Talk:Claims to the oldest religion

reason for this page's existence
"oldest religion" appears to be a notable meme, what with 42,000 google hits and discussion of the meme itself may be warranted. Googling, the term appears to be most popular with Hindus, but there are numerous other contestants. The idea is a bit similar to that of an "oldest language": do we mean actual prehistoric origins (origin of religion), cultural universals (folk religion), earliest evidence (paleolithic religion), earliest written attestation (Early Bronze Age), "continuity" (or conservative ritualism) (history of religion, ritualism, Shrauta), or do we mean claims of restituation of a primeval religion (Islam, Umbanda etc.)? This quick overview of meanings makes clear that the term can never be used objectively unless it is precisely stated what the claim is (in the python worship case, "earliest known evidence of human ritual practice." dab (𒁳) 18:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

tags
quoth : "Article title not clear. Needs major re-write. Should be merged with general article on religion." --dab (𒁳) 09:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * cleanup-title
 * Title is modelled on Claims to be the fastest growing religion. If you have move suggestions, let's hear them.
 * religion
 * so, do we want to move it, impose a "major rewrite", or just merge it now? these suggestions seem somewhat contradictory. religion is a huge super-article. A possible merge target candidate might be history of religion. Let's hear the rationale for that.
 * copyedit
 * sofixit. It's a stub. Are your objections to grammar? to "style"?, to "cohesion"?, to "tone"? or to spelling?

merge?
So the article is a "povfork"? A pov fork of what article, and pushing which point of view?

Independently of hostile allegations, I do think a well-argued and well executed merger might have some merit. But I also think this can well be a standalone article just like Claims to be the fastest growing religion. The point is that this addresses both actual history of religion and recent chauvinist, literalist and pious claims along hte lines of Hinduism or Islam being "the oldest religion" (WP:TRUTH). In this respect, calling a religion "oldest" is just adherents touting it on the same footing as calling it "fastest growing". I have indeed created an article on this meme because Hindu editors insisted hook and crook to call Hinduism "the oldest religion" in the indicative in the lead of the Hinduism article. dab (𒁳) 09:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
 * this is original research. There is a well documented and mainstream timeline of the history of religions. the word "claim" implies that there is some dispute over the oldest religions. There isn't.Muntuwandi (talk) 01:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * well, there is. I googled "oldest religion" and I cite the notable references I came up with. This is hardly "original" (on-wiki) research. The point is that "oldest religion" is used in various senses, not just in the sense of "paleolithic religion", as is evident from the sources cited. Kindly review the references before calling "OR". Is it "OR" to note that Godianism claims to revive the "oldest religion"? No, it's just not very notable. Hinduism likewise (sometimes) claims to be the "oldest religion". That doesn't make more sense than the Godianism claim, but Hinduism being a major world religion makes the claim more notable. --dab (𒁳) 09:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * By placing it in the separate article it may well be OR as it combines elements that are otherwise not ever found in one research or secondary source. There is no source that lists that many religions as if competing for the title? Is there? If there is then its not OR, if there no research paper like that it is clearly an OR. It really needs to be forming part of a busy article to ensure there is consensus on the claims and check up on RS used. Ideally it will be a WP:SS section in Religion with this being the main article. Choosing a page that does not have good deal of discussion does not provide for a consensus building (the actual meaning of POV - FORK ans CFORK - avoiding consensus building). According to the pages of relevant religions (or not religions?) that you claim here 'claim to be the oldest' do not reflect such claims. There are so many things you can find on Google, but not all of it encyclopedic and thus should be removed. Inclusion of such items and making such a huge list is clearly POV of the author of this article.  Wikidās ॐ 10:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

After a closer look, my fears are confirmed and the article is clearly a kind of [{Wikipedia:SYNTH|original synthesis]], and unless a reference that compares the list of 'religions' is listed here is produced,  article should be marked as OR. Wikidās ॐ 12:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * yep, you have a point. WP:SYN (not WP:OR) may be an issue here. Much like Claims to be the fastest growing religion and other over-specialized articles, it could do with merging into context. Needless to say, the merger should not be done by editors of your sort, pursuing a one-tack agenda, but by somebody with the necessary background knowledge and encyclopedic interest. dab (𒁳) 14:27, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Fixing bad links by undoing page move
There are a lot of pages that link to this one. Having a blind redirect to something about Germanic philosophy isn't the way to solve the problem. Incoming eyeballs are getting whiplash from the topic shift. This page needs to be properly worked through into a real independent article. 23.116.49.179 (talk) 18:36, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm proposing that we merge this article with Origin of religion instead. 23.116.49.179 (talk) 18:49, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm poking you all to another discussion page Talk:Evolutionary origin of religions where people are coping with a rogue editor who is vandalizing pages. That editor has deleted a variety of pages on religious history, replacing them with blind redirects to Urreligion (which is not about the same topic). They seem to be interested in pushing their own personal viewpoint without regard for Wikipedia policy. 23.116.49.179 (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2014 (UTC)