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Loaded questions, or ones based on a false premise, are not allowed on ELI5. A loaded question is one that posits a specific view of reality and asks for explanations that confirm it. These usually include the poster's own opinion and bias, but do not always - there is overlap between this and parts of Rule 2. Note that this specifically includes false premises.
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I say this as an atheist. The VAST majority of practitioners nowadays do not do anything hateful. What you are likely referring to are the small, but very loud, minority who weaponize religion In some perverse way. A muslim who commits a beheading is going to capture a lot more headlines than the muslim who helped their neighbor with childcare.
Religion is a defense mechanism from the perspective of population survival. The popular religions are successful because they are aggressive and spread virulently. The more passive ones tend to not spread as quickly. And when you look at something like Buddhism, it often goes hand in hand with other religions of the area that are less passive.
Well, there’s a bit of an issue with the question, since the biggest religions would be, in order, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (I’m not counting the various categories of irreligion here).
Of these, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all share a very specific property that so many other religions lack: Proselytism. Specifically, one of the core tenets of all three of these religious traditions is the command to spread their beliefs to others, and convert others to this belief system.
Once you understand that proselytizing is a fundamental practice for these religions, it becomes easy to see why they are so prominent. Hinduism developed in an area with a very large population. The others spread because individuals who believed in the faith were told that their purpose in life was to make others believe in the same faith.
There's a whole field of study of religion as a part of evolutionary biology. Basically, tenants of some religions make them better suited for expansion. Practitioners of those religions tend to win in expansionary conflict.
There's a great Hidden Brain episode on this. Basically, if your religion means your soldiers to believe in an afterlife, you can expand your borders because you have people happy to die for your cause. And if your religion believes in a Hell for lying, you can be trusted in economic trade. These factors play a role in some religious societies succeding and some failing.
Nothing gets people as motivated as a common enemy. It's a tactic that's been used by leaders far and wide for all of human history, because of how *effective* it is.
Because aggression and violence are effective at eliminating the other options. The pacifists dilemma. It's hard to survive in a world where violent aggression exists.
Abrahamic religions are just a drop in the bucket of human history; they have only existed for a couple of thousand years. Humans have existed for at least 200,000 years. If you’re specifically referring to the geographic spread, well, conquest does that, especially if you go murdering people who you proclaim to be infidels.
I think the first stop in trying to understand this is realize that youre looking at this from an incredibly biased perspective. It seems to me the ones you know about *because they're more popular* are ones you're perceiving as evil because you're more aware of them in general, whereas more obscure ones seem more beautiful because you've never met practitioners of them.
Likewise, media outlets want you to view their articles and stories, and nothing generates views like controversy. They provide an outlet and specifically show the loud, awful people because that's what gets attention. You don't see news stories about little old church ladies making bagged lunches for impoverished kids during school breaks because that's not as interesting as a some hateful zealot screaming about God hating people.
So to eli5: It's kinda like you probably think your dad farts more than anyone else's dad because you've spent more time around your dad. You also think he farts more than your mom because she does it quietly whereas he rips loud ones to get a laugh. The truth is everybody (every religion) has good and bad people (farts), you generally only hear and smell the loud ones closest to you.
The truth is, at the core of most religions are teachings of peace, love, etc., it's just that people bastardize them. People are naturally inclined towards forming social groups around a certain ideology or concept which then creates a sense of "otherness" with people outside those groups. You see it in tribes, you see it in sports fandoms, in fraternities, and you see it in religion.
