backandforthhope@yahoo.com wrote in news:1155514267.647713.137770
@p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic

"Abrahamic religions account for more than half of the world's total
religious adherents."

Probably because the conversion of others (by persuasion, coersion, or
force) are basic tenets of islam and xianity.

(hope this isn't OT for the group.... i am a Christian attempting the
process of deconversion, after a long and hard struggle with my "faith"
(if you call it that)).

Welcome to the club. Many of us here went through the same process. So
feel free to vent or ask questions or just look for help.

--
Woden

"religion is a socio-political system for controlling people's thoughts,
lives and actions based on ancient myths and superstitions, perpetrated
through generations of subtle yet pervasive brainwashing."

On Sun, 13 Aug 2006 17:11:07 -0700, backandforthhope wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrahamic

"Abrahamic religions account for more than half of the world's total
religious adherents."


(hope this isn't OT for the group.... i am a Christian attempting the
process of deconversion, after a long and hard struggle with my "faith"
(if you call it that)).

Then you're right on topic for this newsgroup.

Why are they so prevalent? They're aggressive. Both in proselytizing and
flat out militarism. I mean, did you ever sing "Onward Christian Soldiers"
in church?

Some of it was pure happenstance of course. If you really pay attention to
the period of European colonialism for example, you notice that the places
outside of Europe you find people of European extraction to any great
degree were where native populations had no natural resistance to the
diseases carried by the Europeans.

Compare areas such as the US, Canada, and Australia to locations such as
India and elsewhere in Asia. They were able to rule for a brief period in
history in some places (such as India) but were never able to totally
conquer the way they did in places where the diseases did most of the work
such as happened here in what is now the US.

I became convinced over time that had it *not been for the epidemics,
people of European extraction today would be pretty much limited to Europe.

Across this entire hemisphere, conversion to Christianity was by "the
sword." And given the general collapse native civilizations were
undergoing because of the epidemics (many fell before any European got
there because diseases were passed from tribe to tribe), it didn't take
all *that much effort to convince people that the Christian god was "more
powerful" than previous beliefs. I mean, nobody knew what a "germ" was
back then. Not really. People were just dying and nothing that had
"worked" before was working anymore. And the "white people" were
prospering.

Many converted out of the sheer terror that these new folks on the block
had some really powerful "god" and the only safe haven was to kiss its *****.


But the entire threesome of the JCI group of religions are (or were)
proselytizing and aggressive. Judaism turned away from that many years
back, turning more insular and tolerant and, as you can see, they're the
smallest of the "big three" now.

One of things that contributed to my deconversion was the discovery that
the history of the religion was rife with violence. Christianity hooked
itself to the state and became a conquering political force. That's when
it began its rapid expansion.

It seriously hit my "faith" that god need swords and ships and gun powder
to effect the spread of his "word." That should not have been necessary.

But there it was...

--
Mark K. Bilbo
--------------------------------------------------
"As hip as it is for outsiders to blame New Orleans
for everything bad that happened during and after
Hurricane Katrina, the truth is that the people
who lived here were much more prepared for a big
storm than the federal government that promised
us flood protection." [Jarvis DeBerry]

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V180525DC

"Everything New Orleans"
http://www.nola.com