Which religion is the most probable... based off of historical, geographical, and other evidence?

1. What the question really asks: truth, age, or cultural continuity?

Parsing the query is essential: "most probable" can mean most likely to be historically oldest, most historically attested, or most credible as a metaphysical truth; the reporting supplied is strongest on age and material evidence but does not provide a basis for adjudicating metaphysical truth claims, which remain outside the scope of archaeological and historiographical methods ^{[1] [2]}.

2. The oldest organized religious texts and traditions — why Hinduism often tops lists

Academic summaries and reference works commonly identify South Asian religious traditions—often labeled Hinduism—as having the longest surviving textual record, with scriptures such as the Rigveda and other Vedic corpora forming a continuous literary tradition whose oldest layers date back millennia and provide the clearest claim to textual antiquity among world religions ^{[1] [2]}.

3. Yet prehistoric religion comes first in time — ritual before scripture

Scholars stress that religion, broadly defined, long predates organized systems and writing: archaeological evidence—burials, ritual objects, and symbolic artifacts—indicates ritual behavior and animistic beliefs in Paleolithic and Neolithic contexts, and some researchers argue for ancestor or goddess cults well before recorded history, meaning spiritual practices are far older than any named religion ^{[3] [2]}.

4. Other ancient, continuous systems: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and regional survivals

Beyond South Asia, several traditions have deep historical roots and ancient textual anchors: Zoroastrianism shows archaeological and literary traces reaching into the second and first millennia BCE and became a major state religion in Persia ^{[4] [5]}, while Judaism’s compilation phases and early written records place formative texts and communities in the first millennium BCE ^{[2] [6]}. These literate, historically attested traditions are therefore also plausible candidates for "oldest" in different senses (scriptural continuity, institutional continuity, or regional prevalence).

5. Geography, cultural exchange, and why “oldest” is a messy label

The shape of ancient religions reflects local ecologies, literacies, and imperial histories: Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Anatolian systems developed in parallel and influenced one another but also show independent origins tied to local needs and symbolism; therefore, selecting a single “most probable” religion based on geography ignores the multiplicity of prehistoric and early historic spiritualities noted by historians and archaeologists ^{[7] [8]}.

6. On claims about which religion is most likely to be true: limits of historical evidence

Some modern writers and apologetic sources assert that particular scriptures or historical claims make one religion more likely to be true, citing manuscript counts or historical reliability (for example, defenses of Christianity emphasize New Testament textual abundance) but those arguments are theological or philosophical, not conclusive historical proof of metaphysical truth; the cited reporting illustrates partisan claims but does not resolve truth-claims beyond academic limits ^[9].

7. Bottom line: for age and attestation, not metaphysical truth

If the criterion is longest continuous scriptural and institutional evidence, South Asian traditions commonly categorized as Hinduism have the strongest claim; if the criterion is the earliest human religiosity, prehistoric ritual practices predate all organized faiths; if the criterion is metaphysical or spiritual truth, the sources supplied do not provide a scientific or historical method to adjudicate competing truth claims and such judgments fall into theology and philosophy rather than archaeology or history ^{[1] [3] [2] [9]}.