The answer to who was the first god ever question is as complex as the belief system itself. However, if we take a peek at ancient history, people have always believed in something.
So, we can call it a god, a deity. After all, the system of believing in some Supreme being, something that is far greater than us, that is a creator of everything, followed human beings from the beginning of their existence.
Many scholars in the middle ages connected science like astronomy or geometry with the existence of something divine.
So, it can be said that that was their god. It was something that they worshipped on the level of traditionally religious people worship their gods.
By Michelangelo – Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork, Public Domain
Contents
The First God In Monotheistic Sense
Monotheism is a belief in one, all-encompassing deity, ie God. Today, we know that the main monotheistic religions are:
- Christianity,
- Judaism,
- Islam
- and Bahá’í Faith.
There were also earlier monotheistic beliefs throughout history. However, we will try to answer the question which was the first religion ever, ie who was the first monotheistic god.
But first, let’s make a distinction between theism, deism, pantheism, atheism and also agnosticism.
What Was The First Religion Ever?
Theism and deism see God Yahweh as a creator, and while theism recognises divinity also as a keeper of the universe, deism is not. In pantheism, God symbolises the universe itself.
Atheists don’t believe in the existence of God, while the existence of deity according to agnostics is unknowable.
It is possible that the oldest documented monotheistic religion was Atenism, in ancient Egypt. According to it, the first god, the creator of the universe was Aten.
By Photo by CEphoto, Uwe Aranas or alternatively © CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0,
Chaos As The First Divine Being Ever
According to Greek mythology, the abyss of Chaos created first gods and first goddesses ever.
The Greek poet Hesiod wrote that deities came in the following order. First, there was Chaos, then came Gaia, Tartarus, Hamera, Erebus, Eros, and lastly Nyx.
Everyone heard of an ancient Greek god Zeus. However, who created Zeus? Firstly, Gaia and Uranus are mother and father of Titans and Cyclopses.
Followed by Titan, Cronos and Rhea. It was Rhea who gave birth to god siblings Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera, and Demeter.
It is an interesting theory that Chaos was the first being, the first god that ever existed. Also, it is an interesting fact that it has never been given a gender.
By Workshop of George Frederic Watts – SgF5Y5qzAMME5Q at Google Cultural Institute, zoom level maximum Tate Images
Is God A Woman?
According to beliefs od archaeologists, from the very beginning of human life on Earth, a god was a woman. And they didn’t believe it just at the beginning. Moreover, humans believed that god is a woman for over 200 000 years.
Even though god as a woman is considered heresy in many cultures, there is evidence of worshipping female deities.
People have worshipped supreme female creator long before the idea of main world religions have even been conceived.
Figurines of pregnant women are found across Europe, the Middle East, and India, and anthropologists claim that some of them are from 25000 BC.
By Ramessos – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Is Nature a Deity?
There are not many documents or evidence of nature being the first god ever. Actually, the worship of nature as a being in its entirety does not exist, but only the worship of certain natural phenomena such as the sun, the moon, stars, animals, etc.
However, the observance of nature as an entity in its entirety is the attribute of developed civilizations, that is, the scholars influenced by the modern teachings of religion.
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