PolledHistory: The History of World Religions

 Hello! I figured we kept talking about conflict history. We've done the history of philosophy previously and I think religion fits well.

The origins of religion is sketchy. The first large, organized religions is usually some form of paganism/polytheism. In India, Hnduism emerged which is a very ancient belief and is one of the forms of polytheism. It had many gods. 

Jainism was another ancient Indian religion. The Middle East was also active. Egyptian paganism *or Kemetism) believed in many Gods, the most famous of which was Ra (their sun god). Egyptian religion was more complex, but like many other paganisms of the time, each object or area of life was made a god.

In China and East Asia was religions like Taoism/Daoism which is both considered a philosophy and a religion that believed in harmony with the universe. There was also legalism (we must obey strict laws) and confucianism (more of a philosophy. encourages humaneness and benevolence and other virtues).

There was Buddhism which originated from India and spread to China and Japan. Back in the Middle East, some monotheistic religions - which were unique and different compared to most of the religions at the time - had emerged. One of monotheism's first surges was the reign of Akhenaten in Egypt. He made Egyptian paganism's many gods all ignored but one god - Aten - was worshipped.

There was also Judaism/Yahwism, worshipping Yahweh (the Abrahamic God and the one present in Christianity and Judaism (to some extent Islam). Zoroastrianism was a popular Persian monotheistic religion centered around the "prophet" Zoroaster.

The Greeks had a version of paganism alike to the other cultures of the area and this one was particularly successful, as Greek expansion and trade spreaded its belief. The Romans adopted a similar religion with some name changes. However, all these polytheisms were still quite simple. Zoroastrianism by this time was the major religion in Persia and in the areas the Persian empire(s) conquered.

 Christianity emerged as a unique religion with Jesus and quickly it spread from a small group in Judea to a widespread belief after many missionaries came and went. Emperors began to persecute the religion, though it managed to survive.

In 313 Ad was a huge change in the world's history and in the history of religion. Emperor Constantine declared the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity, quickly making the religion all the more widespread. By 400 AD, it became the only major religion.

Paganism began to shrink in Rome. Outside of the major, often covered regions in the ancient era (Middle East, India, China), there were several other religions. In the steppe, there was Tengrism,in the Americas there were many distinct Mesoamerican religions. Some of them were quite sacrificial and even used human sacrifice at times. 

In 476 AD, the Western Roman empire fell, but Christianity in its old provinces remained and continued to spread. But in the 630s and 40s, a new religion based from the teaching of the so called prophet Muhammad, Islam, spread from Arabia, which quickly and exponentially increased in size and following.

Islam supplanted Zoroastrianism when they swept through Persia. In Asia, Buddhism continued to spread and develop into different forms of tradition (such as in Southeast Asia, Japan, etc). Islam reached its "golden age" which ended in 1258 when the Mongols came and sacked Baghdad, which was a huge city that was the epicenter of the caliphate. Baghdad still exists today as the capital of Iraq, but now is a shell of its former importance.

Chinese religion remained mostly revolving Confucianism, which had resurged multiple times, Buddhism, and Daoism. The East Asians rejected external missionaries from the west, and accepted more traditional beliefs.  

The Spanish discovery of the Americas in 1492 had a huge effect. Christianity spread there (as the Europeans were Christian). However, some people began to have second thoughts with the Catholic church at the time and they decided to start a Reformation to renew the church.

In the Age of Reason, more people began to reject the typical religion. Some philosophers began to be Deist - believing in a God who does not interact with the universe. Deism and later atheism grew. Nowadays, countries are typically tolerant of religion, though there are still persecutions throughout.