Levant).
• Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 11,000 BCE.
• Sheep were domesticated between 11,000 and 9,000 BCE.
• Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan around 8,500 BCE.
• Sugarcane and some root vegetables were grown in New Guinea around 7,000 BCE.
• Sorghum was grown in the Sahel region of Africa by 5,000 BCE.
• In the Andes of South America, the potato was grown between 8,000 BC and 5,000 BCE, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Bananas were cultivated and hybridized in the same period in Papua New Guinea.
• In Meso-America wild teosinte was grown to maize by 4,000 BCE.
• Cotton was grown in Peru by 3,600 BCE.

For more details, see History of agriculture (a Wikipedia link).

With food and clothing becoming easier to obtain, people had more time to contemplate the mysteries of the world around them, and of course they had the time to invent “solutions” to those mysteries.

With the extra time (not having to be spent hunting and gathering), communities were able to develop complex rituals to appease gods whom were believed to control the weather and harvest.

Because of agriculture, people started to live in communities of greater number and that led to social complexity. That complexity inevitably led to the need to exert control – something at which religion excels.

Agriculture also led to the concept of trade. Trade required the expansion of trading routes and networks, and that allowed communities to exchange not only goods, but also ideas. The exchange of ideas led to the absorbing of the concepts and stories of one religion into another religion.

By the way, to the young-Earth creationists: how do you reconcile the literal interpretation of the “creation” of the universe to be after the domestication of pigs and sheep, and of course, all the other things listed above?

Reason: Flooding

Another factor for the development of aspects of religion is the likely event of widespread catastrophic flooding. This site has explained why a worldwide flood was impossible (see the page on this site: Noah idea), however that doesn’t mean that huge floods didn’t occur. Just as happens today, flooding was a common occurrence in ancient times and it was inevitable that the events made their way into the various religions. See List of flood myths for more details (a Wikipedia link).

An early flood myth is found in the Epic of Gilgamesh (a Wikipedia link). The earliest Sumerian Gilgamesh poems date from as early as the third dynasty of Ur (2,100 to 2,000 BCE), and one of those poems mentions Gilgamesh’s journey to meet the flood hero, as well as a short version of the flood story. That myth was written long before the book of genesis was supposed to have been written (by at least 1,400 years), and it is obvious that genesis borrowed heavily from the flood stories found in earlier religions. Many Christians today believe that the presence of so many flood stories somehow supports the fable of the flood at the time of the character of noah, but what they are not considering are the differences between those fables, or the timeline of those flood stories which prove that later religions, such as Christianity, simply borrowed and embellished the myths to suit the messages they wished to tell.

But why did so many cultures manage to get flood stories written into their mythologies? The simplest explanation is that there really were significant and devastating actual flooding events which fueled the stories that would one day be written by the survivors. And of course, those stories would get more and more elaborate, embellished and widespread based on being handed down through generations over thousands of years.

The most recent mini ice age involved huge amounts of water being locked up as ice, and that ice had to be returned to water as the ice age declined. If the ice gradually melted from the outside, then there would have been a gradual return of the ice to water and people could obviously have avoided the worst of that run off. But what if the end of the ice age resulted in sudden releases of water from the ice? At first thought that seems unlikely but it turns out that huge deluges from melting ice are now proven and well documented.

Science has a name for the phenomena: a glacial lake outburst flood (a Wikipedia link). In geomorphology, an outburst flood, which is a type of megaflood, is a high-magnitude, low-frequency catastrophic flood involving the sudden release of huge amounts of water. During the current deglaciation, numerous glacial lake outburst floods (a Wikipedia link) were caused by the collapse of either ice sheets or glaciers that formed the dams of proglacial lakes.

There is no doubt that such flooding events happened in North America. Consider the Missoula floods (a Wikipedia link), for which geologists estimate that a cycle of flooding and reformation of the lake lasted an average of 55 years and that the floods occurred several times over the 2,000-year period between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago. Evidence supports that there were close to a hundred major flood events in North America between about 16,000 and 11,000 BCE.

And there is a similar story in Europe and the Middle East, with outburst-flood hypotheses located around the Caspian and Black Seas, and in the Persian Gulf.

Incidentally, such outburst floods are still of concern today. The Tsho Rolpa glacier lake (a Wikipedia link) is located in the Rolwaling Valley, about 110 kilometers northeast of Kathmandu, Nepal – at an altitude of 4,580 meters. The lake is dammed by a 150-meter-high unconsolidated terminal moraine dam. The lake is growing larger every year due to the melting and retreat of the Trakarding Glacier, and has become the largest and most dangerous glacier lake in Nepal, with approximately 90 to 100 million cubic meters of water stored. The United Nations currently has a series of monitoring programs to help prevent death and destruction in regions that are likely to experience these events.

