It seems as human institutions go, religions last a long time. Longer than companies, political parties, even nations.
Why is this? Why isn’t there a greater turnover of religions?
Few are indoctrinated as kids into thinking if they stop shopping at K-Mart they’ll miss out on going to heaven.
If a nation is poorly run, it gets conquered by another nation. If a company is poorly run, it goes bankrupt. If a political party is poorly run, it loses power.
Religions aren’t generally judged by objective secular standards. Nobody can say whether Christianity or Islam or Buddhism is producing better results - or producing any results at all. Their promises are that if you follow them, you’ll get results after your death.
It’s not just comparison shopping for specific afterlife “rewards”: it’s about one’s fundamental group identity and social structures.
A better comparison would be with, say, human languages rather than corporations or even nation-states. Religions are not self-evidently more “stable and long-lasting” than languages are.
Largely because they are loosely defined and have no specific territory that can be overrun, unlike a nation for example. It’s the difference between destroying a forest and destroying the entire species of tree that comprises the forest, or between conquering a nation and destroying the culture or the language spoken there.
I wouldn’t call them more “stable” however; they can change wildly without the name changing, and the name is all that really defines a religion, at least for the purpose of counting a religion’s longevity. The Christianity of today isn’t much like the Christianity of 2,000 years ago, but it’s considered to be the same thing.
I’ll note that according to Wikipedia’s list of oldest companies, the oldest dates back to AD 578. That puts it at almost exactly the same age as Islam; so companies can rival major religions in age.
Im not feeling the answers so far they seem like totally eurocentric chirstiancentric wtih the emphasis on the afterlife. Many other religions take a different approach, for better or worse.
Meh, that’s not terribly convincing given that all of those before 900 are located in Japan (so we’ve got a very culture- and country-specific phenomenon rather than a general characteristic of “companies”), except for a family inn in Germany and a monastery (!) restaurant in Austria.
You can make a good case for a fair number and variety of companies being older than Sikhism, though, and certainly older than Mormonism.
I don’t think that there is any concept rightly called a “religion” that doesn’t include a strong expectation that ones children will follow the same religion (and, of course, for evangelical religions, there is also the expectation that there will be converts as well). A religion is a set of ideas coupled with the idea of “it is very important that you spread these ideas, to your children at least”, exploiting parental pressure (and for evangelical religions, peer pressure) to make sure it sticks around.
It’s no coincidence that a lot of successful religions also make “have a lot of children” a priority.
The vast majority of the world’s religions are gone or in minority status. Now it is basically just 4 that make up the vast majority of the world’s religious people. Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism. Most religions are just subsects, offshoots or combinations of those 4. And considering that Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism and both Islam & Christianity are offshoots of Abrahamic teachings you can argue there are technically only 2 religions on earth that make up 90% of religions people, hinduism & Abrahamic teachings.
I’m sure if you go back 5000 years you could find thousands of religions with wildly varied beliefs on earth.
There are several nations older than Islam or Christianity. Places like China, Egypt, Greece, etc.
For that matter, how do you count religions when cultures on opposite sides of the globe end up coming up with basically the same beliefs? The religion of ancient Rome (pre-Hellenization), for instance, is almost indistinguishable from Shintoism.
Enduring identities are those that are primary or all encompassing in a way that most companies, nation-states, and political parties are not. A miner will probably see himself as a miner rather than a BoringMiningCompany employee. An activist might be a Green Party member, but she might identify more with a cause/political orientation than the Green Party itself.
Even all encompassing identities, however, can suddenly change or even become lost. Cultures, languages, professions. Many distinct religious movements and communities have come and gone over time.
Religions are whatever you want them to be. If their doctrines and teachings don’t match reality, whether in claims of fact or behavioral guidelines, people simply change the religion. They’re moving targets, which makes them difficult to destroy.
I agree, look at how many different branches or beliefs in Christianity alone. Some do not even except other branches as being Christian, so Religion is a matter of desire what ever sounds the best and easiest to them.
When calling religions institutions and comparing them to companies, parties and nations, what features of religion are you actually including? The power and structure of Rome has waxed, waned, changed and devolved to numerous national and sub-national churches. So even though there’s still a Pope that institution, albeit long lasting, has faced lots of instability.
Islam split into separate institutions fairly immediately after the death of the founder.
Many other religious are much more cultural phenomena than institutions when compared to companies and political parties, and nations, when viewed similarly as cultural phenomena appear just as stable.
Also, where do all the extinct religions fit into your picture? In that category I’d include such as Asatru and Hellenism.
Religions are in no way stable. Saying that, Christianity for example, is the same institution today as it was 2000 years ago is like saying that the People’s Republic of China is the same as the China of the Qin dynasty.
Christianity is not an institution, though. The Catholic church is an institution. Christianity is a set of ideas. And while Christianity has given rise to a number of institutions like the Catholic church, it’s not a given that a religion must do so, or that it must do so to the extent, or in the way, that Christianity has.
If we think of a religion as a philosophy of life, a set of ideas about significance and value which influences how individuals and communities live, then we’ll find that analagous non-religious philosophies can be just as durable - look at stoicism or platonism or dualism, for example.
For one thing, in order to have a religion all you need is a person. In order to have a company you need rather more.
I agree that everyone makes religious decisions. However, I think this goes too far. People are taught (or indoctrinated, or brainwashed, if you prefer 
) about religion by others. The religious influences and biases of parents or community leaders or even the authors of scriptures manifest themselves in people in ways that they are not always aware of or happy with. Religion is one of many things that regularly compel people to do things they otherwise wouldn’t do.
How do you account for people who adhere to or change to religious beliefs/identities that are not easy? Or people who insist that they be freely allowed to practice/manifest their religion in their lives, despite popular opposition?
In many cases they think more about their beliefs and realize they are not what they want, maybe see that there are other ways of looking at things and decide to change.
Many atheists were once other religions until they realized the truth wasn’t as they saw it. Some decide they no longer wanted to follow that belief they were taught or followed.
A lot depends on their personal life or outlook, some want to believe in their parents way of life nor want to have family difficulties,
There can be as many reasons for changing as staying in a particular religion. Example: Many Catholics( Like Luther) find a passage that fits what they want in their religion and some change to Catholic because they like that idea or believe its History. That is to me what faith is all about. One finds something that suits their personal life and chooses to follow that teaching. There are many sides to some religions, many pick and choose or just follow what they personally want.
They aren’t stable.
Theological beliefs get re-interpreted, get seen through strange cultural lenses, get infected with ideas from other faiths.
Compare early Christianity with today’s Catholic Church.
The Early Christians held services in secret, used few religious icons (few images of saint, crucifixes, etc), & had no priests. They took turns preaching, men & women alike.