From ancient times various cultures around the world have created unique spiritual and
religious customs that have been passed on from generation to generation. While
these religions appear to have been created independently and certainly vary in style,
consistent themes remain apparent throughout all of them.
In this video we will discuss we’ll look at how religions first formed in ancient times,
why so many cultures around the world created religions,
and how they evolved over the humanity's long history
Ancient People And A Need For Religion
Modern human beings have existed on earth for approximately 300,000 years. Over this time,
they went through various cycles of trial and error to learn the difference between
what satisfied their hunger and what could potentially kill them.
Our ancestors of the stone age lived in with a mindset that was truly fixated on survival.
They searched for water, built short-term shelters, and, if they were lucky,
enjoyed a fire and a hot meal at the end of the night. But did they follow a specific religion?
No doubt the various ancient groups of human beings on our planet had some kind of religious
belief system that they followed. The question of why religion became such a widespread part
of humanity's history is still up for debate. This idea has sparked the curiosity of scholars,
anthropologists, and archaeologists for centuries. When humanity first
decided to become spiritual or religious, in a sense, it still had no clear answer.
Yet archaeological evidence has suggested that religious activity may have occurred as early as
50,000 years ago. While they may not have been as extensive or as encompassing as our modern
beliefs, evidence has shown that even our distant human relatives, the Neanderthals cared for their
dead. They may have even pondered if there was a place beyond this world where they travelled
upon their passing. This continued on with our oldest homo-sapien ancestors who began to wonder
and even began to question if there could be a way to enhance good fortune, talk with the elements,
and, in turn, bring about prosperous agricultural periods by honouring such forces of nature. This
would be the beginning of religion as we know it. The First Things Worshipped (Temples)
Following the end of the last ice age, a new era had fallen upon the earth.
Humans could again spread out around the vast world and create lasting settlements on arable
lands and close to bodies of freshwater. This neolithic revolution, which established
a widespread agricultural lifestyle, led to a settled lifestyle for people around the world.
The religious practices that occurred during this era, starting around 10,000 years ago,
clearly portray a worship of their ancestors, while holding onto the earlier worship of the sun,
moon, stars, and nature. Religious sites consisting of standing stones aligned with
the movement of celestial bodies were erected all across the world, from Europe to South Africa.
If we compare Stonehenge in Britain and the Adams Calendar in Mpumalanga, we can observe
various similarities. It’s possible both sites acted as ritual areas and megalithic calendars.
The neolithic agricultural societies would have gathered around such structures during
winter and summer solstices to pay tribute to their various deities.
During this Neolithic period, we also see a special reverence paid to females and,
more specifically, their fertility. Women were worshipped for their ability to bring
forth an abundant harvest and were even revered for being a source of creation.
A Switch Over To Monotheism
Towards the end of the Stone Age, we see various tribes around the world implement the use of idols
at their places of worship. Some were simple standing stones, often engraved with symbols.
Others would have been wooden statues, and it is possible that even in the homes, small figurines
carved from rock and other materials were seen as sacred or religious. Whether or not the idols
themselves ever truly represented God to the various cultures around the world, or more so,
were these idols merely symbolic representations of a universal force of creation or God?
One culture that seems to have represented the latter was the ancient Druids of modern Great
Britain and Ireland. In ancient times these wise people and leaders of the community were
considered master astronomers and some of the world's first scientists. They had a
great understanding of theology and were even considered pioneers in the advent of spiritual
teachings. A detailed video about Druids can be found on our channel. While some
have suggested that the Druids were pagans or worshippers of idols, one great Masonic author,
Manly P Hall, had other ideas about the true nature of the Druidic belief systems. In one
of his most revered works, The Secret Teachings Of All Ages, Manly P Hall wrote:
"Not only was the mistletoe sacred as symbolic of the universal medicine, or panacea but also
because of the fact that it grew upon the oak tree. Through the symbol of the oak, the Druids
worshipped the supreme deity. Therefore anything growing on the tree was held sacred by them."
Thus in simplistic terms, Manly P Hall believes the Druids worshipped a great deity or God through
the idol of the oak tree. This idea is similar to what we see in various Native American traditions,
which speak of the Great Spirit as their primordial creative force and deity.
