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THE OLDEST RELIGIONS IN THE WORLD: RELIGION VS MYTHOLOGY
Religions compete with each other much as businesses compete with each other for mind share and market share. Winning religions flourish and spread through proselytizing and warfare, then die away and become mythologies (e.g., Roman and Greek religions are now considered mythologies). A mythology, it is said, is a religion that has gone out of fashion. Odds are, in the unlikely event humankind does not fight or poison itself into extinction over the next few centuries or millennia, today’s religions will pass into official mythology. New religions will prevail, deifying Captain Kirk, Harry Potter, and Paris Hilton.
Religion has been around for tens of thousands of years—far longer than any of today’s Johnny-come-lately religions such as Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam (and secular religions such as Marxism and Naziism). And much longer than any of recorded history’s extinct religions. According to one anthropological estimate, humankind has created perhaps100,000 religions over tens of thousands of years. A 35,000-year-old cave painting in Italy, for example, clearly shows a mask-wearing shaman or wizard, hands outstretched, likely performing some sort of ritual. As well, there is evidence that the species Homo neanderthalensis, a species distinctly different from our own, had religion some 60,000 years ago.
As for brain location of the “religion” adaptation, damage to the right frontal lobe significantly alters a person’s religious and political beliefs and values.