| | These citations are all from the Wikipedia. I array them here only to remind us that we all know the facts. What counts is how you explain them. It seems that Zoroaster was the first religious thinker, i.e, the first philosopher. It is also interesting -- fascinating, really, when you think about it -- that Thales came first and then Confucius and Siddhartha were contemporaries. The compelling thing about Thales, is that Ionia was contiguous with (and later subsumed by) the Persian empire. See note at the end of this page.
Zoroaster (Greek Ζωροάστρης, Zōroastrēs) or Zarathustra (Avestan: Zaraθuštra), also referred to as Zartosht (Persianزرتشت), was an ancient Iranian prophet and the founder of Zoroastrianism, a religion that was the national religion of the Sassanian Empire of Persia; it is predominantly practiced today by the Parsi community of India.
Zoroaster is generally accepted as an authentic historical figure, but the period in which he lived remains unclear. Many scholarly estimates place him circa 1200 B.C., making him a candidate to be the founder of the earliest religion based on revealed scripture, while others place him anywhere between the 18th and the 6th centuries B.C.
Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit सिद्धार्थ गौतम, Pali Gotama Buddha) was a spiritual teacher from ancient India and the historical founder of Buddhism. He is universally recognized by Buddhists as the Supreme Buddha of our age. The time of his birth and death are uncertain; most modern historians date his lifetime from 563 BCE to 483 BCE, though some have suggested a date about a century later than this.
Confucius (Chinese: 孔夫子, transliterated Kong Fuzi or K'ung-fu-tzu, lit. "Master Kong," but most frequently referred to as Kongzi 孔子, traditionally September 28, 551 – 479 BC) was a famous Chinese thinker and social philosopher, whose teachings and philosophy have deeply influenced East Asian life and thought.
Thales of Miletus also known as Thales the Milesian (Θαλῆς ὁ Μιλήσιος), (ca. 624 BC–ca. 546 BC), was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher and one of the Seven Sages of Greece. Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition as well as the father of science.
Anaximander (Greek: Αναξίμανδρος) (c.610 BC – c. 546 BC), also known as Aniximander, was the second of the physical philosophers of Ionia, a citizen of Miletus, a companion or pupil of Thales, and teacher of Anaximenes of Miletus.
Aspasia (c.470 BC[1][2]–c.400 BC,[1][3] Greek: Ἀσπασία) was a renowned woman of ancient Greece, famous for her romantic involvement with the Athenian statesman Pericles.[..Aspasia appears in the philosophical writings of Plato and other philosophers and is regarded by modern scholars as an exceptional person who distinguished herself due to her political influence and intellectual charisma.
Socrates (Greek: Σωκράτης, invariably anglicized as [sɔkɹətiːz], Sǒcratēs; circa 470–399 BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy.
Mencius (Romanization; 孟子, pinyin: Meng Zi; Wade-Giles: Meng Zhu; most accepted dates: 372–289 BCE; other possible dates: 385–303/302 BCE) was a Chinese philosopher and arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself. He argued that human beings are naturally good but become corrupted by society.
Note: having read Jane Jacobs's The Economy of Cities, I went and got the original Scientific American articles about Çatalhöyük c. 7000 BCE. It is not so much a matter of what we know, but more a matter of when did we stop knowing it. In other words, how did mankind get so stupid? At Çatalhöyük there was no evidence of warfare. Trade drove culture. Infant mortality was high, and few people lived beyond middle age, but they lived well and even had mirrors and make-up. What happened? It was not "religion" because Çatalhöyük had that.
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