Without a scientific explanation (to our ancestors), surely god(s) must have caused such terrible and unfair flooding? So there is a plausible explanation for how actual catastrophic flooding entered the consciousness and mythologies of the people who created the earliest of religions, and therefore how the writers of later religions were influenced.

Reason: Fire from above

In clear skies with good viewing conditions, you don’t have to stand outside for too long at night to witness a “shooting star”, which is of course caused by a meteor. A meteor is a piece of rock or metal that starts to burn up (due to friction) as it enters the Earth’s atmosphere.

An estimated 25 million meteoroids, micrometeoroids and other space debris enter Earth’s atmosphere each day, which results in an estimated 15,000 tonnes of that material entering the atmosphere each year. Most are not visible to the human eye.

However on a normal, moonless night away from city lights, you can expect to see 20 to 100 “shooting stars” per night. That obviously didn’t go unnoticed by the ancients who had no scientific understanding of what they were seeing.

A meteorite is a meteor fragment that survives long enough to hit the Earth’s surface. The diameter of the largest impactor to hit Earth on any given day is likely to be about 40 cm, in a given year about 4 meters, and in a given century about 20 meters. There is likely to be an impactor of diameter 1 meter every 10 days.

Rarely, impactors are very much larger. The one that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs (66 million years ago) was 6 to 9 miles (10 to 15 kilometers) wide. There are almost 200 known impact structures (a Wikipedia link) on Earth caused by the impact of meteors or comets.

In terms of the effect on religion, an interesting meteorite impact crater is the Kamil Crater in southwestern Egypt (a Wikipedia link). It was caused by a meteor that is estimated to have been 4.3 feet (1.3 meters) wide, and the impact resulted in a crater that is 147 feet (44.8 meters) wide. The interesting bit is that it is estimated to be about 5,000 years old, which is about 3,000 BCE.

The Kamil impact is in a remote location and there is no evidence that it was recorded by ancient people, however its descent may have been witnessed and entered into a collective consciousness. It is known that meteorite impacts in the Middle East and North Africa have heavily influenced religious beliefs.

To the ancient Egyptians, the sky was divine, and anything falling from it was considered a gift from the gods. Meteorites were their earliest source of iron, which they called biA-n-pt (“iron from the sky”). They believed this celestial metal possessed magical properties and that the gods’ bones were made of it. It is easy to believe that streaks of fire across the night sky would appear to be caused by the activities of the gods above the heads of ancient people, and therefore have made their way into the texts of the earliest religions.

Did such events make it into the pentateuch and bible? Here are some passages that suggest that they did:

• 2 peter 3: At that time the heavens will be destroyed by fire. And the sun and moon and stars will melt away with much heat,
• job 1:16: The fire of god is fallen from heaven, and hath burned up the sheep, and the servants, and consumed them,
• luke 9:54: When the disciples james and john saw this, they asked, “lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them”,
• 2 thessalonians 1:7: This will happen when the lord jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels,
• exodus 19:18: Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the lord descended on it in fire,
• revelation 8:7: The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

Reason: “Giants”

Descriptions of giants in religious and mythological texts largely stem from a combination of ancient cosmological myths, misunderstandings of prehistoric fossils, and socio-political storytelling.

Scholars and historians generally attribute these legends to a few key historical and cultural factors:

• Mythological Syncretism: Many ancient creation myths feature “divine” beings or demigods who are larger and more powerful than humans. In texts like the bible (e.g., the nephilim in Genesis 6) or Mesopotamian epics, giants often represent the offspring of gods and mortals, serving as a narrative tool to explain the transition between the age of myths and the age of ordinary men.
• Fossil Discoveries: Prehistoric megafauna, such as mammoths, mastodons, and dinosaurs, frequently roamed the ancient world. When early agrarian societies unearthed the massive bones and skulls of these extinct creatures, they frequently mistook them for the remains of ancient, giant races, which were then woven into local folklore and religious lore.
• Symbolism of Power and Antiquity: In the ancient Near East, size often symbolized strength, divine favor, or proximity to the gods. Describing enemies or legendary ancestors as “giants” (e.g., the rephaim or goliath in the Hebrew bible) was a literary method used to emphasize their formidable nature or to highlight the magnitude of the challenges faced by religious figures.

The bible doesn’t mention the great pyramids of Egypt (at Giza), however it is believed that the authors of the various biblical texts were aware that they existed. The great pyramids are only 72 miles (115 kilometers) from Pi-Ramesses (where the “exodus” is supposed to have departed), so it’s not that difficult to believe they were known about. They were ancient at the time the bible was written, so there was no longer anyone alive who could have had reasonable knowledge as to how they were constructed.

We still have some doubt as to how the great pyramids were constructed, so imagine what the ancient authors of the old testament considered their origin to be? It’s only a theory, but perhaps those authors really did believe in some form of giant who were able to manipulate the enormous stones found in many places in Egypt?

