Religion India

What is religion? It is the belief that we have in a faith which leads us to worship gods or is a set of rituals and observations that explain the reason for the existence of the universe. It involves devotional rituals and observances that followers need to live by and prescribes a moral code that should conduct the affairs of the believer. As long as there have been human beings, there has been some sort of religion. Voltaire once reflected on this when said, "If there were no God, it would have been necessary to invent him. There are different creation stories for different religions, but it is difficult to say with certainty which is the oldest religion as there are no written records that support claims.

All world religions claim to be the oldest religions of the world, as all religions have a creation story of how the world began. Technically animism should be considered as the oldest among the different types of religions but since it is a primitive religion which has been replaced by more formal religions, it is hardly practiced anymore. Animism is the belief that every natural object and the universe has a soul and this soul is to be worshiped. Animal worship is also a faith that has survived for many years now. In fact in 2006, a carved statue of a python was excavated in Botswana that has been dated to be at least 70,000 years old. Another unorganized form of religion that has been around for several centuries is Paganism which is the belief in worship of Mother Earth and reverence of forms of Earth.