AHC: Christianity or Islam as majority religion
- Thread starter lerk
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- christianity islam religion
A long standing tradition of the followers of the god of Abraham was to kill everyone who disagrees with them who won't convert under the threat of death. Decimate the world a bit more and replace the losses with more Loyal Catholics/Muslims as pertinent/desired.
I imagine just having one of those 2 triumph over the other would be necessary, the mediterranean world would allow for proselytazion of Africa and possibly the Americas which would allow to approach the treshold.
It should be noted, however, Christianity is the world's largest religion at 33% of the human population.
RightHoJeeves
Banned
Either have Muslims overrun Western Europe after conquering Iberia or have Muhammad decide to be a Christian who evangelizes the entire Arab peninsula.
Didn't think such stereotypical view of entire groups over multiple centuries was something you would see in a history forum.
China let European monks and evangelist Proselytizing in Mainland China during the 19 and 20 century so you end with a situation along the lines of South Korea were 25% of the population is part of some denomination of Christianity, With that you just added some 350 million Christian to the world, if you make 50% of the Chinese population Christian, you just added 700 million of new Christians. And from there you could play with the numbers
I think you really only need a PoD in the 16th century (or maybe a little earlier to lay the groundwork). Christianity doesn't even need to be the majority religion in China and Japan, but if you get it to around 40% of each with modern numbers (providing a butterfly net, and there are big butterflies) you'll have somewhere in the ballpark of 570 million more Christians. That gets you maybe into the 40%. With no butterfly net that'll probably get you well into the 50% mark; Christian Chinese missionaries overwhelming East Asia with Chinese diplomatic support/immunity, etc.
I'm really curious of what a successful Taiping rebellion would have done in terms of Christianity in China.
What happens next?
One problem with this idea is that even if the whole world was 100% Christian or 100% Islamic, people would still not agree with each other. Instead you can expect to see each religion splinter into competing factions and sects, fighting against each other. Sad but true.
Christianity:
No Islam and Arabs convert to Christianity and begun spread faith to Persia, Central Asia, India and South West Asia. Persia too converts to Christianity like it converted to Islam in OTL. So basically areas which are Muslim areas in OTL are Christian areas ITTL.
Islam:
- No reconquista.
- Muslims are able capture at least South Italy and South France.
- Russians convert to Islam instead Christianity (probably you need very early fall of Constantinople).
- Córdoba colonise Americas.
No Islam and Arabs convert to Christianity and begun spread faith to Persia, Central Asia, India and South West Asia. Persia too converts to Christianity like it converted to Islam in OTL. So basically areas which are Muslim areas in OTL are Christian areas ITTL.
Islam:
- No reconquista.
- Muslims are able capture at least South Italy and South France.
- Russians convert to Islam instead Christianity (probably you need very early fall of Constantinople).
- Córdoba colonise Americas.
For Christianity it's fairly easy- butterfly Islam and have the Byzantines conquer Sassanid Persia. Soon after, the steppe tribes convert, maybe even conquer China and spread the religion even further. Africa will convert somewhere down the line, and there you have it- Christians would make up a majority, even a commanding majority, of the world's faithful.
If the younger brother of Jesus Christ ruled over all of China? Yeah, that'll do it. Either that or start a century of civil war once Hong Xiuquan kicks the bucket. Still more Christians in China, either way (unless some aggressively atheist ideology like Maoist communism takes over later).
Um, I not sure what @A Most Sovereign Lady said is actually that false. Christianity and Islam did tend to spread a lot by the sword or by subjugation.
Because it's not true in a lot of places, Christianity spread in half of Europe through conversion of elites or as a top-down change with mostly native rulers(Rome,Armenia,England, Ireland, Scandinavia, Lithuania, Kievan Rus, Germanic tribes and so on, compared to the few direct subjugations like Frankish conquest of Saxony, Northern Crusade, Wendish Crusade which all conveniently line up from the modern German coast to Lithuania), in Islamic territories conversion happened centuries after any political conquest and it was correlated to specific societal change not where Muslims had the strongest grip on power.
So yeah, it's not really true, political conquest allowed the spread but it's not often that people were directly threated "by the sword", otherwise India wouldn't be still 80% Hindu or you wouldn't have an Islamic Indonesia.
Muhammad as a Christian saint. He doesn't start a new religion (technically Muslims would say Islam is not "new" but you know what I mean!), no disagreement with regards to the Trinity, Christians seen an true believers instead of just "people of the book". This means no two competing Abrahamaic religions. Christianity spreads in both East and West, throughout Asia and Europe and Africa, later the American Continents.
That should cover more than 50% of the world.
That should cover more than 50% of the world.
Then again most of Christianity is concentrated in the Americas these days, which involved a significant degree of violence given colonialism. Not to mention Christianity in Subsaharan Africa and the whole slavery disaster.
Well I am not sure if that is entirely correct actually. In the Americas and with pagans and other denominations in Europe were subjected to being extremely persecuted by the Christian Church. The same too goes for Islam as there is documentation that often times Islam was forced upon people in areas like Arabia, Egypt, and India. The reason why many faiths like Hinduism were able to survive was partially sheer willingness to hold onto their faith even under a foreign power. By saying that Christianity and Islam spread mostly as a religion of peace, you are at best ignoring and at worst downplaying the forces of subjugation that occurred with these religions.