Just like the title says. What God was worshiped before all others?

There are so many Gods worshiped today. Some are quite new. Others are many thousands of years old. For the purpose of this thread, we are going to consider Gods in historical times, which is to say, after prehistory. So the last seven thousand years, or thereabouts.

Today, Spiritism is popular in Africa. Ancestor worship is popular in the east. Judaeo-Christian beliefs are practiced in the west. But truly, no matter what God you say you worship, your worship is definable by your behavior. For instance, today many in the west believe they worship the God of the Bible, when really they worship materialism, sex, greed, or other selfish pursuits. Some would say that has always been the case, and constitutes the first God. But for the purpose of this discussion we are going to be looking at formally worshiped Gods.

Through history, from the tribal Gods of Indigenous Peoples, Babylonia, Assyria, Egypt, Rome, and through the dark ages, you have literally thousands of Gods to choose from. Sky Spirits, Nebo, Bel, Osiris, Zeus, nothing is off the table. And you have everything from cave paintings to the writings of L. Ron Hubbard to choose from as a form of proof that a particular god was worshiped first.

This thread has rules:

• No bashing the belief systems of others. Respect others.
• This thread is about who was worshiped first in history, not who is right or wrong. No arguing in favor of (or against?) your beliefs. I don’t care if you are a Lesbian Icelandic Amish Wiccan, or a worshiper of the one God of the Cylons, don’t bring your arguments here.
• This is not a discussion of Agnosticism, Evolution, Atheism or non-God worshiping beliefs. This is about Gods that have been worshiped over history. Start your own thread on these topics if you wish. Just don’t bring them here.

What God was worshiped first, and is provable by glyphs, oral record, writing, or some other method? What God was worshiped before all others? Your thoughts?

H&K-Guy

In the beginning, human beings created a God who was the First Cause of all things and Ruler of heaven and earth. He was
not represented by images and had no temple or priests in his service. He was too exalted for an inadequate human cult.
Gradually he faded from the consciousness of his people. He had become so remote that they decided that they did not
want him any more. Eventually he was said to have disappeared.

That, at least, is one theory, popularised by Father Wilhelm Schmidt in The Origin of the Idea of God, first published in
1912. Schmidt suggested that there had been a primitive monotheism before men and women had started to worship a
number of gods. Originally they had acknowledged only one Supreme Deity, who had created the world and governed
human affairs from afar. Belief in such a High God (sometimes called the Sky God, since he is associated with the heavens)
is still a feature of the religious life in many indigenous African tribes. They yearn towards God in prayer; believe that he is
watching over them and will punish wrong-doing. Yet he is strangely absent from their daily lives: he has no special cult and
is never depicted in effigy. The tribesmen say that he is inexpressible and cannot be contaminated by the world of men.
Some people say that he has 'gone away'. Anthropologists suggest that this God has become so distant and exalted that he
has in effect been replaced by lesser spirits and more accessible gods. So too, Schmidt's theory goes, in ancient times, the
High God was replaced by the more attractive gods of the Pagan pantheons. In the beginning, therefore, there was One
God. If there is so, then monotheism was one of the earliest ideas evolved by human beings to explain the mystery and
tragedy of life. It also indicates some of the problems that such a deity might have to face.

It is impossible to prove this one way or the other. There have been many theories about the origin of religion. Yet it seems
that creating gods is something that human beings have always done. When one religious idea ceases to work for them, it is
simply replaced. These ideas disappear quietly, like the Sky God, with no great fanfare. In our own day, many people
would say that the God worshipped for centuries by Jews, Christians and Muslims has become as remote as the Sky God.
Some have actually claimed that he has died. Certainly he seems to be disappearing from the lives of an increasing number
of people, especially in Western Europe. They speak of a 'God-shaped hole' in their consciousness where he used to be,
because, irrelevant though he may seem in certain quarters, he has played a crucial role in our history and has been one of
the greatest human ideas of all time. To understand what we are losing - if, that is, he really is disappearing - we need to see
what people were doing when they began to worship this God, what he meant and how he was conceived. To do that we
need to go back to the ancient world of the Middle East where the idea of our God gradually emerged about 14,000 years
ago. - Karen Armstrong

- A History of God, chapter 1, pg 12, In the Beginning

There’s no clear answer to this, mostly on the basis that many deities existed prior to writing.

Not in argument with Karen Armstrong, but a different perspective. For her POV is well expressed and sensible.

Is it perhaps we "have disappeared from God" and have left Him, not the other way around?

From our perspective, His "absence" might be the same, if we are "here", and He is "way over there. And in that perspective, it matters not who "walked away". Only that the void/gulf exists.

This stated from my experience as a Jew, and the intent/idea of "teshuva" the "re-turning" (as in military "about face").

Often, God asks, "Where are you?" (ad in the actual Hebrew context, the meaning is "why are you not where you are supposed to be" (as in, your proper place/condition/station)

So, my answer to the OP, is "the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob". He is eternal and separate from all creation, yet involved in His purpose and as He wills to be, whether we comprehend it or not.

