History of Religion.

[I]

SO is there a religion dating back to before the time of the Egyptians or did they start it all.

[Adrien]

This is a complicated question. The Middle Paleolithic Age (from around 50,000 BCE in parts of Europe and Asia) is supposed to have been the time when prehistoric man first expressed religious beliefs thanks to the work of archaeologists, who have discovered ritualistic burials, religious statues (like the Venus statues I mentioned earlier), and mystical cave paintings.

[Mr. DNA]

This is a complicated question. The Middle Paleolithic Age (from around 50,000 BCE in parts of Europe and Asia) is supposed to have been the time when prehistoric man first expressed religious beliefs thanks to the work of archaeologists, who have discovered ritualistic burials, religious statues (like the Venus statues I mentioned earlier), and mystical cave paintings.

I've heard it described as the Great Leap Forward, although perhaps in an attempt to distinguish it from China's identically (and unfortunately) named agricultural adventures in the mid 20th century, the wikipedia article calls it "Behavioral modernity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward_%28evolution%29)". As you point out, it is the time in which humans are believed to have first demonstrated abstract thought, started to paint caves, make statues and talk. It was only a matter of time before these humans, with their fancy new higher reasoning skills and new-fangled speech, began to look around at the bewildering and hostile world in which they had all of a sudden become acutely aware of, and started to ask each other just what the **** was going on. You really can't blame them for the (utterly endearing) answers that they came up with.

[I]

I see now that yous mention it i do remember a History channel special on cavemen and the beliefs. Like burying them with there tools and such.

[Adrien]

The first prophet-inspired, dogmatic religion was Zoroastrianism, an Iranian faith that still strongly exists to this day. It is just as old--if not older--than the orthodox Jewish faith and its apocalyptic theology influenced thoroughly the apocalyptic strains of Christianity. It even influenced the Christian concept of the afterlife: it sees this earthly life as a kind of test between good and evil, one of the two winning out the individual upon his death. If evil reigns, then the soul spends an eternity in hell or is annihilated.