Why wasn't Christianity the first religion?

Motherofkittens said:

You don't know that Christianity was not the first religion nore Judaism? Hinduism is the oldest continues belived religion out there. And there were many other religions even older than that and many more before Judaism.

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That's an interesting approach! You are very thoughtful, so, thank you for that

This supposes religion is a construct of man. What do you picture about the situation when mankind first started disagreeing about God? What do you imagine it was like on the day before that happened?

Saint Augustine (in his Retractiones) wrote --- The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting from the inception of the human race until the coming of Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion, which was already in existence, began to be called Christian.

Nihilist Virus said:

What is this Genesis 3:15 nonsense?

Eve is the mother of all mankind. So her seed is "all mankind."

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Basically, it is poetically describing the malicious deceivers (John 8:44, Mark 3:27) vs. those who desire to do righteousness yet are easily tricked/[deceived in their naivety] to do wrong (eg: Matthew 9:36, Matthew 23:13-15, 2 Timothy 3:6-7).

Motherofkittens said:

Well thats a great curiosity blocking non answer.

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Motherofkittens said:

It really really puzzles me that if Christianity was true it would be the first. Why do you think it wasn't?

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If you read post#11 and # 16, you will find that it is not about religion. I hope you continue to seek.
Matt. 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:

8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

"Christianity" was not the first religion, and it is not the last religion, either.

"Christianity" is the mission to spread the gospel to the lost sheep of Christ. That mission will end, and Christianity will also end, returning to the religion of Adam and Eve "as it was in the beginning."

Motherofkittens said:

There's still religions before Judaism though.

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Oldest found isnt the oldest. The Hebrews were an oral culture even after the deluge. Let's forget about the antediluvian world, for now; assume those civilizations, but not the texts or history necessarily, were razed.

Sumer, Babylon, Phoenecia, (AS)Syria, Persia, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Greece, Rome... all experienced the same phenomenon that influenced their culture, mythos and "religion and spiritual alignment." Texts from the antediluvian world tall about the same thing the bible talks about.

That doesn't mean the Hebrews stole the mythos.

In fact, the Apocrypha, which is basically banned in the West, is very much so descriptive about the events that happens during, before, after - any temporal location existent and to come. It is full of the same prophecies that are in the bible, but some of the books are from the antediluvian world - from Enoch, and Noah. Other books have been the controversial compliments of archaic texts, scrolls, petroglyphs and tablets pointing to the same unique stream of events described in the bible. Everyone's "religion" is a romanticism of the events that happened that affected the whole world - sans actual worship of the Most High. The gods and entities that tried to gain power "never letting a catastrophe go to waste, " were the ones who stole the truth and morphed it into a bunch of religiosity. But, the story is the same all over the world - look extremely close, and analyze the patterns.

When people say "bible," they mean the 66-book canon. There are many texts, philosophies, mythos, literature and general art that imitates life. Everyone is saying the same thing, with different romantically aligned motifs.

I over simplified it as I do know beliefs about hell vary considerably. If you go by the OT hell doesn't really exist. You just die. And You either get resurrected or you don't. But I think the mainstream is still that hell is eternal punishment.

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Yep. As said, hell is romanticized via Gehenna. As you said, you die once and resurrect, never dying again, or you go to judgment and possibly did a second time.

It is eternal because you will never be able to resurrect as long as eternity exist. Clearly is it possible for you to resurrect if we believe Christianity. So, that is why the second death is eternal: you will NEVER be able to resurrect. No loopholes, no more sacrifices. Your essence is forever gone without chance of coming back.

The fire and brimstone is mostly pomp and circumstance.

JackRT said:

Prior to about 5000 years ago all evidence indicates that humanity was organized in matriarchal societies. Women were honoured as leaders and because of woman's role as life-giver, religion was centered around fertility and the deities were mostly female. Because motherhood is beyond question, inheritance of wealth, property and power was easy to determine. Evidence indicates that these societies were much less prone to violence particularly violence against women. Then , about 5000 years ago, patriarchal societies began to emerge. Their violent nature quickly allowed them to become the dominant cultural influence. This had a very negative impact upon women. First, the inheritance of wealth, property and power came to be passed through the male line. Second, because fatherhood is questionable, the virginity of women prior to marriage and the sole access to the woman after marriage became most important. Essentially women became possessions. This is the origin of the emphasis on virginity as being somehow a purer form of femininity. We can see the powerful influence of patriarchy in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. This influence extends right up to the present although it is now being eroded. We frequently speak negatively about the role of women in Muslim societies but we do well to remember that these societies today bear a very strong resemblance to society in biblical times. It can be justly argued that patriarchy might very well be the worst evil that humanity has ever inflicted on itself. An excellent study of this history is to be found in "When God Was a Woman" by Merlin Stone.

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This is the hypothesis of primeval matriarchy, sometimes called the 'Maternal Super Society' by feminists.
It is based on primitive art from Europe and the near east often depicted women, the primitive Venusses. The assumption is that in a hunter-gatherer society, the women would have far more control as caregivers and gatherers, as the hunt is so unreliable, but that this balance shifted to men when agriculture was adopted, which was more labour intensive.

