For example:
when Islam reached Persia Zoroastrianism was wiped out.
India (expecially the northern part) was dominated for centuries by Muslim
dynasties (Moghul, Delhi Sultanate) and Hinduism is still there instead .

On the other side Hinduism never spread really outside India despite the fact that it is the oldest religion on earth.

Judaism too doesn’t proselitize much, despite the fact that Jews endured centuries of harsh persecutions without converting to other religions.

Why Pagan religions in North and Eastern Europe didn’t
stand a chance against Christianity (not talking about the native religions in
the Americas)?

AFAIK to explain the success of a religion can be included at least 4 variabiles:

1-Universalistic religion vs Ethnic religion
2-Promise of pleasant afterlife or reincarnation (which is IMO a great inducement for new converts)
3-Oppression of unbelievers/heretics by the governement in charge.
4-Religion that can include other religions (Y/n)

Does anybody knows more/better about the subject or other variabiles
that could be included in the model?

Are there books about how good comparatively every religion marketed to the potential “consumer” and how they competed (or coopted) each other in the past.

Are there avaiable really detailed timeline about birth , geographical expansion and death of each religion (even minor ones) ?.

AFAIK to explain the success of a religion can be included at least 4 variabiles:

1-Universalistic religion vs Ethnic religion
2-Promise of pleasant afterlife or reincarnation (which is IMO a great inducement for new converts)
3-Oppression of unbelievers/heretics by the governement in charge.
4-Religion that can include other religions (Y/n)

A religion that supposedly applies to all people will spread to all people. Consider this: Judaism and Hinduism were both ethnic religions, with a rich and creative literary tradition. The populizers of both sects were the mythmen Jesus and Budda, which became figureheads for Christianity and Buddhism. What made their cults, which only parasite from the father religion, any stronger?

First, they are personality cults. The worship of personality allows feelings of trust, love, relationship, which you will not find in, say, the upanishads.
Second, where in Jesus or Buddha do you find emphasis on pleasant afterlife? It is On HELL that their rhetoric finds genius. Buddha’s fourfold noble truths emphasize suffering.

Three, the demonization of opponents, and the establishing of an us or damned attitude.

As for number four, the inclusion of other religions, while this is true with taoism and confucianism, remember that Christianity is an evil receiver, and damns the giver of gifts. Anything it has learned from buddhism or hinduism, it has cursed in the same breath. Mormonism, Islam, Christianity, all these regard themselves as unique and unprecedented.

What you need to include is a machine for prosletizing. mormonism spreads because they have created a religoius machine for recruting sheep. The actual tenets and foundation of Mormonism are ridiculous by anyone’s account. That doesn’t matter. It advertises widely.

Four, make faith, or noncritical attitude, blessed. This ensures a fervor without the problem of skeptics and doubters.

there are others. Hope that helped.

Daneil

I think that you have a typical western-stereotyped vision of Buddhism.  I wouldn’t consider myself Buddhist, but their philosophies are very close to my own.  (I just don’t like pointless rituals and symbolism).  Jesus is the son of God.  Buddha is actually a reflection of your inner self.  Christianity teaches you to look upward for answers.  Buddhism teaches you to look within, and also encourages you to use your senses and connect with the people and the universe around you, so that you can see and experience things for yourself.  It is grounded in appreciation for the reality that we can see.

It is VERY different than most Americans know.  It is also becoming very commercialized.

The different sects of Buddhists have taken the basic principle of self-reflection and awareness and tacked other things onto it.  The precepts are not intended to be rules, but things that may help someone to have an open and free mind to be more aware of the world.  For example, one is to not take drugs.  This is because drugs may interfere with your reasoning skills.  However it is still the person’s choice if they want to expeience these things.  They won’t burn in hell.  There is no father who will punish you.  But it’s like a suggestion, because if you take drugs it could distract you from the path to enlightenment, or keep you from appreciating your own natural mental abilities.

In Buddhism, first there is you and second there is the universe.  Then you and the universe connect so much that you stop worrying about the selfish things and are sincerely happy and fit in.  Not with other people or society, but with nature and your own emotions.  VERY different from Christianity where first there is god and then if you are good and obey all his laws you might have some import in your own life.

Buddism is actually based on the idea of karma, or energy.  Which is very similar to the scientific ideas of atomic energy and chaos theory.  Also it is based on a scientific and emperical search for truth - not on making up stories to explain things we don’t know.  I strongly recommend reading more about Buddhism, but not just from one source.  Because it is personal, different perspectives could mar your view of it.  Especially the Buddhism that is now being peddled in the coffee houses and head shops of America.

I don’t profess to be well educated, well read or even a student of philosophy.  I just look for what makes sense to me, what benefits all man kind, all life on earth and the universe in which we live.  If someone or something appears hypocritical, self serving, sociopathic, manipulative or controlling, I steer clear and seek self fulfillment and truth else where. I stumbled across this one passage attributed to Budda and if this is the buddhist ideology, I think Budda got that enlightenment thing right.

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” - Buddha

But Karma can mean fatalism. Reincarnation is also nonsensical. Otherwise, fine. And there is meditation that does work.

skeptic griggsy - 17 August 2007 09:28 PM

But Karma can mean fatalism. Reincarnation is also nonsensical. Otherwise, fine. And there is meditation that does work.

Understanding karma means that you understand that the decisions that you make affect your life, but also the lives of everyone and everything around you.  You also understand that the things other people do affect you as well.  The more understanding (awareness) you have of how the universe works, the more you can control the things that you can control and accept the things that you can’t, or work to change those things.  It’s very empowering, not fatalistic.

If you take the commercialized version of reincarnation - that a person’s soul goes into a new body - then you aren’t looking at the true teaching.  But if you understand that all things are made up of matter - and that there is a limited amount of matter in the world, then you can see how when you die, the matter that makes up your body, and the energy that has gone into your work and your life, is recycled into new matter once you are gone.  Buddhism actually rejects the idea of the soul, and considers people organic things - matter and energy.  YOU are made up of atoms that may have been part of any number of people, animals, and living things in the past.  It’s a continuous cycle.  But it’s not like Americans tend to see it.