Religion can be defined as a cultural system of determined behaviors and practices, as well as views. of world, ethics and organizations that relate humanity to supernatural, transcendental or spiritual. Generally religions have specific texts, sacred places, prophecies, priests, rituals, etc. The concept of religion, however, varies widely.
THE origin of religions in civilizations it is uncertain. Cognitive psychology points out that the theory of mind may have been responsible for the human ability to attribute intention and personality to natural phenomena, thus creating the first gods. That is, our ability to attribute mental states to other people and predict their behavior based on these attributions may have led us to do the same to interpret the world.
According to anthropologists John Monaghan and Peter Just, “many of the world's great religions seem to have started as movements for the revitalization of some sort, as the vision of a charismatic prophet fires the imagination of people looking for a more comprehensive answer to their problems than feel. It seems that the key to long-term success has relatively little to do with the prophets, who come up with surprising regularity, but more to do with developing a group of supporters who are able to institutionalize the movement."
the first religions
The remains of one of the first anatomically modern humans were found buried nearby to Lake Mungo, Australia, in what appears to have been a funeral rite that took place in the year 40,000 before Christ.
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- An effigy made of ivory depicting a lion man was found in a cave in Germany, dated to 38,000 BC. This is Löwenmensch, who seems to be the oldest anthropozoomorphic religious idol.
- From the Neolithic to the modern era, several other sites were found where funeral rites took place.
- Around 3750 BC there is linguistic evidence of the existence of peoples who spoke the Proto-Semitic language and which gave rise to today's Semitic peoples.
- 3300 BC there are records of pre-Vedic peoples in the Indus Valley, who would eventually form the Vedic religion and which is a forerunner of modern Hinduism.
- In about 2620 BC the construction of the oldest surviving pyramid in Egypt was commissioned by Pharaoh Djoser.
- 2200 BC the development of the Minoan civilization in Crete occurs. Their gods would form the Greek pantheon.
- 2150 BC the first version of the Epic of Gilgamesh
modern religions
These are the four religions with the highest number of followers. It is interesting to note that two of these religions were founded in the Middle East and two others in India.
- Christianity, with 2.4 billion followers.
- Islam, with 1.8 billion followers.
- Hinduism, with 1.15 billion followers.
- Buddhism, with 0.52 billion followers.
The fifth religion with the most followers is actually the set of traditional religious traditions from different parts of the globe. Shamanism, folk traditions, tribal habits add up to 0.4 billion followers today.
In percentage, the Taoism it's the Islam are the religions that gain more adherents each year.
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