Question: Why the staying power for Abrahamic religions?

It has always been very strange to me how the Big Three Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for those of you who've been living in a cave your entire lives) have such incredible staying power. Even in areas where they compete, it seems as though neither or rather, none of three, can make many gains among followers of their rivals. My question, therefore, is; why? Why are the followers of Abrahamic religions just so dang committed to their faith?
 
A major reason (I believe) for the number of people who flock to the Abrahamic faiths and commit themselves to it would probably be the promise of a afterlife, or violent hell if they sway away from the faith, whereas other faiths and mythologies (for example, the Greco-Roman traditions) never had such a promise of a never-ending afterlife.
 
A major reason (I believe) for the number of people who flock to the Abrahamic faiths and commit themselves to it would probably be the promise of a afterlife, or violent hell if they sway away from the faith, whereas other faiths and mythologies (for example, the Greco-Roman traditions) never had such a promise of a never-ending afterlife.

I guess I see what you mean, in a way. But (not to nitpick) I think a more accurate way to put it would be that Abrahamic faiths' afterlives are more extreme (i.e. heaven is perfect, hell is worse than the worst thing you can imagine); the Greco-Romans did have an eternal afterlife, but it was, to be blunt, kind of shit if you weren't insanely amazing. A similar thing goes for Nordic religion--I don't know enough about the other pagan religions of ancient Europe to say anything with certainty, unfortunately, but I figure they were probably the same. Extreme afterlives are, I believe, a feature of conversion-focused religions (which Judaism was for a brief period), which makes sense. I mean, promise someone perfection, throw in a few miracles, and I don't see why they wouldn't follow you!
 
Luck, coming upon oppurtune situations where they can form an outside 'other' (like in India with the Caste system), being introduced into area where there was no organized religion (parts of North East India and Africa) and a shit ton of State Sponsored and supported 'Convert or Die' and sociopolitical pushing (IE "you can remain your religion, but we're gonna tax you for it" and/or "you can't have houses of worship and must conform to our society otherwise").
 
They've generally got a better class of afterlife. Both in terms of quality and in terms of access. It's not for first class warriors only.

They're also more attractive morality wise. The Greek gods were assh*les of the first order, and the Norse gods are only marginally better, and that's mostly because of Thor raising the average. The Judeo-Christian concepts of God are far more attractive as moral exemplars.

And they also have superior intellectual coherence. The Greek idea of the creation of the earth is . . . odd and the Norse origin story makes me suspect they had Ergot in their Mead one winter. And the Judeo-Christian god is very much the creator deity, which is more impressive than Zeus beating up Chronos and stealing his stuff.

Historically, whenever Christianity or Islam came into contact with pagan societies, at least 80% of the time, the conversions were fast and definitely one way. I don't think this can be attributed to luck.
 
Abrahamic religions are exclusivist. That gives them tremendous staying power. The promise of an afterlife and the relative accessibility of a monotheist theology is nice, but if you are after that kind of thing, you really want the more cerebral versions of Neoplatonism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. A much more decisive advantage is the fact that conversion is strictly a one-way street. Most religions don't work like that. It was perfectly possible to be an Eleusinian intitiate, priest of the Imperial Genius, and dendrophore of Isis. Trying to be any of these and a Christian simultaneously would result in sharp and painful censure (dependeing on the timeframe, it could be very final indeed).

In addition, Abrahamic religions tend to be socially flexible. The already function in a context distinct from their organic emergence (you could argue that they have since the Babylonian exile) and can more readily adapt to social disruption by changing their structures that religions that grew up around social systems. That is why conversion tends to spike in times of rapid and destructive change (often brought on by the very religion benewfiting, knowingly or not).
 
There's also the charitable element, that certainly existed in Christianity and Islam, and certainly didn't exist with anything like as much ideological backing in pre-Christian Rome and Greece. The idea that helping the poor was a good, praiseworthy thing, and that poor and rich were equal before the eyes of God wasn't something that had really been seen before, and was a massive draw at first.

Once you've got that step done, it's much easier to create a community of believers. Even before its adoption by the Romans Christianity had adopted a very strong grassroots element, and that would continue as the centuries went by to the extent that abandonment of Christianity meant abandonment of a whole way of life.
 