This is however, only a supposition that we have no way to verify. We have no sources from the time, except meagre extrapolation from art and inductive reasoning.
We see in actual human hunter-gatherer societies a mix of matriarchy and patriarchy. It does not seem as if one predominates. Likewise patriarchal societies often have female religious art predominating, such as Chinese devotion to Guan Yi or Catholic to Mary or Ishtar at Ur.

It is speculation as to the societal make-up of such aeons so long ago, so any such theories should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Have you ever heard of Wilhelm Schmidt?
He wrote a book called the Origin of the Idea of God and founded the Vienna School of Anthropology.
They argue that the oldest stratum of human belief is an early monotheism or a High god. It seems that early versions of many mythologies and the mythologies of very culturally basic peoples, like Amerindian rain forest dwellers or Andaman islanders, have an idea of a tribal Father, a sort of creator of the tribe who has some form of relation to them. Often this is in the form of descent, but not always. He is usually conceived as the highest god or such. Soon thereafter, he either gets eclipsed by other gods that descend from him or there is the introduction of a 'trickster god', who somehow changes the setup he created. This then develops into animism or fetishism or polytheism over time.

This theory of anthropology is called Ur-monotheismus and comes in the forms of a hard early monotheism or a more general 'high god', usually of the sky. It is a developmental theory, which Anthropology tends not to stress anymore in favour of descriptive ones, but is still one of the main hypotheses for the early religion of man. I see a few others here have also alluded to it, for it has good Academic credentials.

The similarity to the Edenic idea of Adam and Eve with a creator Father as Judaism later termed God, is striking. Even the Serpent as 'trickster' can be seen here. It could mean that the Semites merely followed this pattern or that there is some grain of truth here, depending on your view. You can take the juxtaposition or leave it. Christianity is obviously a later development from out the religious tradition of Judaism; this has no bearing on the Truth or not of Christianity though; which clearly claims to fulfill the earlier religion, not to antedate it.

Motherofkittens said:

You would assume an all powerful and all loving God would put his message first. I understand a lot of you think other religions are of the devil, so why did God let the devil get all his trick religions first 100's of thousands of years before Christianity or 1000's of years, if you believe in a young universe.

The punishment for not believing in this religion is eternal torment forever and ever, so why did God let all these false religions go before his message? Why would an all powerful all loving God do that? His one wish is for us to love him and worship him. So wasn't Christianity the first religion then?

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God has always judged the hearts of people no matter what situation they started out in and lived it.

There are logical reasons why God did not start man out with “Christianity”, but allowed humans to go through a history of less than perfect but needed scenarios.

The first scenario (which we really needed first) was the Garden (this is given as the first and you can learn from it without having to believe Adam and Eve were real people).

The Garden is presented as the place God really wants to put us (it is like a heaven on earth scenario). The problem with the Garden is it is a lousy place (and we will see it to be an impossible place) for humans to fulfill their earthly objective. It is not “bad” that we see this and it was not “bad” but hard for Adam and Eve to experience this situation (we can thank them for doing it for us). Our objective has never been to “never ever sin” since all mature adults will sin (including as we see Adam and Eve sinning under an almost “ideal” situation. Sin actually has purpose in helping humans fulfill their earthly objective.

You have a time where God leads families through the patriarchal period, but that do not work.

The Jewish period answer the question why we cannot just have “God telling us what He wants and us doing it to earn His pleasing”.

Christianity is the best, but we had to learn from human experience why other scenarios would not work.

Motherofkittens said:

There's still religions before Judaism though. I over simplified it as I do know beliefs about hell vary considerably. If you go by the OT hell doesn't really exist. You just die. And You either get resurrected or you don't. But I think the mainstream is still that hell is eternal punishment.

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You need to first figure out why God has to employ a religion to convey His message. He has to because only a religion is capable of bringing forward a godly theology (with supernatural contents).

Then the question boils down to which religion can have a theology with its contents remained intact in the past 2000 years. In Christianity, we have two independent sources, namely KJV and NIV, with their contents theologically identical. Their supporting ancient texts can be tracked back to the 4th and 6th centuries respectively (as far as I recall). It is thus considered reconcilable to conclude that the covenant contents God gave to humans 2000 years ago remains the same contents He gives us today.

Similarly, we have a whole library of books (Dead Sea Scrolls) for us to reconcile to tell the same. That is the OT contents God gave humans 2000 years ago remain the same today.

That's how God employed a religion to achieve. He's presenting the same salvation to humans 2000 years ago and same salvation to humans today, and the salvation to humans in the future, through the use of a religion. How about other religions, can they have a all time consistent holy book?

Can humans have another book as thick comparable to the Bible and is kept intact (thus reconcilable) throughout a rather long history?

Nihilist Virus said:

Eve is the mother of all mankind.

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False. Eve is the mother of ALL mankind who have been born again Spiritually.

