First: how far has Islam spread? Do you believe it’s true?
Second, figure Christianity has the ultimate sales pitch: eternal paradise, or eternal torture; and, on a generous read of it, all you have to do is — declare that you’re a Christian: no weird dietary restrictions, or getting your penis cut, or whatever; just keep paying taxes to the government, and say that you’ve accepted Jesus.
Who wouldn’t okay that?
Hinduism has been around longer and has a billion adherents. Does that make it true too?
I’s your cite, so if you have read the book and could quote the part(s) that pertain to the question at hand you would have already done so.
Which part(s) do you find most believable?
He should be back any day now…
As I understand it (and someone else can add more detail, or correct me if I have it wrong): Constantine was one of the (if not the) key influences in Rome moving from persecuting Christians to embracing the faith. However, it also appears that at least part of his motivation was to create social stability in his Empire, rather than because he, himself had come to be a fervent believer in Christ.
Two of the most pertinent examples are Mormonism and Scientology, recent enough in history that we know as matter of historical certainty that the foundational myths were complete fabrications - in one case made up by a charlatan, in the other case apparently invented as a prank.
Has it held these religions back?
It might be a complex and contentious question exactly why some religions are more successful than others, but it’s clearly nothing to do with evidence, it’s not because their truth claims are more plausible.
So what was the evidence that convinced them?
I’m sure he’ll be back while the people on this board are still living. But if he’s anything like the person he follows, then in 2000 years there will be some SDMB users waiting for his return.
Bart Ehrman wrote a book recently, The Triumph of Christianity, which talks about this. I haven’t read it, but I heard a long interview with him last week, and your synopsis sounds about right.
Religion is a great way to control the masses. But for the masses to be controlled, it helps to have a single state religion.
I see what you did there.
Well, Thomas DID write a gospel account…but it didn’t make the cut.
Dibs on being the Wandering Doper.
Doubting Thomas…Crooked Hillary…Sloppy Steve…and we’re well aware of how much credibility HE has.
And there were more people at my inauguration than at any other inauguration in history. It’s true because I said it is.
How do you feel about Islam? Christianity and Islam have both surmounted cultural barriers to become dominant in new territories, and they are similar in number. Is one less fake than the other? In what way?
I think religions are coded rules for living, coupled with promises and threats to compel people to live that way. They helped build trust and consistent behaviors and expectations within tribes and regions, which allowed the people to cooperate without a bureaucratic state. Thus religion was a very useful invention for early mankind.
In an era before strong central governments and mass communications and printing presses, religion was also a way to pass along history and moral lessons learned through hard experience, rather than having to re-learn those rules every generation. It codified the expected behavior of a tribe, and it created a punishing/rewarding entity that would compel that behavior.
The religions that succeeded were the ones that had rules that led to well functioning societies. So the Aztecs and the followers of Baal are no longer with us in large numbers, but Christians are, because the behavioral rules inherent in Christianity actually work pretty well. Honor your parents, don’t steal, don’t cheat on your wife or make yourself miserable lusting after things other people have that you don’t. Hard work is a good idea, as is treating other people as you’d want to be treated. Hot damn, pretty good rules.
Christianity and other modern mainstream religions are merely examples of evolutionary social change. The religions that adapted and changed with the times survived. The ones that didn’t died out or became fringe sects.
It can be argued that Christianity is an evolutionary offspring of Judaism, which has strict laws and is restricted to a single group of people. Christianity was a mutation that allowed for different behaviors, and applied them to everyone and not just Jews. The invention of a savior who would forgive you even if you screwed up so long as you promised to get back on the straight and narrow was brilliant in that it added a certain amount of breathing room that allowed people to stay with the faith as they got wealthier and more modern and had more conflicts with religious dogma, and it allowed for people to remain in the faith even when they failed in keeping up with all the rules.
There were many such evolutionary mutations - see the Gnostic gospels and the Apocrypha for different attempts to modify the faith that just didn’t work out. Christianity itself almost certainly evolved from earlier proto-religions and mythical stories such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The process continues today. There are numerous sects of Christianity, and they compete with each other for mind share. Some of them have radically different views of the Christian faith. Some are barely recognizable as a religion, as they’ve dumped most of the supernatural elements or assigned them as metaphors and see the Bible mainly as a good book for guiding your behavior. Others are fundamentalist and attract people with a desire to maintain a strict, controlled life perhaps.
All these sects are competing in a Darwinian fashion. The ones least compatible with human flourishing eventually get abandoned or die out from attrition. For example, imagine a religion which says thou shalt only have one child, or that you must sacrifice your first born to the Volcano God. That religion is not going to out-compete one that says go forth and be fruitful and multiply.
The ones that survived to the modern age are the ones that are vague enough in their claims about the real world that many people can comfortably hold them in a scientific age if they don’t think too hard about it.
Right up until present day, I think religion still serves as a trust boundary which enables small groups of people to function together better. This is why religion has remained strong in small and distant communities. The ritual of going to Church brings everyone together where they become known to each other. The promises they make during sermons and their expressions of faith and belief assure the people around them that they are just like them, which enables them to make deals and share labor and ideas without contracts or legal enforcement.
When I was a kid, I lived in a very religious farming community. The amount of bureaucracy-free cooperation was amazing. If someone got sick and couldn’t pull in their crops at harvest, we all showed up to help. If someone’s barn burned down, we built him a new one. And that farmer would join in and help others as well. This only works when you have trust. And once you get past your immediate family and friends, shared religious values are a great way to build trust. This was crop insurance and fire insurance without the need for insurance agents. We babysat each other’s kids (and you could be comfortable knowing that they weren’t being taught or shown a lifestyle you didn’t want them to learn). We shared heavy equipment like tractors and combines, comfortable in knowing that the person you loaned it to wouldn’t refuse to give it back or destroy it. No loan agreements or contracts necessary.
This type of frictionless cooperation is incredibly important in small communities, and religion helps to enable it.
It’s still all based on fictions, but for many people through history they have been very useful fictions, or they wouldn’t still be around.
Not to mention The Flying Elvises, Utah Chapter, in Honemoon in Vegas (and a five year old Elvis impersonator named Bruno).
And then Person D writes about how the sun actually moved backwards in the sky for a short while when the mother of Jeebus appeared to some kids. Strong evidence there, and much more recent too, notwithstanding the sun doesn’t EVER change direction.
And then person E writes about how it is prophesied that when the mother of Jeebus appears to some kids, the sun will move backwards.