They're also more attractive morality wise. The Greek gods were assh*les of the first order, and the Norse gods are only marginally better, and that's mostly because of Thor raising the average. The Judeo-Christian concepts of God are far more attractive as moral exemplars.

A god that exterminates droves of people because they don't believe in him isn't an asshole ? Frankly, i never thought someone would actually argue that for the strength of abrahamic Monotheism. The Abrahamic god isn't a kind one, and he is kind of an asshole, just like some Greek Gods are.

Historically, whenever Christianity or Islam came into contact with pagan societies, at least 80% of the time, the conversions were fast and definitely one way. I don't think this can be attributed to luck.

Or not. A lot of the conversions to Christianity in Europe were obtained through coercion and massacres. Gaul was converted after the romans exterminated the druids, leaving the gauls without an high clergy, Baltic tribes converted only partially after violent crusades were thrown at them, Scandinavian didn't convert overnight but actually all played with the religious revolving door (well when little jesus didn't answer to their prayers, they started to pray to thor again), and the polytheists and pagan were persecuted in every roman regions after Constantine. Some authors associated the persecution of "witches" in late medieval europe to a late extermination of remnants of polytheistic religions. So no, the conversions weren't fast and one way. The christianisation of Europe was a long, difficult and complicated process.
 
They're also more attractive morality wise. The Greek gods were assh*les of the first order, and the Norse gods are only marginally better, and that's mostly because of Thor raising the average. The Judeo-Christian concepts of God are far more attractive as moral exemplars.

Congratulations ... you have in the same sentence managed to vastly overstate the bad sides of the polytheistic gods, and understate the monotheistic god's same ... i guess no bet that you're a Christian right?
 

SunDeep

Banned
They've generally got a better class of afterlife. Both in terms of quality and in terms of access. It's not for first class warriors only.

They're also more attractive morality wise. The Greek gods were assh*les of the first order, and the Norse gods are only marginally better, and that's mostly because of Thor raising the average. The Judeo-Christian concepts of God are far more attractive as moral exemplars.

And they also have superior intellectual coherence. The Greek idea of the creation of the earth is . . . odd and the Norse origin story makes me suspect they had Ergot in their Mead one winter. And the Judeo-Christian god is very much the creator deity, which is more impressive than Zeus beating up Chronos and stealing his stuff.

Historically, whenever Christianity or Islam came into contact with pagan societies, at least 80% of the time, the conversions were fast and definitely one way. I don't think this can be attributed to luck.

In Europe, maybe. Worldwide, I don't think so, for any of these points. The better class of afterlife- What is the Abrahamic concept of 'heaven'? How vague is the definition of heaven in Judaism? The whole concept of 'heaven', and of the immortality of the soul, only become incorporated into the Abrahamic faiths via the Greeks and Persians, and they obtained these concepts from the Dharmic faiths and Zoroastrianism respectively.

Better morality- try comparing the morality of early Judaism with that of its Dharmic contemporaries, Buddhism and Jainism. On the one hand, you have the all-powerful God of the Israelites, supporting them through thick and thin and massacring any innocent men, women and children who stand in the way of advancing their cause in the conquest of Canaan. On the other hand, you have the advocacy of non-violence and the assertion that all life, human or not, is equally sacred. Which side has the moral high ground?

As for superior intellectual coherence- well, think about it. The Abrahamic creation model tells us that the universe was created in 7 days. On the first day, came the separation of light and darkness (before there were any sources to emit that light, which were allegedly only created on the fourth day). On the second day, the solid metal dome of the sky was created to seperate the earth from the heavens. On the third day, the earth was created as a single circular landmass, encompassed by the ocean on a similarly flat and circular discworld. On the fifth day came all of the animals in existence, with the plants and providing organisms which form the basis of every ecology in existence, which the animals would have needed in order to evolve and sustain their existence in the first place, only coming along on the sixth day. Need I go on?

Now compare this with the Dharmic creation model, where the supreme God is the Universe incarnate, and the notions of life, matter, space-time, gravity and dark matter are all explicitly set out as its components. Science has proven that all of its central tenets are undeniably true. This 'God' is infinite, because the universe/multiverse itself is infinite. All powerful, because it contains the sum total of all power in existence. Self-existent, because it came into being of its own accord. All-knowing, and sentient, insofar as it comprises all of the sentients which have ever evolved and will ever emerge, along with the sum total of their knowledge. Is this 'God' an entity, an actual being? Or is it THE entity, the fabric of existence itself, the embodiment of the elusive 'theory of everything'? According to these faiths, and according to cutting-edge modern science, that's still very much up for debate. Intellectually, there's no comparison- the Abrahamic religions fall far short.
 
