digg

Join DiggAbout

Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.

History of Religion in 90 Seconds

mapsofwar.com — How has the geography of Religion evolved over the centuries? See 5,000 years of history in 90 seconds...

Bury
show profanity settings
expand all
  • TheKidd, on 10/12/2007, -8/+9That was very cool
    • treelovinhippie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27It's down, duggmirror didn't catch it in time. This works: http://www.mapsofwar.com.nyud.net:8080/ind/history-of-religion.html
    • Hydraulix, on 10/12/2007, -21/+44Here's a site that explains it in two seconds.


      http://www.400monkeys.com/God/

    • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -23/+12@Hydraulix

      I am on opposite side of the trenches, but out of sheer compassion to the utter lack of logic and intelligence of the general atheist crowd I can tell you that arrogance never helps the cause.

      Why would you think that the link you submitted will serve your cause?
    • airiox, on 10/12/2007, -22/+6the world sucks if there is no god...
    • unleashedlive, on 10/12/2007, -16/+10@airiox
      fewer wars, less disputes, less conflict is a bad thing? God is the problem.
    • WolfwoodX, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12It would haven been better if it was 30 seconds and used bunnies.
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24"fewer wars, less disputes, less conflict is a bad thing? God is the problem."

      People are the problem not God.
    • seanherman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17Cool, but obviously an oversimplification. They didn't mark divisive partitions within Christianity (or the other religions for that matter), like the eastern roman empire/orthodox Christianity, protestant reformation etc. I also wish different colors could occupy the same territory, with a striped pattern or something similar, to show significant populations of different religions This marking would display that religions aren't constantly at odds and killing each other but more often than not getting along.

      Interesting nonetheless, as long as one understands the limitations of such a simple model.
    • jammerb, on 10/12/2007, -10/+18"People are the problem not God."

      You're absolutely right - people inventing god is the problem
    • chosenone-, on 10/12/2007, -9/+6Blaming God for the existence of evil is like blaming music for a person's inability to play an instrument.
    • maiku00, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2south and southeast asia is muslim/christian? I thought it was predominatly buddhist?
    • Mactard, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Wheres the birth of L.Ron Hubbard ?
    • KJSatz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Indonesia has a larger Muslim population than any other country.
  • adinb, on 10/12/2007, -6/+6I just wish I had been able to see this when I was taking world history & world religions.
    • thirdman, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9Its quite a bit out, especially the bit about Christianity in Russia
  • ncurses, on 10/12/2007, -32/+5Why is the USSR marked as christian?
    • Settra, on 10/12/2007, -12/+32The USSR fell ages ago, dick.

      It's called RUSSIA now, and the rest of the countries have their own names.

      Maybe it's marked as christian because it IS christian?

      Dick.
    • ROFLance, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19settra, stop whining, it was USSR when christianity first started taking over that area, but yeah, russia's mainstream religion is mostly russian orthodox christianity.
    • chicbicyclist, on 10/12/2007, -12/+2Because Atheism is not considered a religion. According to the internet, however , it is still up for debate.
    • metamorfoza, on 10/12/2007, -9/+2USSR is not marked Christan!. If you watch closely spreading of Christianity in Euro-Asia, you will noticed that Christan borders are clearly smaller then the USSR borders were. Final picture also proves it.
      USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) was not only Russia!(there are those *stan countries)

      Didn't Borat teach you nothig?

      /edit
      I must note that Chechnya though is not marked as muslim area.
    • metamorfoza, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3but again, they're (Chechnya) not independet state.
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"it was USSR when christianity first started taking over that area,"

      That must be the most idiotic statement I've read in some time. And the irony ...
    • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Because of the ignorance: the authors did not know that there are 10-20M Muslims in Russia
    • BabyWookie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5"it was USSR when christianity first started taking over that area"

      Funny, I wasn't aware that the USSR existed in the 900s.
  • scottcbp, on 10/12/2007, -3/+52It might be cooler if it had a running death toll...
  • Ruckgesicht, on 10/12/2007, -2/+62That would be great if it weren't for, you know, all the ancient religions (Greek, Roman, Norse, Egyptian) and many others (Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shintoism, the Bahá'í Faith) being left entirely out of the picture.
    • Ramtech, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3Yeah it would be great if ...

