The Neo-Assyrian Empire ( 911-605BCE ) was probably the most dominant power on earth between the 10th Century BCE and the late 7th Century BCE, with an empire stretching from Cyprus in the west to central Iran in the east, and from the Caucasus mountains in the north to Nubia, Egypt and Arabia in the south, facilitating the spread of Mesopotamian culture and religion far and wide under emperors such as Ashurbanipal, Tukulti-Ninurta, Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmanesser IV, Sargon II, Sennacherib and Esarhaddon.

Babylonian religion is the religious practice of the Chaldeans, from the Old Babylonian period in the Middle Bronze Age until the rise of the Neo-Assyrian Empire in the Early Iron Age.

It grew in size and influence over a few decades, and by the end of the 4th century had become the official state religion of the Roman Empire, replacing other forms of religion practiced under Roman rule.

While the Roman Empire and its new Christian religion survived in an increasingly Hellenised form in the Byzantine Empire centered at Constantinople in the East, Western civilization suffered a collapse of literacy and organization following the fall of Rome in AD 476.

Some eastern parts of the country were controlled by the Indian Maurya Empire whose main religion was Hinduism.

In the 1st century, the land became part of the Kushan Empire whose official religion was Buddhism.

In addition to conflicts between his Spanish and German inheritances, conflicts of religion would be another source of tension during the reign of Charles V. Before Charles even began his reign in the Holy Roman Empire, in 1517, Martin Luther initiated what would later be known as the Reformation.

In the 2nd century BCE, Antiochus IV Epiphanes ( ruler of the Seleucid Empire ) tried to eradicate Judaism in favour of Hellenistic religion.

Early in the 4th century, Constantinople became the capital of the East Roman Empire and Christianity was adopted as the official religion.

A shrine was built on the site of his death following Emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Roman Empire.

In the 4th century it was successively adopted as the state religion by Armenia in 301, Georgia in 319, Aksumite Empire in 325, and then the Roman Empire in 380.

There is no agreement on an explanation of how Christianity managed to spread so successfully prior to the Edict of Milan and the establishment of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire.

Edward Gibbon, in his classic The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, discusses the topic in considerable detail in his famous Chapter Fifteen, summarizing the historical causes of the early success of Christianity as follows: "( 1 ) The inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses.

In 1647 differences arose between the elector and the emperor as to the allegiance due from the Bavarian troops, in which, after long hesitation, Werth, fearing that the cause of the Empire and of the Catholic religion would be ruined if the elector resumed control of the troops, attempted to take his men over the Austrian border.

This edict proclaimed that all the religions were equal before the law, and that the Roman Empire had to return to its original religious eclecticism, according to which the Roman state did not impose any religion on its provinces.

According to Annemarie Schimmel, the tendency among Shia authors to include leading mystical poets such as Rumi and Attar among their own ranks, became stronger after the introduction of Twelver Shia as the state religion in the Safavid Empire in 1501.

The Ottoman Empire had lost the World War and was dismembered, as Muslims feared for the safety of the holy places and the prestige of their religion.

It was widespread among the legions of the Roman Empire, who considered it a soldier's religion, and it was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism.

The primary language of Babylon ( and the administrative and cultural language of the Sassanid Empire ) at that time was Eastern Middle Aramaic, which included three main dialects: Judeo-Aramaic ( the language of the Talmud ), Mandaean Aramaic ( the language of the Mandaean religion ), and Syriac Aramaic, which was the language of Mani, as well as of the Syriac Christians.

This was shortly after the Roman Emperor Theodosius I had issued a decree of death for Manichaeans in AD 382 and shortly before he declared Christianity to be the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire in 391.

The Mithraic Mysteries were a mystery religion practiced in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to 4th centuries AD.

In 380 Catholicism was declared the sole state religion of the Roman Empire.

By this time Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire and Jerusalem the holy city of Christendom.

He also issued decrees that effectively made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Ishaq al-Rawandi (, ), commonly known as Ibn al-Rawandi (; born 827 CE – died 911 CE ), was an early skeptic of Islam and a critic of religion in general.

The first was the late 7th century Deuteronomistic reform of official Judean religion under king Josiah, who banned many elements of the old polytheistic cult from the Temple, and the sudden collapse of Assyria and the rise of Babylon to take its place ; the second was exile of the royal court, the priests and other members of the ruling elite following the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem c. 586 BCE.

Buddhism is a religion, a practical philosophy, and arguably a psychology, focusing on the teachings of Gautama Buddha, who lived on the Indian subcontinent most likely from the mid-6th to the early 5th century BCE.

Among the reasons given by those who oppose the use of Common Era notation is that it is selective as other aspects of the Western calendar have origins in various belief systems ( e. g., January is named for Janus ), Style guides for academic texts on religion generally prefer BCE / CE to BC / AD.

There is a general consensus among scholars that the first formative event in the emergence of the distinctive religion described in the Bible was triggered by the destruction of Israel by Assyria in c. 722 BCE.

The deportation and exile of an unknown number of Jews of the ancient Kingdom of Judah to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar II, starting with the first deportation in 597 BCE and continuing after the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple in 587 BCE, resulted in dramatic changes to Jewish culture and religion.

His religion belonged to women: the dying of Adonis was fully developed in the circle of young girls around the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as revealed in a fragment of Sappho's surviving poetry.

In the fourth millennium BCE, when the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE, the Sumerians appeared, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistoric times or whether they were some of the original inhabitants.

The Persians maintained and did not interfere in the native culture and religion and Assyria and Babylon continued to exist as entities, and Assyria was strong enough to launch a major rebellion against Persia in 482 BCE.

They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 164 BCE to 63 BCE, reasserting the Jewish religion, expanding the boundaries of the Land of Israel, by conquest, which included instances of forced conversion, reducing the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.

Around the 16th century BCE, Judaism developed as the first major monotheistic religion.

The early Sangam literature, starting from the period of 2nd century BCE, contain anthologies of various poets dealing with many aspects of life, including love, war, social values and religion.

Rigdan Jampel Dakpa ) is said to have been born in 159 BCE and ruled over Shambhala which had 300, 510 followers of the Mlechha ( Yavana or " western ") religion living in it, some of whom worshiped the sun.

The Roman period covers the dates 63 BCE to 330 CE, from Pompey the Great's incorporation of the region into the Roman Republic until Rome's adoption of Christianity as the imperial religion.

Probably as early as the seventh millennium BCE, the Cushites in parts of eastern Africa blended their traditional Afro-Asiatic religion with aspects of the religious tradition of their Sudanic neighbours.

250 BCE ) and became the national religion of the Sinhalese from that date.

This " supposed earliest phase is though to have been established from the sixth to the fifth centuries BCE at the time of Pāṇini, who in his Astadhyayi explained the word vasudevaka as a bhakta, devotee, of Vasudeva and its believed that Bhagavata religion with the worship od Vasudeva Krishna were at the root of the Vaishnavism in Indian history.

The Bhāgavat religion of early Hinduism is documented epigraphically from around 100 BCE, such as in the inscriptions of the Heliodorus pillar, in which Heliodorus, an Indo-Greek ambassador from Taxila to the court of a Sunga king, describes himself as a Bhagavata (" Heliodorena bhagavatena "):

The Chavín religion was the first major religious and cultural movement in the Andes mountains, flourishing between 900 and 200 BCE.