How do religions spread?

Great Debates
1

How does a whole country become, say, Christian, if it was once pagan?

A couple of ways I think it might happen:

  • Is it mostly due to the ruler converting to the new religion, and then forcing his subjects to convert?

If that is the case, how can someone simply start worshipping a new god, just because they are told to do so? Does the first generation simply go through the motions, while still believing in their old religion, and then, the children, having grown up with the new religion believe it to the “The Truth”, even though their parents didn’t?

  • Or, is it mostly due to the new religion arriving “at the right time” when the people of a country are ready for its message, and they slowly see the wisdom and truth in the new religion and one-by-one they start to convert?

There may be other mechanisms also.

I would like to hear what historians/sociologists/theologians here think about this.

2

Here’s a fourth. Many religions are “syncretic.” That is, the practioners of an existing religion, may, on the surface modify the outward manifestations of their devotions and ceremonies to nominally honor new gods through a social process called “syncretism.” The result, given sufficient time, can develop into an entirely new religion. Santeria is an excellent example of such. Another, a bit farther back in history, would be the pre-Columbian religions of Mesoamerica which incorporated the fervent Catholicism of Cortez (and his priests) as a sop to Cortez’ demands.

3

Is this similar to Christianity intergrating some belief systems of the pagans with their own? ie veneration of Mary/Goddess, Easter, Christmas?

4

It’s a virus, carried by radio waves, TV signals, and the breath of missionaries.

Kidding aside. From a complete laymans point of view. A lot of it is social influnence. Since this country was founded by people who were predominantly Christian, children are raised to think Christianity is “right” If people ar seeking that deeper meaning to life what are they more likley to encounter? Christianity. Islam was able to arise because of a void in the Arab nations.

It’s interesting to see how a religion rises from veru few people and spreads. Joe Smith borrowed from Christianity and the popular questions of his day about the origin of American Indians and created the Book of Mormon which was supposed to be “new revelations” about God and man. Eckenkar was similar. teachings borrowed from other religions and presented in a new format touching on popular questions of the day.

Personnally, I believe in part it is born from the seeking of the individual and what might be a spiritual or emotional experience, or epiphany.That experience is associated with your culture and what or who surrounds you at the time. In this country it’s likely to be Christianity but could be several other things since our culture is quite diverse.

Interesting question.

5

In a word: Power.

Religion is a powerful meme, and I’ll let others here discuss this aspect. To take a more cynical tack, it is also an extremely useful criterion for separating Them from Us. If I can convert one of Them to be one of Us, I also accrue Their resources. So it was that throughout, say, the spread of Christianity, the actual doctrine was rather secondary. In reality, it was a mechanism by which a group or minority (or even majority) could be declared persona non grata in order that their assets be seized.
What, really, was the overpowering reason for the Roman Empire becoming the Holy Roman Empire, or the spread of the HvitKrist through Scandinavia, or Henry VIII disolving the monasteries? A sudden Damascene conversion to the Way, Truth and Life? Or an opportuinty to gain and consolidate power and resources at the expense of an opposing belief?

6

Heh. Yeah, I guess it could be. The early Christians certainly adopted, and “re-decorated,” some pagan practices and rites out of social expediency and an attempt to co-opt an existing religious structure (although I’m not sure how organized and ritualized paganism was at the time) to their own uses.

7

IMHO reason number 1 is by far the most important reason, espescially with regard to eradicating other religious options, otherwise open to the individual. Force need not be the only factor but also as the elite worships in the official religion it will be expedient for anyone who wishes to have contact with the elite, or even start belonging to it, to share the religion. It will open doors otherwise closed

In a freer environment reason number 2 does certainly happen, witness the rise of christianity itself. Thrise of early christianity is quite fascinating with regards to why would Romans want to convert to this religion
Here too the social motives seem to have played an important role. Women seem to have played an important role at the start. It would appear that many of the first converts were women, upper-class women. From there the socializing aspect would create an ever larger circle of converts.

8

Religion is a lot about satisfying certain needs and quelching some fears. So if a new religion deals better with those thorny issues like life, suffering, death and reason for existing it gains more adepts. How well it suits the culture matters too.

For example Kardec’s Spiritualism seems to flourish in Brazil… but not elsewhere. It seems well suited to our middle classes… while evangelical cults are more showy and appeal better to the lower classes.

Of course across history we see rulers and conquerors imposing their religion of choice... and many times sucessfully so. I guess people just start practicing the new and the old... until eventually only the new remains with a bit of the old mixed in.
9

Richard Dawkins might say one spreading mechanism is a meme.

“Ideas have a life of their own.”

10

I agree, SentientMeat, with what you say, but my question was not why people convert others, but mainly how does a society convert. What are the mechanisms?

11

People in this thread seem to agree that this is one of the mechanisms for the spread of religion.

If it is, isn’t it a bit sad that descendants of people who didn’t believe in the new religion, but just went through the motions so as not to get killed or arrested, end up buying into this religion so much that they end up with hatred for followers of other religions?

It’s like getting all hyped up about a Big Lie, about something fake.

12

It’s a nice little ‘revenge’ that not only did they go through the new motions, the also kept doing the old motions. Albeit with a sauce dripping of the new religion.

Quite a lot of these ‘motions’ from the old religions still exist in Christianity.

