Purest only in regards to the original conceptualization of the religion by the "prophet" or author. Religion can be seen as a collection of successful symbiotic memes which as a whole are more likely to be replicated and passed on than as individual scraps of information. For instance, consider that it's well documented just how extensively the Abrahamic religions (including their celebrations) have borrowed from various sources - either purely cultural practice or from other religions.

Once passed beyond the original author/creator of the religion, it is exposed to outside minds and interpretations - coming into contact with new and existing memes already populating the sphere of human thought and dialog. Some combinations and modifications make the meme more successful, while others have floundered. Some died out from disenfranchisement or subversion - and some by bloody oppression.

Still... a wrong idea in it's purest and most original form... is still a wrong idea. If your professor asks you a question, and you take a guess that's utterly wrong - does that make the next student asked slightly more correct when he similarly answers a shot in the dark guess? Of course not. In fact, if similarly un-knowledgeable as you in the subject matter - then they are all the more likely to simply modify your guess slightly and repeat it - or reactively offer an answer which is in pronounced and direct contrast to yours.


I think the conceptual underpinning of your thread and question is reflective of the concept of the "Noble Savage" - the idea that a state fundamentally less altered human activity is somehow better or more ideal. It's a return to Eden fantasy, conceptualized best in the story of Genesis - though not confined or root to biblical sources. It's actually quite common and pervasive in many cultures. It suggests that humanity was once in a state of harmony and peace with nature - but have since that time have progressively allowed the sin of separation from nature... of the exercise of influence on or over our environments... to corrupt humanity with evils and temptations not known to the natural state. The Noble Savage suggests that we are in a "fallen" state, in need of redemption.

In pursuit of this "redemption", people tend to seek out "Natural Foods", "Natural Cures", "Natural Environments", etc. Natural, of course, not denoting what the word actually means (because as the product of a natural system, nothing we can do is ever un-natural - no matter how unprecedented) - and is instead co-opted to mean "Untampered with by Man".


I tend to view the Noble Savage as an anti-intellectual/pro-ignorance movement that distorts the reality of nature and our place in it for (more or less) religiously based or reinforced motives. If Nature seems to surprise us with unintended and often detrimental consequences for our actions - it is only because nature operates and adapts to changes on a scale beyond human conceptualization. We create new environments and introduce new selective pressures on our species by our actions - inhabiting environments we did not evolve adaptations for, relying instead on our ingenuity and ability to understand the world as a means to mitigate environmental selectors and promote survival.

We are a product of nature, and we behave accordingly. Some may not see it through the complexity of human thought, and some may want to deny it - suggesting some special attribute which makes us somehow "different and separate" from all other life on Earth. In reality, we are by no measure outside or separate from any other species in the biosphere - just uniquely adapted for understanding and manipulating our environment. The demons which haunt the hearts of men (as well as the angles)... cruelty, power, domination, sorrow, pain, greed, lust - they are tethered irrevocably to origins in nature. Returning to a more primitive state would not dispell those demons... but rather serve only to promote their exercise as a tool for survival were we to drop our defenses of understanding - edging us closer to a perilously vulnerable position which Darwin referred to as "The War of Nature", a state of perpetual famine and death.

Thomas Hobbes referred to the "Natural State" as one in which "during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man." A state in which life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". That this perpetual war of misery is fought for gain, for safety, and for promotion of self-interest. We still fight this war with our fellow creatures on Earth, but governance and technology has provided humanity with the tools to develop and establish social contracts and infrastructures to ease the suffering, establish a standard of justice, and improve the quality of life for ourselves. Yet we can never divorce ourselves from nature, and natural laws can form the basis for identifying and promoting natural and inalienable rights, balanced more justly by our improving (but far from perfect or homogeneously applicable) social contracts that promote the atmospheres in which our better angles of love, empathy, curiosity, sympathy, creativity, altruism & generosity, and a desire for peaceful existence can more freely flourish.

"That a man be willing, when others are so too… to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself."

While I don't agree with the Leviathan Theory as proposed by Hobbes, the basic concept is demonstrably sound when comparing regions with an adequately strong enforcement agent for the contract against areas of lawlessness and illegitimate weak governments. Modern nomadic tribal societies are little better, as were pre-colonial Native American tribal bands. It's telling that almost immediately upon the start of colonization in the N. American hemisphere by French and English settlers, the native tribes of adjacent and co-occupied territories latched onto alliances with the European invaders - short shortsightedly using those nations preexisting animosities as a basis for alliance and support of their own tribal infighting. Studies of modern nomadic tribes in the African, Asian, and S. American jungles reveals that the chance of dying at the hands of another man for them exceeds (by far, in most cases) the chance of such happening in most nations, especially the first world nations, in the past 20th century - even when taking into account the deaths inflicted by WWI & II.