      Service Temporarily Unavailable
      The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.
      Apache/1.3.33 Server at www.mapsofwar.com Port 80

      ya....
    • capiCrimm, on 10/12/2007, -10/+14People don't like to consider the Roman, Greek, etc. stuff. I mean no one really doubts that's made up, but heh, everyone knows these other religions just couldn't be made up, right?
    • ROFLance, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20@ruckgeseicht: too bad half of those are philosophies, and not religions.
    • mindsnare, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1fixed one minute after you mentioned it.
    • Somniis, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21@capiCrimm

      Give it time. People will see, eventually, that God is just like Zeus. Believed now but thought of as a myth thousands of years later.
    • btor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13yup, no mention of other religions.. and just so u know, the number of Sikhs is far greater than Jews. (23 million vs 14 million)
    • warriorscot, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1I think they may have been earlier and less violent so left out, its a map of religious wars mostly rather than religions, religious war wasnt something that happened all that much in greece people left out the religious ***** it was a case of you have something i want im going to take it.

      Its simplified if you put on every religion and offshoot it would get confusing. I like how it shows the births of the major religious players it might remind some people religion is something founded by man and man alone.
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"I think they may have been earlier and less violent so left out, its a map of religious wars mostly rather than religions"

      Hmm, so who did the Buddhist have a war with? It is not about religious war, it's about the spread of the five religions.
    • Ruckgesicht, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4@ capiCrimm:

      Simply because you do not adhere to any of those faiths does not mean they are not faiths that were followed seriously and deligently in the past and onwards into the future. The animation included Buddhism, which among all of these holds the strongest case for being called a philosophy and not a religion; yet it is included, so it is only fair that these others I mention be included as well. Yet they are not.
    • arcticJKL, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2And whats with Judaism starting with the founding of Israel?
    • Ruckgesicht, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1My second post (a reply) was direct at ROFLance, sorry about any confusion that may have caused.
  • deflective, on 10/12/2007, -13/+40interesting how muslim expansion was by "conquest" and christian by "missions abroad"
    • Jibberwalk, on 10/12/2007, -9/+29Muslim "Conquest" is comparable to the military campaigns labeled as Christian "Crusades." Both are military in nature.

      Christian "Missions Abroad" were not military operations, but instead campaigns by... missionaries. You know, monks, priests, nuns. Not exactly the most violent of all God's creatures.
    • democracysucks, on 10/12/2007, -19/+8The crusades actually weren't what most people imagine them being. Basically, Muslims took Jerusalem, and the Orthodox church didn't like that. So there were a couple wars. We took back Jerusalem during one, defending our little train of castles during another, lost Jerusalem during another, and had the Eastern church fighting the Western church during one, and had a bunch of kids get kidnapped and shipped off to Egypt during another.

      At NO time did the church try to spread through force.
    • kevin.gc, on 10/12/2007, -5/+9If you look closely, the "conquests" occurred where there was already another religion established. The "missions abroad" took over non-religious territory.
    • deflective, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3fair enough, you have a point (jibberwalk). the american people probably saw very little difference though.
    • Koray, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22@democracysucks: Except for when the Spaniards started colonizing South America and imposed (quite often _by force_) Christianity upon the locals, purging them of their culture, religion, and tradition?
    • Jibberwalk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Yes, despite the glory that seems to come about when one talks of the Christian Crusades... they really weren't all that succesful from a Christian standpoint. We never did get back the Holy Land.

      You mentioned the Eastern and Western Churches fighting during one of the Crusades... you don't mean the Great Schism do you? That happened about 40 years prior to the "first" Crusade. Maybe I missed something, if so, my bad.

      And... yeah, the Children's Crusade! That's a hillarious bit of history, I'll agree. 20,000 kids meant to march down and repopulate the Middle East with Christians, and instead when they get to the coast of Italy, they get kidnapped. Some are sold into slavery and others die in ship wrecks. Genious!
    • chicbicyclist, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9@kevingc

      Correction: Non-abrahamic religion(meaning Islam, Chrsitanity, Islam and thier offshoots were not present). You're naive if you thought people in these areas didn't subscribe to one form of indigenous religion or another, and to a lesser degree, Dharmic(buddhism, hinduism and related beliefs/philosophies) religions were present.
    • democracysucks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5No, I'm not talking about the schism.

      I'm talking about the fourth crusade (1200-1204) when the East asked the West for help against the Turks (again, the church was under attack, rather than it attacking others), and the Venetians convinced the West to attack and plunder the East.
    • Jibberwalk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Gotchya, thanks for the clarification.
    • zackr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@democracysucks

      Christianity has often tried to be spread by force by foolish people such as Constantine, the Catholics, etc. Anybody who is a Christian knows that such converts are just nominal in nature. Not good for anybody.
    • ICSU, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4@Jibberwalk

      If you think that these missions were peaceful then you are incredibly mistaken. Christian maybe?