I would strike Judaism off that list and add Buddhism, to represent the real top three of the world religions. It might be coincidence, but I think Christianity, Islam and Buddhism being so completely different from the preceding polytheistic religions and so revolutionary in their message did not work against them but actually helped them, being catalysts for societal change. That they later froze and became part of the establishment did not change what "religious capital" they had already gained in the process.
 
I would strike Judaism off that list and add Buddhism, to represent the real top three of the world religions. It might be coincidence, but I think Christianity, Islam and Buddhism being so completely different from the preceding poltheistic religions and so revolutionary in their message did not work against them but actually helped them, being catalysts for societal change. That they later froze and became part of the establishment did not change what "religious capital" they had already gained in the process.

Remember the question was about the Abrahamic religions, not the largest religions by population.
 
Abrahamic religions are exclusivist. That gives them tremendous staying power. The promise of an afterlife and the relative accessibility of a monotheist theology is nice, but if you are after that kind of thing, you really want the more cerebral versions of Neoplatonism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. A much more decisive advantage is the fact that conversion is strictly a one-way street. Most religions don't work like that. It was perfectly possible to be an Eleusinian intitiate, priest of the Imperial Genius, and dendrophore of Isis. Trying to be any of these and a Christian simultaneously would result in sharp and painful censure (dependeing on the timeframe, it could be very final indeed).

Precisely. Much of Islam still has the old penalty for apostasy, death. Needless to say, this is a huge disincentive to leave the religion once you have become a follower, whether through conversion or by being born into it. Christianity used to be the same way, in functional terms. Both religions acted like giant roach hotels, where you can check in, but can never check out. On the whole, non-Abrahamic religions did not behave like this (there were always isolated local exceptions, of course).

In my personal opinion, this was by far the main reason why Islam and Christianity have done so well in terms of numbers of adherents. It's certainly not because of their intellectual or ethical attributes, which (in my opinion) are nothing special in comparison to some other religions.
 
Gaul was converted after the romans exterminated the druids, leaving the gauls without an high clergy

Nonsense. The Roman persecution of the druids wasn't linked to Christianisation: it took place before and concurrently with Roman persecution of Christians.

Imladrik said:
polytheists and pagan were persecuted in every roman regions after Constantine.

Yes, but only quite sporadically. Late Antiquity is marked by pagan-on-Christian violence as well as Christian-on-pagan. There were still large pagan communities in the middle east into the early Islamic period: see for example the survival of the cult of the Babylonian moon goddess Sin in Harran. The Roman state certainly tried to go after groups that threatened its authority, but it lacked the means to do so with any real vigour or thoroughness.

Some authors associated the persecution of "witches" in late medieval europe to a late extermination of remnants of polytheistic religions.

That seems a little tenuous to me, given that by the eighth and ninth centuries polytheistic traditions had been pretty thoroughly swallowed up and Christianised. That said, I'm not an expert on the period.

So no, the conversions weren't fast and one way. The christianisation of Europe was a long, difficult and complicated process.

I fully agree with that: but it seems to be you and Sian who are arguing for it being a straightforward extermination of the happy and tolerant pagan utopia by Christian fanatics. The basic fact of the matter is that Christianity enjoyed significant grassroots popular support, and that grassroots support just kept growing as late antiquity went onwards.
 
Congratulations ... you have in the same sentence managed to vastly overstate the bad sides of the polytheistic gods, and understate the monotheistic god's same ... i guess no bet that you're a Christian right?

What's that got to do with anything? I wouldn't disagree with what he said, and I'm a gay Christian Englishman with red hair who likes tea and finds bacon to be overrated. I also have a degree in Ancient History and have a particular interest in the world of late antiquity. Do any of the former facts somehow discount the latter?
 
I fully agree with that: but it seems to be you and Sian who are arguing for it being a straightforward extermination of the happy and tolerant pagan utopia by Christian fanatics. The basic fact of the matter is that Christianity enjoyed significant grassroots popular support, and that grassroots support just kept growing as late antiquity went onwards.

