What is the longest living civilization?

Well, I am neither a Hindu nor an Indian nationalist. I do not believe everything originated in India, and I certainly do not refute the Aryan Invasion Theory. The Hindu nationalists who propagate such nonsense as India being the root of all great contributions to human civilization are absurd and irrational and I would never waste my time debating with such people regardless of their national origin.

You simply making a claim such as the "Trinity has no roots in Hinduism" does not make it true unless you can support such a claim with fact.

I am not Hindu so I am certainly not going to bother arguing Hindu theology with you. I only offered up the notion that Hinduism may have influenced the concept of the Christian Trinity. Perhaps I could have worded it less ambiguously by stating that the Aryan concepts, which were later, adopted into Hinduism are the same basis for the idea of the Christian Trinity. I certainly do not have any doubts that the Aryan peoples' beliefs influenced Judaism which in turn influenced Christianity.

No, I do certainly do not believe that. It is absurd for anyone to believe such a thing and I myself would think anyone who placed any emphasis on such a theory was lacking all rational.

I never stated that India was the oldest civilization in the world. I stated many times that the oldest civilization in the world, as accepted by the archaeologist community is that of Mesopotamia, if you want to argue that India is the oldest continuous civilization in the world, then all you need to do is scroll up to the links I provided which state that the earliest communities in India originated in 7,000 BC � a full 500 years before the Chinese civilization.

Also, I never stated that everything comes from India, but I did lend credence where it is due in that the modern numeral system we utilize today, and other concepts did in fact originate in ancient India.

Something to be proud of? I suppose if I were East Indian, then I would be proud of it, but as such, I only pointed it out as a known fact. I am getting the impression from you that you feel Indian civilization is inferior to your own and others which you have high regard for � is this a valid assumption?

I understand your position in that there are multiple possibilities but until there is a consolidated effort amongst the archeologists, historians, and theologians to change the school curriculum, then I will continue to believe what we are taught in school.

For example, as Nestorian stated, there are consolidated efforts on the part of Hindu nationalists, and scholars of Indian thought, to debunk the Aryan Immigration Theory. I will admit that some of their reasoning does make one entertain their ideas but again, unless the Aryan Immigration Theory is completely rejected by the world community, I will still continue to believe it to be true. Similarly, Shinto-ism may or may not be older than Hinduism, but until the world community accepts this, I will continue to believe that the latter and not the former is the oldest religion in the world.

As far as I am aware, scholars accept that Hinduism originated around 1500 BC with the Aryan invasion of India, and Shinto-ism originated in 300 BC in Japan.

I offered a retort to this query in my response to Nestorian, and you can derive what my response would have been by the link I provided to you earlier in which it stated that Mesopotamia was the oldest civilization and that Indian civilization originated circa 7000 BC and Chinese civilization originated circa 6500 BC. That would make the Indian civilization the oldest continuous civilization in the world, and Chinese civilization, the second oldest.

You are correct, Vedic Hinduism does indeed have its origins in or around 1500 BC but this refers only to the Aryan concepts that were coupled with the beliefs of the conquered Dravidians. The history of the origins of Hinduism actually lies with the Dravidian peoples and this may actually be a lot further back than 1500 BC.

I agree with you here completely. Although a Hindu will be reluctant to admit it if you asked him, I too feel that it was with the introduction of Islam to India that great emphasis was placed on the monotheistic element in Hinduism.

Dharma does not mean religion, it is translated as DUTY, it may imply religion but I am not sure of this.

Sanskrit is the original language of India as accepted by the majority of scholars. Sanskrit is credited as being the mother language of all Indic languages. No doubt that Dravidian languages which were free of Indo-European terminology may have been the very first words spoken in the land now known as India, but by in large, Sanskrit is widely regarded and accepted as the original formulated language of India � just as Avestan is the original language of the Iranian peoples and the sister language of Sanskrit.

There is evidence, which suggests that the Dravidian peoples migrated through the Middle East, settled in the Iranian Plateau, and then made their way to India.

You are correct, Dravidians are the original peoples of India and today, they are largely confined to the Deccan Plateau in the southern Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, etc., but bear in mind that it was with the influx of the Aryan into India around 1500 BC and the adoption of Dravidian religious beliefs with that of the Aryans, which produced Vedic Hinduism. And that is why Hinduism is credited as having begun circa 1500 BC although the actual origins of Hinduism are thousands of years prior to that.

PS: Aryans introduced Indo-European language terminology and religious concepts to the Dravidians upon conquering the Indus River basin.

On that basis, then Hinduism would remain as the oldest religion in the world because it has its roots in pre-historical Dravidian beliefs. Look, you stated that Shinto-ism might be the oldest religion based on the concept of where its roots can be traced, right? In that case, I argued that Hinduism serves as the oldest. On the other hand, if you accept that Hinduism as we know it today originated in 1500 BC �then you must also accept that Shinto-ism is credited with having originated in 300 BC, a full 1200 years after Hinduism!

Shinto-ism was founded circa 300 BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_world_religions

Extremists in all societies are the root cause of nothing more than mistrust, animosity, hatred, and ethnocentrism. It is due to extremists that conflicts exist in Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan, Ireland-England, etc. I do not put any credence into anything an extremist believes.

I enjoyed this debate very much, you are very knowledgeable.