Again this is a tradition observed in Hinduism, where we have Braman, the unknowable and eternal
origin recognized as the cause and foundation of all existence. It's clear that by the earliest
portions of the Bronze Age, cultures from Asia to Western Europe and beyond to the Americas
had a universal idea of one creative force that was ranked as a singular deity above all else.
What we may witness here in ancient times is a form of monotheism yet not quite as strict
as it would become in later cultures. But was this already happening around the world?
Not exactly. If we look at one of the most advanced cultures in the ancient world, Egypt.
They were not ready to make a switch to a more secular and unified form of religion, often
called monotheism. One of the greatest stories in Egyptian history is that of the Pharaoh Akhenaten,
who ruled during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt's New Kingdom. He was often called the heretic king
for his dramatic change in the Egyptian spiritual system. Akhenaten tried to move Egypt away from a
polytheistic form of religion to a monotheistic one; however, this didn't go down well with the
priests of Egypt, and it seems they were able to oust the King along with many of his followers.
Around the same period, we saw the rise of other monotheistic religions in that of Moses,
the Hebraic patriarch, and his Torah. While some alternative theorists have suggested that Moses
was, in fact, the heretic king Akhenaten, others see this as a mere coincidence. The timelines tend
to cross over, and some legends have Moses as an exile in Egypt. Nonetheless, Moses is often seen
as the first leader of the Hebrew people who gave them a compiled version of a monotheistic
God's commands. During this era, the Israelites began worshipping the one God they called Yahweh.
The Evolution Of Religion
Following the dramatic rise of the Torah and the splintering of the
original Hebraic religion into the individual Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam, we saw a worldwide phenomena beginning to take place. Just before this,
we did have groups of what some have called pre-Christian religions, such as the Essences,
a mysterious Jewish Sect that followed the Torah. Nonetheless, with the growth of Abrahamic regions,
many of the ancient polytheistic religions of the world were dwindling in size, and
monotheism became a dominant force in the world of religion. There are a few reasons for this.
Firstly, as we previously mentioned, monotheism did not emerge with the Abrahamic religions and
existed in a more passive way in the spiritual belief systems of the Druids, Native Americans,
and Hindus, among many others. But as these Abrahamic religions spread,
with their laws prohibiting any kind of idol worship, we saw a reduction in the reverence
of nature alongside God and, instead, a sole dedication to the one creative force.
As this was already a fairly common theme in many of the ancient religions around the world, it
didn't take much for the newer Abrahamic religions to convince the people that the worship of their
one God was the best chance they had for salvation in the afterlife. It's even been suggested that
Christians didn't begin to recognize themselves as pure monotheists until at least the 4th century,
long after its establishment. But it's important to remember that even with the dramatic spread of
Abrahamic religions, all of the common folk who had converted either by choice or force, didn't
necessarily see themselves as purely monotheistic. Yes, they now thought that the one God held
control over all of creation, but they didn't deny the existence of their older pantheon of deities.
Various cultures, especially those of Western Europe, including the British Isles,
moulded various aspects of the Druidic traditions,
with modern Christianity forming a rather beautiful spiritual belief system. We see
pre-Christian symbols such as the sun cross being utilised in Christian-era carvings,
and The Book Of Kells has remained one of the most fascinating manuscripts ever written.
A Step Back In Religious Idea?
Abrahamic religions based on monotheism have remained the fastest-growing religion for
the past 1500 years. Yet, over the last 100 years, we have seen a slow rise in the return
of attentive religious practices. Many people have returned to the older worship of nature,
astronomy, and even the sun. Neo-Druidism has taken off in Britain, Hinduism and Buddhism have
remained prevalent in Asia, and the worship of the Great Spirit by Native Americans hasn't dwindled.
Whether or not we will see a return to the spiritual idea that we are not living in
nature but instead a part of it, only time will tell. But with the atrocious crimes
committed by churches and their leaders across all the Abrahamic religions,
it seems that organised religion has and will continue to dwindle as people look for
more personal ways to practise their spiritual beliefs. A return to the recognition of a great
universal force or spirit from which all things manifest would certainly fit in line with many
of the world's religions without the aspect of control that often comes with organised beliefs.