Question by Jack (Catholicism is the Truth: Was Catholicism the first institutional, organized world religion?
I know that religion existed before then, but wasn’t it the first truly organized world religion besides Judaism?
Best answer:
Answer by Araymage
No, Jewish people had organization long before Catholicism was around.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
idk
rofl “besides judaism”
“Hey we were the 2nd at least, right!?”
And no, there were other “truly organized” religions before Catholicism OR Judaism.
good thing you said besides judaism…world religion…yeah maybe.
Rome was very good at regimentation. Naturally they would do it in everything that they did.
What you need to remember is that the bible was compiled under the auspices of the roman emperor Constantine in an attempt to bring all of the various belief systems of the empire under a common faith.
The result was to be the universal or catholic faith. The word Catholic is derived from the Greek adjective ????????? (katholikos), meaning “universal”.
There is nothing wrong with this and I do not mean for it to sound derogatory. You just need to realize that it is an amalgamation of the various faiths and the dogma and theology of these belief systems. Even assuming benevolence on the part of Constantine’s people, making this all make sense would have been a monumental task.
The bible relied heavily on Jewish scripture and the New Testament was highly modified to support Paul’s teachings, which included such localized ideas as blood sacrifices to wash away sins, virgin births and resurrection of deceased deities.
Sadly much of the central part of the Jesus theology was lost in the blended mythology. A mythology was created around a great teacher comparable to the Buddha and he was turned into an amalgam of all of the Mediterranean deities. His teachings on love and non-judgment were all but lost in a maze of judgmental often-vindictive gibberish that he would have never agreed with.
Sadly some of the greatest teachings of all time were all but lost in Rome’s effort to be all thing to all people
Love and blessings Don
You’ve never heard of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia? It was one of the original Wonders of the World.
But Hinduism is far older.
Yes, your religion was the first [insert completely arbitrary signifier], if that makes you feel better about it.
hinduism is an ancient and very well organized religion. as is buddhism. also ancient pagan religions were extremely well organized. sumerian priests often ran cities. christianity is very far down that list.
yes based on jehovah god
other religions based on false gods were a world religion
many god’s of the romans were world wide also
No…. I don’t think…
Not by a long shot.
You think the Temples in ancient Greece and Italy and Egypt were built by loners? Heck, some of them were so mighty as to be among the original wonders of the ancient world (Temple of Zeus at Olympia and Temple of Artemis at Ephesus to name two) And Hinduism predates even Judaism as the oldest continuously practiced organized religion. But even the Jews were borrowing from Zoroaster and others back in the day.
Catholicism built a lot of power, wealth, and influence, but holds no special claims to being first or earliest organized “world” religion.
It was the first successful scamming religion, Judaism just originated via
backwards religious doctrine compared to Greco-Roman civilized religions.
Catholicism was an off-shoot from Orthodox religion, which was the first real organised religion in Europe. But they are both based on Pagan beliefs anyway.
no.
Judaism, Hinduism, along with all other religious beliefs that were run by a society through out history.
when I got born again , some catholics got angry at me and said ” dont you know that the catholec religion is the oldest in the world?” I replied ” No paganism is”
No – Christianity was; but then again, Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a Person and that is Jesus Christ.
“And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” -Matthew 16:18
Jesus founded Christianity.
“For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” -1 Corinthians 3:11
Catholicism was the first religion that felt that everyone had to think like them. In fact, that’s why the bible doesn’t even have the word religion in it. It uses the word nation, because the concept of a religion that transcends nationhood was unheard of. You worshiped the gods of your country, and no one, not even conquerors expected you to do any different. Then Catholics decided that everyone had to worship their god no matter where they were from or what their ‘religion.’ So they began forced conversions all around the world.
You may want to check into the Chinese culture, Alexander the Great, Rome and the Egyptians and that isn’t even mentioning Buddhists from India out into the greater Asian world. Don’t fault these guys because they didn’t all have horses, trains, ships, etc. … most of these mentioned above got around well enough anyway, and I didn’t even mention the great Norse culture or many others.
It depends what you mean by a world religion; Catholicism has never been the majority religion of the world, nor has any other.
Zoroastrianism and Judaism preceded Christianity as monotheist beliefs, and other polytheist beliefs had levels of organisation within other societies. Many of them spread far outside their original areas.
Of the surviving religions that exist worldwide, Hinduism would be the earliest.
The true religion has always been organized according to the need of time and era, but some people for their personal gain had been messing with it.
There is one God so there has to be one true religion. God has sent His messengers from time to time to convey His message to human race. With the passage of time some so called relgious people of the times started tempering with the religious messsage for their personal gains and corrupted it.
Muslims believe that Moses, Jacob, joseph, Jesus (peace be upon them all) and many other prophet were sent by the same on God…Allah. But with the passage of time there teachings were corrupted by selfish men. When there comes a human tempering hand then there comes contradiction and mistakes. which you can find in the earlier books. For example you can refer to the following video to find out the contradiction that is now there in the Bible due to changes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-4dKsVyTog&feature=related
So naturally there was a need of a message which could not be altered. So God revealed the final message in the holy book Quran. Allah himself has taken the responsibility of preserving it. Unlike other books which are not in the language which they were originally revealed in….Quran even after more then fourteen hundred years of its revealation is not only in its original language but also not a single word has been changed. It is perfectly preserved, there is not a single contradiction in it. It is perfect in every aspect and is the complete code of life.
We believe Jesus(peace be upon him) was one of prophets of Allah and we love and respect him. We believe in his miraculous birth, which some modern days christians donot believe in. A muslim can not be a muslim until he/she believes in all the prophets of Allah.
Hope this helps 🙂
http://www.islam-guide.com/
http://www.islamonline.net/English/index.shtml
http://www.harunyahya.com/
http://www.irf.net/