How religion spreads

[System Lord Nephthys]

Funny... in Arab, it's Shaitan.

don't forget shmoses...







(jk >_<)

-=|Ailm|=-

[The Xeno]

A nice simplified graphic... I would have liked to see some other religious cultures represented, particuarly Hellenistic, Roman, and Mesoamerican for easy comparison.

[Cole]

Interesting stuff. What was the light brown colour areas' religion(s)?
Animisim?
Spirits religions?

[The Xeno]

Interesting stuff. What was the light brown colour areas' religion(s)?
Animisim?
Spirits religions?

Mostly Polytheistic - animalism as we know it today would (afiak) be a much more modern emergence - not to say it did not exist, or that cultures (native American in particular) did not draw great meaning from nature... but that gods still superseded them.
Druidic traditions/nature worship would also be in a relatively small minority until later (bar specific geographical locations)- when the resurgence of Wicca (among other things) brought more underground-media attention to bear upon them.

But yes, you may as well bet the grey areas are/were polytheistic - a simplification concurrent with the simplified map.

[Fear Of The Duck]

Interesting.... Very interesting...
One thing is weird: since Judaism, Christianity and Islam have common roots, why do they fight each other instead of trying to concentrate on what they have in common. If we assume the God exists and He started all that, then these are in fact one religion in three interpretations. That gives two options:
- one of them is true, the two others have deviated from the truth, or
- none of them is true, all of them have deviated (I'd say this is more probable)

[The Xeno]

One thing is weird: since Judaism, Christianity and Islam have common roots, why do they fight each other instead of trying to concentrate on what they have in common.

All three are searching for a complete truth, not a diversified pool. Unfortunately, by the time one has worked their way down to common-tenants, the religions are right back at the theological starting line (albeit they would be monotheistic and not poly or wiccan).

Since they cannot go backwards, they must look forwards, and we encounter numerous roadblocks - some of which include:
Judaism/Islam cannot accept Jesus Christ as the son of God.
Christianity cannot accept Muhammad as true prophet - and cannot accept Judaism as it would be like taking a theological step backwards.

Toss in the other issues, the type of differences in belief that split each of the three faiths into smaller subsections - and we see that there is not all that much room for compromise... the three have spent over two-thousand years crystallizing, arguing with each other and with themselves... and have reached a relatively steady state.

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The wars themselves, I feel should be split into at least to classes - those that were truly religiously motivated, and those that simply carried the victors religion along, as victorious cultures had always done... I think we should also note that in many cases the spread was peacefull, as was the initial case of Christianity.

[Come_Forth]

The problem is extremism wherever it is encountered. Bertrand Russell said that if someone says something about reality that upsets you then it is probably because you do not have evidence to back your belief up. How many of us get mad if someone says that 2+2=10? Extremism in anything is bad be it religious or non-religious. We must find a balance. No matter what a person's religious views are they are not very different from you. I think there is no afterlife, but if someone does chances are that we will live our lives about the same.

[Fear Of The Duck]

According to this ALL religions and ATHEISM as well are extremisms as they're based on belief that cannot be proven or disproven.

[Londo Mollari]

there is/or was, a form of satanism which worshipped Lucifer as an angel who had fallen but was forgiven by god and raised back to heaven