How likely would it be for at least a simple majority of the world's population to follow one Abrahamic faith or another?
DBPC: More than half the world Abrahamic
- Thread starter Mort the Reaper
- Start date
OOC: This is a double-blind scenario, taking place in a timeline where that's not the case.
Honestly, this seems very hard without a super early POD, simply because it's hard to imagine Abrahamic religions doing better than they did OTL. Simon bar Kokhba, while undeniably military genius, also got insanely lucky; successfully carving an independent state out of the Roman Empire is an unparalleled feat that I can't imagine an alt-history figure surpassing. What are they going to do, conquer the empire?
The real problem is that Abrahamic faiths are notoriously incompatible with other religions. Frankly, the only way religions get spread to large numbers of people is if there's room for syncretic borrowing and swapping of deities. Karl the Great was only able to instigate the transition of Western Europe from the Roman Pantheon to the Germanic one because the gods were formally considered the same, under different names. We simply haven't seen large amounts of common people changing religion en masse to something that incompatible. Just as the Jews and Samaritans retained their religion under Roman conquest, even if some Jewish or Samaritan (or later Qedarite) nation had conquered a group of pagans, they'd have trouble forcing a change to their religion. The only exception to this are things like the colonization of the Ferdinandas, where natives were so technologically behind they could be slaughtered and forcibly converted en masse. But how are a bunch of Middle Eastern kingdoms going to reach the New World?
The Abrahamic religions are stuck in the crossroads of mighty empires, and it's a miracle they've survived to the present day at all. Just lasting for this long after so many different conquests is an achievement. But even so, there were Abrahamic faiths destroyed so quickly we barely know about them. Under the Romans, there were plenty of would-be Messiahs springing up, preaching everything from immediate rebellion to hippy-dippy peace and love, and even the ones that attracted sizeable cults were unceremoniously slaughtered. It took one of the best military leaders in history to barely create a new nation that's lasted to this day; I doubt anyone else could have done better.
The real problem is that Abrahamic faiths are notoriously incompatible with other religions. Frankly, the only way religions get spread to large numbers of people is if there's room for syncretic borrowing and swapping of deities. Karl the Great was only able to instigate the transition of Western Europe from the Roman Pantheon to the Germanic one because the gods were formally considered the same, under different names. We simply haven't seen large amounts of common people changing religion en masse to something that incompatible. Just as the Jews and Samaritans retained their religion under Roman conquest, even if some Jewish or Samaritan (or later Qedarite) nation had conquered a group of pagans, they'd have trouble forcing a change to their religion. The only exception to this are things like the colonization of the Ferdinandas, where natives were so technologically behind they could be slaughtered and forcibly converted en masse. But how are a bunch of Middle Eastern kingdoms going to reach the New World?
The Abrahamic religions are stuck in the crossroads of mighty empires, and it's a miracle they've survived to the present day at all. Just lasting for this long after so many different conquests is an achievement. But even so, there were Abrahamic faiths destroyed so quickly we barely know about them. Under the Romans, there were plenty of would-be Messiahs springing up, preaching everything from immediate rebellion to hippy-dippy peace and love, and even the ones that attracted sizeable cults were unceremoniously slaughtered. It took one of the best military leaders in history to barely create a new nation that's lasted to this day; I doubt anyone else could have done better.
[partially IC]
oh, look, another Haemite who thinks his country is the whole world. You know that the area between Sigidun, Jerusalem and Trapezous is not the entirety of the world, right? Even if you refuse to admit it.