Nothing New Religions Evolve From Previous Religions

“In metaphysics, in moral philosophy, the ancients have said everything. We coincide with them, or we repeat them. All modern books of this kind are only repetitions.”

"Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary"
Voltaire (1764)₁

Religions evolve over time. There are no genuinely new elements of religion that are not adopted from previous religious ideas, from previous cultural symbols and beliefs, or from secular innovations. In this text we see how folk-lore can gradually change into a confident religious story, how the movement of stories from one place to another can create seemingly new religious ideas, and how all the elements of world religions pre-dated the religions they are now part of. The implication of so much re-use and human involvement in the propagation of religious memes is that there is no supernatural or divine component to the origin of religion. Religious histories have unfolded just as if there are no gods or spirits, but only Human nature, to guide them.

1. Nothing Is New
   1. Common Sense: New Religions Develop from Old Ones
   2. The Exposure to Fresh Audiences
   3. The Psychology and Sociology of Exaggeration
2. The Evolution of Folk-lore Into Religion: The Epic of Gilgamesh Became a Flood
3. Christianity: The New Testament was Rehashed Paganism
4. The New Age: Old Beliefs, New Packaging
5. Buddhism
6. The Causes of Religion