      "On the one hand, the Roman Catholic Church along with the main Protestant denominations in Europe did not oppose the slave trade. In some cases, Christian leaders actually argued that the Bible supported slavery and the slave trade. But even in the case of Churches that did not openly support the slave trade, by not providing a conscience against slavery and the slave trade, the Christian churches indirectly gave their blessing to the slave trade. Moreover, some churches benefited from the slave trade through financial contributions made by Christian traders whom had become wealthy as a result of their involvement in the trade."
      http://exploringafrica.matrix.msu.edu/students/curriculum/m14/activity4.php

      .. educate yourself
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2"Muslim "Conquest" is comparable to the military campaigns labeled as Christian "Crusades." Both are military in nature."

      Muslim Conquest is not comparable to Christian Crusades. The Crusades were the result of the conquest which was violent in nature. Would you like me to provide links?
    • WomunOfColour, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"The "missions abroad" took over non-religious territory."

      Hell, no. You think the aboriginals of the Americas lacked religion? It was forced conversion. Read your history.
    • ohmar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@ zackr
      Actually, that is not necessarily true. Many of the converts to Christianity under Constantine were quite devout. See, when they were forced to accept Christianity, they figured that the God they had previously worshiped would probably be *****. Thus, they couldnt go back to their pagan worship and so they accepted Christianity and helped its spread.
  • vassili151, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Works for me.
  • jarland, on 10/12/2007, -7/+1Wasn't this on here like 2 months ago? Oh well, too many people here to get mad about copies I guess.
  • Somniis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A reward for everlasting life for merely acting good spreads quickly. There are many many more religions that this has left out.
    • drmonkey, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7everlasting life? i'll take 3!
    • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Yes, it's the Santa Claus fantasy. Be good and do as you're told and you'll get a big reward.
  • chicbicyclist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Uh, the Philippines(and the rest of Archipelagic Southeas Asia for that matter) was Buddhist???? I thought it was Hinduism at first then Islam then Christianity(Islam stuck in the rest of Maritime SEA).
  • tuxidomasx, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18no scientology? i didnt see the birth of Hubbard on there. what gives?

    *snicker*
    • BrownBag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17Hollywood is pretty small on the map to see.
    • kazisdaman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1SCIENTOLOGY IS EXPANDING!
  • everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8LOL @ the jews.

    seriously though, what was with the christianity boom? ***** exploded! was it the spanish taking over the americas or something?
    • jacobmiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Yes, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquistador
    • Jibberwalk, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12It's a wonder what missionaries can do when you show natives superior technology that trumps what their "pagan" gods have supplied them. Like boats with sails. And steel.

      Also with some luck... like how Cortes arrived in Mexico the same year as the Aztec calender predicted Quetzacoatl would return... Quetzacoatl being a pale-skinned god.

      Edit: Jacob Miller got there first.
    • everfalling, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15smallpox covered blankets kinda speed things along too i guess.
    • chicbicyclist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@everfalling

      Pretty much.
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2And stuffing indians all in one area..
  • kaffein, on 10/12/2007, -6/+7Spread like a virus for sure.
    • jacobmiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Funny you should say that. Richard Dawkins has referred to faith as a virus (see "The Virus of Faith" - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5752208690443739173 )

      Dawkins of course was the guy who coined the term "meme" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme ) -

      "The term "meme" refers to a unit of cultural information transferable from one mind to another. A meme propagates itself as a unit of cultural evolution and diffusion — analogous in many ways to the behavior of the gene (the unit of genetic information). Often memes propagate as more-or-less integrated cooperative sets or groups, referred to as memeplexes or meme-complexes." .... very much like a religion...
  • TheTaoOfBill, on 10/16/2007, -12/+1Dude. Jesus kicked everyone's ass! Suck it Buddha!
  • Paroparo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I was rather skeptical about this since it was bound to be a bit arbitrary and inaccurate (one religion in one place at one time etc), but I was positively surprise. Stuff like counting every inch of the Americas as Christian or just labeling the entire East/South-East Asia as Buddhist is a bit weird, but necessary I suppose.
    • argh44z, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Indeed...there were things arbitary. For example, in India, when it was under the rule of a Muslim sultanate, the map marked the majority of the lands as Muslim, even though most of the inhabitants were still Hindu.. When the British Raj took over, it didn't apply the same principle and mark the lands as Christian.
  • zackr, on 10/16/2007, -8/+2Dupe! Stop pretending that so-called 'religious wars' are such! Anybody who knows anything knows that any offensive war is economic/trade/greedy in nature.
    • Dadelus, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Jesus save me from your followers!!!!!
    • jammerb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2..but it is religion that let's people believe that they are absolutely right, while the other guys must be absolutely wrong (and can be slaughtertered) - Frank Zappa said it best: (Dumb All Over)

      Nerds on the left
      Nerds on the right
      Religous fanatics
      On the air every night
      Sayin the bible
      Tells the story
      Makes the details
      Sound real gory
      bout what to do
      If the geeks over there
      Dont believe in the book
      We got over here
  • fearlessfrog, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20What, no Flying Spaghetti Monster!!??