13

You don’t necessarily have to force people to convert. I think a lot of norseman converted because their native religion was just so damn depressing. You’ve got a religion that preaches the end of the gods and the universe vs. a religion that promises eternal life. Given the choice which one sounds better? Some people might convert simply so they could remain part of the in crowd. If Hrothgar and Ulgur have converted then I better convert as well so we remain good trading partners. This applies in politics as well, particularly when you’re dealing with a more powerful nation and you want to remain in their good graces.

Marc

14

Granted, but it appears as though Christianity had the last laugh. Other then a few Neo-Pagans nobody worships the old Roman, Celtic, or Norse gods. Those rituals borrowed by the Christians have lost nearly all their original meaning in popular culture.

Marc

15

For one examination of this phenomena, I’d strongly recommend a book called The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204-1760 by Richard M. Eaton ( 1993, University of California Press ).

In the case of east Bengal ( modern day Bangladesh ), his analysis appears to show that what you had in this distant border province, far from the center of the authority of the centralized Muslim states based at Delhi, was an area on the border of civilization, sparsely populated and incompletely penetrated by organized, formal brands of Hinduism. Attempts to convert the locals to Islam were actually discouraged by Mughal authorities for various reasons. Nonetheless, eastern Bengal was exposed to Islam and a process similar to ( but more complete than ) the syncretism described by UncleBeer took place - as Eaton describes it, in 3 phases:

a) Inclusion - “…the process by which Islamic superhuman agencies became accepted in local Bengali cosmologies alongside local divinities already embedded within.”

b) Identification - “…the process by which Islamic superhuman agencies ceased merely to coexist alongside Bengali agencies, but actually merged with them, as when the Arabic name Allah was used interchangeably with the Sanskrit Nrinjan.”

c) Displacement - “…the process by which names of Islamic superhuman agencies replaced those of other divinities in local cosmologies.”

At any rate for reasons to complex to go into more fully ( read the book :slight_smile: ), Islam gradually became the entrenched folk religion of local woodcutters, farmers, etc. in eastern Bengal. Meanwhile Bengali hydrology underwent a major change beginning at least as early the 15th century, but greatly accelerating in the late 16th, where the Ganges shifted eastward, linking to the Padma system and profoundly altering access to the central portions of the Indian state in north India. The result was a slight decline in western Bengal, but an explosion in the no longer isolated and marginal east. The population boomed as land was cleared for agricultural expansion to connect to the now accessible markets to the west. In one smallish period, 1595-1659, revenue from northwestern Bengal declined by 13%, while revenue from the northeast jumped 97% and revenue from the southeast climbed even higher, up 117%.

This trend continued into the 18th century and was responsible for the phenomenal population growth of an area that had already accepted Islam, hence this seemingly somewhat anomalous large chunk of Muslim population sitting out there by itself, surrounded by mostly non-Muslim areas ( Arakan excepted ).

  • Tamerlane
16

Not all religions are “packaged for export”, as it were, however. I think it’s fascinating that often a faith that isn’t very exportable - say, Judaism or Hinduism, both of which involve a lot of very particular social rules on things like diet, dress, caste, etc. will morph into a much more “exportable” religion, like Christianity or Buddhism, which is similar to its parent faith in many ways but is in a certain manner streamlined and easier to adopt if you weren’t born into it.

17

Veering over in hijack-territory here, but I can’t agree that Norse mythology is more depressing than Christian mythology. According the poem Voluspå, the apocalypse (Ragnarok) isn’t the end of it all. A new world will rise from the ocean, a world where people and gods will live in peace with each other, and the fields will tend themselves. The Christlike god Balder, who was killed in episde 1, is named as one of those who will live again, and he’ll walk around with flowers in his beard, playing guitar and singing Age of Aquarius. (I might have misremembered the last part.)

In the last stansa of the poem, the dragon Nidhogg comes flying over the new world, with dead bodies in its feathers, so there’s some hint that we’re not looking at a completely Disney-like future, but from a Norse point of view, that might not have been unambigiously bad news. We are, after all, speaking of a culture where the reward for living and dying the right way is an eternity of figthing and partying.

18

A more interesting question might be, what stops religions from spreading? Christianity took over the whole Roman Empire, and Armenia, and Ethiopia, and eventually the German tribes – but, apart from establishing a few small Christian communities, it was stopped cold at the border of Persia and failed to make any advances further eastward. The usual explanation historians give is that not all religions are created equal – Christianity, as an all-encompassing cosmic belief system, had an appeal that the traditional pagan religions it displaced lacked. But the Persians already had a prophetic religion like that: Zoroastrianism. And further east there were Hinduism (traditional, but highly refined and philosophical), Buddhism and Taoism. X’ty never stood a chance against them. It stopped expanding until the 15th Century, when Christians learned to sail across the oceans and find lands full of old-style pagans.

Why did Islam prevail over Zoroastrianism when Christianity had failed to do so? That’s where military power comes in. The Christians (Byzantine Romans) never conquered Persia; the Muslim Arabs did, along with the Christian territories of North Africa and Spain and pagan regions further south.

19

It’s an STD.

“Oh my god, oh yeah, your beutiful baby, oh my god , oh sweet jesus, oh oh ahhhhhhh”

20

Well, I got some toast & tried it out. Kind of gloppy, really. All these little round bits that don’t really spread out. Sort of like a cross between grape jelly & pitted olives. Bleh.

I recommend Vegemite instead.