The abrahamic religions refer to at least the following as types of “giants”: anakim, gibborim, goliath, nephilim, nimrod, og and rephaite. Regardless of source, they got the “giant” idea from somewhere, and it’s easy to believe that the concept of giants helped to seed their beliefs about higher powers in their religion.

Reason: Power and Control

Food surpluses (due to agriculture) allowed human populations to boom. Smaller tribes of people grew into larger towns, eventually with many groups of unrelated people. It is natural that in any larger group of people, specialization and hierarchy will develop.

That hierarchy will inevitably lead to individuals becoming rulers (e.g. priests, members of government, enforcers and soldiers, and royalty) instead of farmers. Positions in a hierarchy may be seen as desirable (who wouldn’t want to be a king instead of a farmer), so leaders codified beliefs, built temples, and managed rituals – all with the aim of controlling people and ensuring a way of life supported by the larger number of people who were performing the manual labor.

The rulers merged religious laws with civil laws to enforce order and to collect tax. The fear inherent in civil laws (e.g. those to do with taxation) may not be too significant, however the fear associated with religious laws (e.g. to do with the afterlife and the displeasing of deities in current day-to-day activities) could be made to be very significant.

The fundies of today look at the bible and extract a few motherhood-type laws (usually ten or less) as some sort of proof of the inherent benefit of their religion. What those fundies will always ignore (or severely downplay) are the number of laws that are actually contained in their religious texts:

• There are 613 laws in the first five books (the pentateuch) of the bible’s old testament. Those are made up of 248 positive rules (things you should do) and 365 negative rules (things you should not do).
• Scholars count approximately 1,050 rules in the new testament that Christians are instructed to follow.

If the big “ten commandments” are added to the above, then there are at least 1,673 rules, commandments and/or laws that should be followed by those proclaiming to be Christians.

It’s not a surprise that the vast majority of those laws are concerned with managing the day-to-day lives of the masses (workers and slaves).

Still believe that your religion was handed down by a fair god?

An important part of the development of religion was the construction of the monumental architecture that accompanied greater human settlement. Settled communities built permanent temples and ritual sites (at about 9,000 BCE, the earliest we know about is at Göbekli Tepe) that served as regional religious hubs.

We still build churches today (although fewer and fewer, thank goodness). Religious architecture provided people with a convenient mechanism to practice their faith on a recurring basis, and for the ruling classes to introduce new and better ways to control the masses.

Reason: Writing

Writing was independently invented several times in human history:

• Mesopotamia (c. 3400 BCE): The Sumerians developed cuneiform on clay tablets, initially as an administrative tool to track goods and trade.
• Ancient Egypt (c. 3200 BCE): Egyptians developed hieroglyphics, used for monumental inscriptions and religious texts.
• Ancient China (c. 1200 BCE): Early Chinese characters emerged, often used for divination on oracle bones.
• Mesoamerica (c. 300 BCE): The Maya and other cultures independently created Mayan glyphs.

Before true writing emerged, humans used “proto-writing” – such as carved clay tokens or symbols – for counting and record-keeping as early as the 7th and 8th millennia BCE.

Writing helped spread and solidify religion via the following key mechanisms:

• Standardizing Doctrine: Before writing, religious stories relied on oral tradition, which was vulnerable to alteration and highly localized. Writing allowed leaders to establish singular, official versions of scriptures, prayers, and laws, ensuring that followers across vast regions received the exact same teachings. Writing made the doctrine appear to be more official and made it harder for people to question the established (published) doctrine.
• Preserving Sacred Stories: Early writing – such as the Pyramid Texts of Egypt or Sumerian hymns – immortalized divine myths, giving them an enduring, sacred permanence. This protected core beliefs from being forgotten or diluted over generations.
• Centralizing Religious Authority: Written texts required a literate class of scribes and clergy to read and interpret them. This exclusivity allowed religious and political leaders to consolidate power, enforce religious laws, and guide the faithful using authorized doctrine.
• Transcending Geography: Writing detached religion from specific geographic locations. People who had never physically visited a holy site or met a “prophet” could study the exact same written message, enabling religions to scale into massive, global movements.

Incidentally, writing is what is causing religion to become undone in modern society. Previously, writing was difficult to store and distribute widely, mainly because books got lost and deteriorated with time. That was great for religion because it gave them an opportunity to update their doctrine to (better) fit in with the prevailing views of society – all while quietly retiring their previous nonsense.

Unfortunately for religion, the Internet is a great means of preserving older versions of doctrine, as well as allowing people to more easily access older writings (e.g. than by having to visit specialized libraries). The combination of writing and the Internet have meant that the religions of the world are finding it harder and harder to hide the less desirable aspects that are central to them.