The concept of the "Noble Savage", and all it details - both expressly and in influence - needs to be unseated from the place it's taken in the public's mind. It relies on romanticism and sentimentality, not an accurate reflection or understanding of reality. It promotes the pursuit and embrace of pseudosciences long since debated and marginalized for ineffectiveness for centuries - ultimately disproven and discarded. It's promoted these days more by pseudo-religious groups and spiritualists, promising enlightenment while eroding confidence in science and human knowledge - pointing the way back to the Dark Ages as something to strive for. It confuses people's concepts of morality, purity, safety, and makes them susceptible to all manner of snake-oil charms and elixirs. It's hard for many in the public to resolve the disconnect between science's advancement, societies progress - and the near ever-present and repeated invocation of the "Expulsion from Eden". Especially when uncritical examinations of scientific principals, such as entropy, seem to support it. The 2nd law of Thermodynamics being a favorite stumbling block for Creationists. Even our own sense of nostalgia can seem to confirm it, projecting subjective experience in the stead of objective observations.


For me... I prefer an incomplete, but workable answer - rather than comfort myself with a complete falsehood. Let alone embrace the easy and exotic answers of a long discarded falsehood. Embraced for little or naught else but the virtue of being old -- the falsehood of assuming a correlation between purity and antiquity. Of trusting the lack of man's involvement as the measure by which to ensure accuracy, rather than the objective evidence of reality and reproducible results.


(Sorry for rambling)

Originally posted by Ghost in the Machine
Ok, the title pretty much explains it all.

The question I am most interested in hearing your feedback from is, In the beginning, when the first religion was established, wouldn't that have been the purest of all religions? and if so, What do you think happened to it?

religion is a product of man. asking what is the purest religion is like breaking a wine glass and asking what piece is not sharp.

religion is the ultimate form of control. after all, if a person does not abide by the governments rules, then make their creator ashamed of them.

the ultimate shame a society can have (spiritually) IMHO, is to have a god who is ashamed of it's creation. from confusion to denial and everything in between......

the controllers make sure it's full of unsolvable riddles, parables, and fairy tales.
top that off by telling everyone the opposite of what you really want them to believe. as a result, it's people go through life never learning the lessons that earth has to teach.

the rock is full of nothing but (almost) zombies that wander aimlessly supporting a "buy me now" mentality all the while taking no responsibility for anything they do cause "the devil made them do it."

if my creator takes responsibility and guilt away from my actions because i have a deity to blame for everything, how responsible will i be?



school is in session, time to listen up.




[edit on 6-11-2009 by anonamousantichrist]

[edit on 6-11-2009 by anonamousantichrist]

[edit on 6-11-2009 by anonamousantichrist]

[edit on 6-11-2009 by anonamousantichrist]

The first religious act was when Adam and Eve made aprons to hide their nakedness.

The first religious service was when Cain offered vegetables upon and altar instead of a blood sacrifice.

The first religion was created by the watchers for control of human kind through magic, sorcery, and drugs.

The first Godly religion was that which was given to the Israelites at Mt. Sinai when the law of God was given.

Christianity, while called a religion is actually a relationship with the living God through His Son Jesus. It is a relationship of family, eternal life, and inheritance.


[edit on 6-11-2009 by Fromabove]

The first worshiping was nature as ancient man depended on nature fo their survival.

religion is a way to make money ... so, yeah, "this first religion" went away, since it was not a money machine .. so they figure it out other ways to eslave people ... and it works until today ... its really sad what some people do because of a book

Originally posted by Faiol
religion is a way to make money ... so, yeah, "this first religion" went away, since it was not a money machine .. so they figure it out other ways to eslave people ... and it works until today ... its really sad what some people do because of a book

Which book is that..? We have science books, Bibles, the Quran, Eastern religion, and cook books... Or are you just saying the Bible..?

Didnt read all the posts, But!

i would say the the first religion whatever it may be(leaning towards Earth Goddess, Paganism) no longer exists thanks to Christianity, Islam and whatever else people follow these days. Therefore we will never know. Therefore its a irrelevant question as the question will never be answered...