Ehh ... at least on my account, no ... just arguing that it weren't an extermination of some primal evil religion as Jinx try to paint it as ... just that the polytheistic paganism in Europe were just much a shade of gray as the Abrahamic religions in terms of moral and intellectural coherence
 
What's that got to do with anything? I wouldn't disagree with what he said, and I'm a gay Christian Englishman with red hair who likes tea and finds bacon to be overrated. I also have a degree in Ancient History and have a particular interest in the world of late antiquity. Do any of the former facts somehow discount the latter?

The point is that his arguments seems to biased and onesided to hold much worth (IMHO)
 
A god that exterminates droves of people because they don't believe in him isn't an asshole ? Frankly, i never thought someone would actually argue that for the strength of abrahamic Monotheism. The Abrahamic god isn't a kind one, and he is kind of an asshole, just like some Greek Gods are.
The difference is that the Abrahamic god offers a way to avoid having him be an asshole to you. Most polytheistic gods were enormous jerks (see e.g. the treatment of poor Io or Callisto, not even starting on the various versions of how Orion was killed, and that's just withing Greek mythology) with no real way of even avoiding it. Lots of the victims did nothing wrong, and nothing they did could avoid it. Even being a reasonably good person does nothing to protect you, and rewards are dubious. So yes, the Abrahamic god might slaughter his enemies or those who sinned against him, but your average Greek or Norse or whatever god would kill you for no reason (maybe you were raped by a goddess's husband, maybe you accidentally saw a goddess naked, maybe a god just got really drunk). That's a very real distinction.

On the other hand, the Abrahamic religions offered a simple message "love God and love your neighbor and you will be rewarded, either in this life or the next." You may scoff, but that is an incredibly seductive message.

Another advantage Christianity and Islam (as well as some forms of Judaism) have is that they're not just exclusive, but also universalist/missionary religions. Whereas the traditional tribal god of the X People is really mostly appealing only to the X People, which doesn't encourage you to convert others.
 
It has always been very strange to me how the Big Three Abrahamic traditions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, for those of you who've been living in a cave your entire lives) have such incredible staying power. Even in areas where they compete, it seems as though neither or rather, none of three, can make many gains among followers of their rivals. My question, therefore, is; why? Why are the followers of Abrahamic religions just so dang committed to their faith?

Is this really true?

Consider:

Egypt, Anatolia (Turkey), Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Albania, Bosnia, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco

All Christian before the advent of Islam, now mostly or entirely Muslim.
 
Abrahamic religions are exclusivist. That gives them tremendous staying power. The promise of an afterlife and the relative accessibility of a monotheist theology is nice, but if you are after that kind of thing, you really want the more cerebral versions of Neoplatonism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. A much more decisive advantage is the fact that conversion is strictly a one-way street. Most religions don't work like that. It was perfectly possible to be an Eleusinian intitiate, priest of the Imperial Genius, and dendrophore of Isis. Trying to be any of these and a Christian simultaneously would result in sharp and painful censure (dependeing on the timeframe, it could be very final indeed).

In addition, Abrahamic religions tend to be socially flexible. The already function in a context distinct from their organic emergence (you could argue that they have since the Babylonian exile) and can more readily adapt to social disruption by changing their structures that religions that grew up around social systems. That is why conversion tends to spike in times of rapid and destructive change (often brought on by the very religion benewfiting, knowingly or not).

This.
And there is other characteristic which should be mentioned - proselytizing. It is also quite a Darwinian thing - if a religion has more followers with every generation it has more chances to survive and win over other religions.
Proselytizing was quite a random, accidental thing which happened to Judaism and there appeared Christianity and Islam. So it is competition, surviving of the fittest religions.

And there is one more thing.
Let us imagine a civilization which never knew Christianity/Islam and let us spread there a few million copies of Bible/New testament/Coran. I seriously doubt that there will be a rise of Abrahamic religions there.
My point is that Abrahamic faith is something which spreads from one human being to other human being. You may compare it with an infectious disease (or an eternal sacred spiritual fire if you wish).
So this mild mental disorder is highly contagious and gives its recipients the feeling of being protected, meaning of life and sometimes even happiness. And every infected person wants to infect some others, so no doubt that it spread so fast and so far...
 
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