Motherofkittens said:

You would assume an all powerful and all loving God would put his message first. I understand a lot of you think other religions are of the devil, so why did God let the devil get all his trick religions first 100's of thousands of years before Christianity or 1000's of years, if you believe in a young universe.

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Good question, Motherofkittens. Probably because God was interacting with humanity on a general level in accordance with it's progressive level of cultural and intellectual advancement. This seems to be implied by Paul the Apostle in the book of Acts where and when he addresses a Greek audience in the city of Athens (Acts 17:22-34).

The punishment for not believing in this religion is eternal torment forever and ever, so why did God let all these false religions go before his message? Why would an all powerful all loving God do that? His one wish is for us to love him and worship him. So wasn't Christianity the first religion then?

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I think He did it because those other, even older, religions weren't necessarily handed to mankind by the Devil, but rather developed by humanity in its own sin as it has acclimated to the Devil and further distorting the worship of the ONE GOD. So, if we are culpable for our fault in 'exchanging' our understanding of God, as He is in Himself, for some other articulation, then we have ourselves to blame--Satan just provided the opportunity.

Moreover, we don't know that the punishment is 'Hell' forever and ever and ever, as it has been developed and so interpreted by mainly European thinkers in the Christian Church.

Actually, I think a hermeneutical case can be made that passages in the New Testament which we think are describing an eternal, fiery 'Hell' are instead describing-- in metaphorical language --the possibility of destruction that starts on a temporal level (like say, as was seen when Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple were destroyed), and then finishes with eternal destruction of the soul (in Annihilation). But, I can't defend that p.o.v. here.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

Motherofkittens said:

You would assume an all powerful and all loving God would put his message first. I understand a lot of you think other religions are of the devil, so why did God let the devil get all his trick religions first 100's of thousands of years before Christianity or 1000's of years, if you believe in a young universe.

The punishment for not believing in this religion is eternal torment forever and ever, so why did God let all these false religions go before his message? Why would an all powerful all loving God do that? His one wish is for us to love him and worship him. So wasn't Christianity the first religion then?

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... p.s. I should probably be clear that I don't believe in a young universe. Just so you know.

Peace,
2PhiloVoid

.

Aryeh Jay said:

There were no Hebrews before the deluge.

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I know. I said "even after" the deluge - as in *expecially* after the flood. I referred to the entire Adamite, and Abrahamic lot as Hebrews, since there are more on "this side" of the timeline. The reason I even included the deluge is to give a marking point for "history." Most all history that is antediluvian was found by petroglyph, cuneiform, or passed down by oral translation - then it was recorded.

There were Adamites, and others. Once "Adamites" got to the generation of Noah, they were distinguished by their genetic makeup - which is why Noah and his sons were deemed perfect in their generations. They were not transhuman; they were 100% genetic Adamites.

For a book that is basically banned in the West, it is quite easy to get the Apocrypha at any bookstore. I have three of these basically banned books.

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Because there are about three score more texts than five commonplace books considered Apocryphal - and other texts that are not (yet?) available for Western consumption so readily.

Motherofkittens said:

Thank you for replying and putting in an effort for me to understand. Unfortunately I don't think I quite grasp what you're saying. Are you saying Judaism is the oldest religion, we just don't know about it? I suppose that is possible but unlikely.

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I am actually alluding to controversy: that Sumerian, Babylonian, Phoenecian, Egyptian, Ademic/Hebrew, Ancient Greek, Persian, Indian... mythos are all saying the "same" thing.

Each one has a flood account. Each one has an astronomical, or astrological system of "seeing/prophecy." Each one prided themselves on the potency of their gods. And, each one has a convergence point in which they agree on events.

This convergence point in "historical texts" is used to extrapolate the patterns and culture that either vindicate, or illigetimate a history. One convergence point is the prime (2) parents, and the evolution of humanity and other entities.

Adamites/Hebrews were an orally communicative ethnic group. They weren't stupid, or uneducated. They knew their God, and they could use astronomy (science) to determine signs and seasons. They had prophets that other cultures have written about that have come to pass. Their history is only retarded by their identity - which is to this day up in the air. They were mathematicians, horticulturalists, herbalists, doctors, masons and judges. There were learned persons of all disciplines; the Adamites/Hebrews just chose to live in a way that the rest of the world considered primative.

I am saying that Adamite/Hebrews were as old of a "religion" as any, because it began with living God (for Hebrews.) For "others," beasts were extolled: serpents and dragons, bulls, goats, heptapods and octapods, eagles, phoenix, etc.

It isn't a matter of which one is right, because all of them have historical significance and merit. It comes down to who people wanted to worship, and how their worship would be translated down generations.


The 10 plagues God sent against Egypt were direct challenges (and wins) against 10 of the chiefest of Egyptian gods - real entities people worshipped as gods. A very significant event happened in Genesis 3, and in Genesis 6 that tends to be marginalized, but it is incredibly important in understanding mythos of other alleged ungodly civilizations.