Talk:Urreligion

Neighboring merger may step on toes
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 is deleting a variety of pages on religious history, adding blind redirects to Urreligion, on pages that should not have them. 23.116.49.179 (talk) 19:00, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

The move
It is certainly a good move. However I would relate it to WP:SS article Proto-Indo-European religion to make it related to larger/related article with good history. Wikidās ॐ 17:29, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * context of above comment -- Talk:Claims to the oldest religion.
 * re Wikidas' suggestion " I would relate it to WP:SS article Proto-Indo-European religion" -- you really haven't understood one sentence of either article, have you. dab (𒁳) 17:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You see - I do not have a 'one track agenda' as you have suggested here. I just present a particular perspective that is different from your attitude of constant inductance; I prefer a connected perspective that helps to create a complete picture on my area of interest. If the two (rather different, I know) articles are not interlinked by 'see also' and/or 'disambiguation' the purpose of Wiki is not served. Just as when you separate Vedic Hinduism from Classical Hinduism, it does not serve the purpose of informing people. Certainly both have to be part of one or interlinked. I know you find probably find Proto-Indo-European religion article almost absurd to link to. I know its not well sourced and is not quite there, but its interesting to compare the two in this context. Wikidās ॐ 23:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

A problem
"Claims to the oldest religion" redirects here, and so we have no real article on that topic, as this article doesn't really discuss it. We have an article on claims to be the fastest growing religion; why not one on the oldest? It's an interesting topic, delving into both mythological (from-the-creation-of-the-world) and historical areas.

But what do we mean by 'oldest religion'? Usually we mean 'oldest *surviving* religion', in which case the major contenders are probably Zoroastrianism (strongly dependent on the wildly varying dates given for Zoroaster), Judaism (strongly dependent on whether you mark Judaism as beginning with Abraham or Moses -- if you consider these to have had a historical basis --, with the emergence of Israel as a people, with the Babylonian Exile, etc. - giving a range of possible starting-dates of well over a thousand years), and Hinduism (again dependent on what you count as being 'the same religion' as modern Hinduism; if Vedic religion is included, as many would, Hinduism is probably the oldest - though the earliest possible dates for Zoroaster and the traditional dates for Abraham are in the range of 18th century BC). All this would have to be discussed & cited (along with theories about prehistoric religions, those with no surviving remnants) - it'd be a complicated article to write, but IMO a valuable one. 74.162.40.227 (talk) 18:52, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

"oldest surviving religion" isn't any more meaningful than "oldest religion", because religions are malleable. You can have "claims to the oldest religion" of course, and we can document such claims, but it is meaningless to try and evaluate their truth value.

"Urreligion" is the notion of a first, primeval, original religion, which would automatically be the oldest religion. Just pointing "oldest religion" to prehistoric religion or paleolithic religion might also be a possibility, but it makes more sense to discuss attempts to figure out "which religion came first" in the context of "Urreligion" than in the context of paleolithic religion.

So, in my opinion, there isn't really any valuable article in there, just a boring list of airy claims. The topic that is actually interesting is already here, namely bona fide 19th century attempts to figure out an "Urreligion". --dab (𒁳) 20:21, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

The article says that "urmonotheism" is now a discredited theory and provides a reference link. This was interesting, so I followed it--but the link does not support the statement in the article. I don't know whether to remove it or not on that basis, but maybe a more regular editor will see this and take whatever action is appropriate. --GRB —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.169.159.84 (talk) 22:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

fwiiw, this is how far we got with the kind of article you envisage. Perhaps you want to try and revive it. But be sure to avoid WP:SYNTH. You need an actual secondary source presenting such an overview, just cobbling together factoids as in the historical article revision linked does not cut it. --dab (𒁳) 20:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * There's also Evolutionary origin of religions. &mdash; goethean &#2384; 22:19, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I gave a citation, don't know if it is valid
The on line version of Britannica(no problem in using it as a source, right?) considers the indus valley civilisation to be the start of hinduism, if 'the traditions' of the indian subcontinent can be called as such. is it valid? if not, forgive me.117.196.149.205 (talk) 13:05, 9 March 2013 (UTC)