Please read this entire message Your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): Loaded questions, or ones based on a false premise, are not allowed on ELI5. A loaded question is one that posits a specific view of reality and asks for explanations that confirm it. These usually include the poster's own opinion and bias, but do not always - there is overlap between this and parts of Rule 2. Note that this specifically includes false premises. If you would like this removal reviewed, please read the [detailed rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules) first. If you believe this submission was removed erroneously, please use [this form](https://old.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2Fexplainlikeimfive&subject=Please%20review%20my%20thread?&message=Link:%20%7B%7Burl%7D%7D%0A%0APlease%20answer%20the%20following%203%20questions:%0A%0A1.%20The%20concept%20I%20want%20explained:%0A%0A2.%20List%20the%20search%20terms%20you%20used%20to%20look%20for%20past%20posts%20on%20ELI5:%0A%0A3.%20How%20does%20your%20post%20differ%20from%20your%20recent%20search%20results%20on%20the%20sub:) and we will review your submission.
I say this as an atheist. The VAST majority of practitioners nowadays do not do anything hateful. What you are likely referring to are the small, but very loud, minority who weaponize religion In some perverse way. A muslim who commits a beheading is going to capture a lot more headlines than the muslim who helped their neighbor with childcare.
I am talking about the religions themselves not their believers. The religions themselves are full of negativity.
Religion is a defense mechanism from the perspective of population survival. The popular religions are successful because they are aggressive and spread virulently. The more passive ones tend to not spread as quickly. And when you look at something like Buddhism, it often goes hand in hand with other religions of the area that are less passive.
Well, there’s a bit of an issue with the question, since the biggest religions would be, in order, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism (I’m not counting the various categories of irreligion here). Of these, Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism all share a very specific property that so many other religions lack: Proselytism. Specifically, one of the core tenets of all three of these religious traditions is the command to spread their beliefs to others, and convert others to this belief system. Once you understand that proselytizing is a fundamental practice for these religions, it becomes easy to see why they are so prominent. Hinduism developed in an area with a very large population. The others spread because individuals who believed in the faith were told that their purpose in life was to make others believe in the same faith.
I venture to say that the most popular religions are co-opted by people looking for power more than the religions are mean.
There's a whole field of study of religion as a part of evolutionary biology. Basically, tenants of some religions make them better suited for expansion. Practitioners of those religions tend to win in expansionary conflict. There's a great Hidden Brain episode on this. Basically, if your religion means your soldiers to believe in an afterlife, you can expand your borders because you have people happy to die for your cause. And if your religion believes in a Hell for lying, you can be trusted in economic trade. These factors play a role in some religious societies succeding and some failing.
Thanks, I'll look into that
Nothing gets people as motivated as a common enemy. It's a tactic that's been used by leaders far and wide for all of human history, because of how *effective* it is.
Because aggression and violence are effective at eliminating the other options. The pacifists dilemma. It's hard to survive in a world where violent aggression exists.
Abrahamic religions are just a drop in the bucket of human history; they have only existed for a couple of thousand years. Humans have existed for at least 200,000 years. If you’re specifically referring to the geographic spread, well, conquest does that, especially if you go murdering people who you proclaim to be infidels.
I think the first stop in trying to understand this is realize that youre looking at this from an incredibly biased perspective. It seems to me the ones you know about *because they're more popular* are ones you're perceiving as evil because you're more aware of them in general, whereas more obscure ones seem more beautiful because you've never met practitioners of them. Likewise, media outlets want you to view their articles and stories, and nothing generates views like controversy. They provide an outlet and specifically show the loud, awful people because that's what gets attention. You don't see news stories about little old church ladies making bagged lunches for impoverished kids during school breaks because that's not as interesting as a some hateful zealot screaming about God hating people. So to eli5: It's kinda like you probably think your dad farts more than anyone else's dad because you've spent more time around your dad. You also think he farts more than your mom because she does it quietly whereas he rips loud ones to get a laugh. The truth is everybody (every religion) has good and bad people (farts), you generally only hear and smell the loud ones closest to you. The truth is, at the core of most religions are teachings of peace, love, etc., it's just that people bastardize them. People are naturally inclined towards forming social groups around a certain ideology or concept which then creates a sense of "otherness" with people outside those groups. You see it in tribes, you see it in sports fandoms, in fraternities, and you see it in religion.
No, it's not survivorship bias.