Much like the creator of a thing can be perceived by the thing (art, literary works, movie production, music etc.), yet still fully and separate from it, or involved in it as seen fit to be.

God created the first man, Adam, and then Eve, to be his companion. They walked with Him in Eden and knew He was God.

That’s the way Genesis tells it and that’s what I believe.

So, my answer to the OP’s question is the God of the Christian bible (and Jewish Torah, for that matter). What Monkey said.

-Rob

Probably the sun.

(Probably started at the end of a long cold winter. lol)

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
Probably the sun.

(Probably started at the end of a long cold winter. lol)

Beat me to it. I believe there are still cultures that worship the sun.

Either the sun or the moon or both.

The first false god was probably Re (Ra), creator sun god.

quote:

Originally posted by ggile:
The first false god was probably Re (Ra), creator sun god.

Human history goes back a lot further than six thousand years.

Whatever that answer may be, I suggest that it's not oneself.

I think that by asking which god was worshipped first, you are going to get a lot of various answers. Doesn't just about every people group make claim to some sort of god? And they would claim that that their god(s) are the correct god(s)? I believe that the Lord revealed in the Bible is the Creator. Not just because He says so, but because the Scriptures that testify of Him can be proven to be true.
Manuscript evidence.
Archeology evidence.
Predictive Prophecy evidence.
Statistical Probability evidence.
Internal consistency of the Scripture.
Non-christian eyewitness' to affirm the writings. Such as Josephus.
The Bible is a historical book. - 66 individual books written over 1500 years by some 40 authors. From fishermen to kings. Different lands and it remained internally consistent.
Is there any other book or way that can make that claim? Either the Bible is a complete fraud made for mankind to completely control and deceive us. Or the Bible is verifiably true through evidence. And if true, then the Lord reveled in Scripture is God and there is no other. The Bible makes it totally clear that no other god(s) can exist. So the Lord of Scripture is the First Cause of everything and the Eternal God only worthy of man's worship--
Lineman

Would be interesting to know what the earliest evidence is. Genesis was written by Moses around 1400-ish BC so only 3400 years or so ago. Before that it was another approx. 1000 years of oral tradition to the earliest verified dates in the Bible around 2500 BC. Beyond that, from whenever Adam was created to those earliest ~2500 BC verified dates. (This per my NIV study Bible)

In terms of evidence I’m sure there have to be cave drawings or something depicting god worship more than ~3500-4500 years ago…

If you believe in God per Christian/Jewish tradition or Allah than that is the first having created Adam/Eve and then immediately worshiped by them.

I used to have it written down somewhere but lost it during a previous life.

There may be many gods, but there’s only one capital-G God of the universe.

I have to disagree 100% with the OP’s use of “Gods”.

Yag. Son of Tharg, first of his name. Mammoth bane, slayer of Kulag the Odorous and Grak the Toothless, eater of stone. First to rub sticks and create fire, first to mark cave walls with his sign. Many a cave wench has been dragged by her hair to the lair of Yag!

Yag! Yag! Yag!

quote:

Originally posted by Lord Vaalic:
Yag. Son of Tharg, first of his name. Mammoth bane, slayer of Kulag the Odorous and Grak the Toothless, eater of stone. First to rub sticks and create fire, first to mark cave walls with his sign. Many a cave wench has been dragged by her hair to the lair of Yag!

Yag! Yag! Yag!

Dude,

Don't be the Jar-Jar Binx of this thread. Stay on point and don't derail this thread into sillyness.

H&K-Guy

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:
Would be interesting to know what the earliest evidence is. Genesis was written by Moses around 1400-ish BC so only 3400 years or so ago. Before that it was another approx. 1000 years of oral tradition to the earliest verified dates in the Bible around 2500 BC. Beyond that, from whenever Adam was created to those earliest ~2500 BC verified dates. (This per my NIV study Bible)

In terms of evidence I’m sure there have to be cave drawings or something depicting god worship more than ~3500-4500 years ago…

If you believe in God per Christian/Jewish tradition or Allah than that is the first having created Adam/Eve and then immediately worshiped by them.

The Egyptians were worshiping Ra, the Sun God, 2900-2400 BC. They painted plenty of icons, and built plenty of temples to show their devotion.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
I have to disagree 100% with the OP’s use of “Gods”.

Unbunch your shorts He capitalized the entire thread subject.

OP: I would imagine the best you can hope for is to discover which was the first recorded deity worshipped by mankind. Or the first deity worshipped in recorded history. Probably one or another Sumerian or Egyptian deity, as those were the first of the known great civilizations? Not even remotely my area of expertise, though.

If one were to look back to the Bible and before you would realize that we were visited by extraterrestrials. The ancient statues and cave drawings etc all show the same thing. UFO’s/aliens that visited us were thought to be gods. Even the Bible tells the story.