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the oldest KNOWN religions?


probably judaism and hinduism

I'm not sure about any organized religion. But in my spiritual studies I've learned that the practice of shamanism is the oldest spiritual traditions used by humans. These traditions have been traced back as far as 50,000 years. Basically via cave drawings.

The basic idea of shamanism is that of taking "shamanic journeys" into the spiritual realm through various forms of meditation and/or dreamwork.

Interestingly many far more modern religions include these kinds of concepts. For example, in the Hebrew biblical stories God often speaks to men via dreams and visions which is basically a shamanic approach to communing with the spirit world.

The other interesting thing is that methods of shamanism seem to have risen spontaneously in just about every human culture that ever existed at some point. So this is a means of spirituality that is apparently innate to humans intuitively.

Whether you want to call shamanism a "religion" or not is a whole other story. There is no written doctrine that describes the tenets of this spirituality. It's just a spiritual experience. So it's definitely not a religion based on "doctrine". I'm not sure what religion would be the oldest in terms of actual tales. I heard once that the tales of Odin are pretty old. Some of the Eastern mystical views go way back too. And then don't forget about ancient Egyptian religions too. They go back probably prehistoric as well. We can only trace them back as far as history allows, but they probably existed in some form even prior to that.

The one when god was a single guy

The worship of the female Deity often(mostly) called Shekinah would be my guess.

The Shekinah is held by many to represent the feminine attributes of the presence of God.

Compare it to the 'shakti,' the female energy of Hindu gods.

The nearest Christian concept to the Shekinah is that of the Holy Spirit.

Judaism is a monotheistic religion, strongly connected to a patriarchal God -Yahweh. It may surprise many people to discover that a goddess was associated with Judaism from its conception, and continued to play an important part, in various forms, to the present. The goddess is best known as Shekhina, a Talmudic term describing the manifestation of God's presence on earth.

Do you mean religions still being practiced?

If so, Hinduism.

If not, the oldest recorded religions would have to be those of Egypt and Sumeria. Since these two countries invented writing almost concurrently, they were the first to record their religious beliefs and practices.

Before writing, there is iconography from the Paleolithic and Neolithic, as Abra said, but we can only guess at the meaning.

I concur with the Sumerian religion being the oldest. The newest version of Sumerian beliefs is something called Spiritual Satanism.