    He touched me with His Noodly Appendages! Pastafarianism won't take this lying down...
  • NiroZ, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Interesting, but its not terribly accurate.
    For one, it doesn't show places where religion's mixed, like in India, and leaves out quite a few religion's.
    However, it is very good for what it was aiming for(a brief overview).
  • ricepudd, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3It'll be interesting to see it extrapolated to the future as the Jedi faith takes over...
  • capiCrimm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@warriorscot

    and it's a lot easier when you have multiple Gods to reconcile other religions. You either add the God, or merge it with a current God.
  • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1You forgot idol worshipping: Mao, Lenin, Marx, $, "human rights"
    • OneAndOnlySnob, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Human rights is idol worship? You have no idea how good you have it, let alone why.

      Why don't you move to Egypt or some place where they don't partake in the despicable sin of worshiping Human Rights?
  • mapkinase, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Some countries in central Africa we marked as Christian, while there is significant comparable population of Muslims
  • mjoshi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Well take it for what it is, site is just depiction of how different religions spread across world. There is no point in arguing over who did more ***** trying to spread their religion (afterall every religion has its own limitations).
  • lagrange, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1You would have to turn the oceans red to show all the murder done over time in the name of 'God'.
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Actually there have been more deaths from political, expansion, and greed than from religion...
  • tb616973, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This was very cool but it I feel like they got bored and just made christianity fill the world at the end. At the first steps of Christianity they had little specific spots and then after a certain date they just allow it to fill the globe when we should have even more data of its spreading the further we come along.
  • SassquatchG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The fast motion replay was strangely similar to a scene from the movie "War Games".
  • jferrari, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Not too many conflicts until the green one arrived.
  • markdr123, on 10/12/2007, -7/+2Go, Christianity, go!
  • AegisGFX, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2Religion is child abuse, all religions need to be outlawed. Period. Why do we punish someone who molests a child's body, but not the people who molest their brains? Molesting their brain is a million times more destructive if you ask me. (both are very bad in case you were wondering, but molesting their brains is faaaaar more widespread).

    http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5752208690443739173
    • VolatileWhimsy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well you are molesting my beliefs does that mean you should be punished?
    • bidness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0Molesting their body is molesting their brain
  • AlphAssassin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5If they have Buddhism, they should add Confucianism and Taoism
  • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Down through the history of mankind, something like 10000 different religions have been documented. There is only one belief that they all have in common, "We're right, you're wrong!".
    • arcticJKL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I've run in to a bunch that say 'whatever you believe is fine' actually.
      Esp. if you give them money.
    • rjani57, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@JQP123 - NOT all of them. Cannot speak for others but this is not the essence of Hinduism.

      just as an aside, Hinduism is not even really a religion when compared to the definition that can be deduced from the others. It represents a set of social codes and a way of life. India, the place of its birth, has been conquered by so many over the centuries and the early guests simply labelled it as such through ignorance. The irony is that the same ignorance is commonly shared by Hindus too nowadays.

      Despite some limitations (as covered in a few comments on this thread), this is a good exrecise. Woth doing, worth digging!
  • thinkycap, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3---VolatileWhimsy 1 hour ago---

    "People are the problem, not God."

    Probably the best comment concerning religion I've ever read on Digg. Congrats to you my man. I meant that.

    I consider myself someone that believes in *a* God, just not sure *which* God. So, my "faith" (at this point) pretty much means I try to treat others the way I want to be treated, do good works when I can...and all that "sharing is caring" stuff they teach you in kindergarten.

    I don't understand the thinking a lot of you have that if you eliminate religion, all wars would end and we'd live in some kind of utopia? Bottom line is this, we are human, we war. We fight over natural resources. We fight for power. We fight for money. We fight because we can.

    Take away religion, and war would hardly stop there. People would war about race. Take that away, well, insert whatever excuse you'd like.

    So long as there's ANY difference between humans, be it race, politics, living conditions, social class, WHATEVER, we will continue to war.
    • JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"So long as there's ANY difference between humans, be it race, politics, living conditions, social class, WHATEVER, we will continue to war."

      True. However; without religion, hopefully we wouldn't have so many irrational people willing to destroy themselves along with innocent bystanders or even the entire planet because they believe another world is waiting for them in the afterlife.

      Religion is the most dangerous thing ever invented by mankind.
    • chosenone-, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1If you're really concerned about the nature of God I'd recommend reading The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot.
    • djKianoosh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"If religion proves to be the source of hatred, enmity and contention, if it becomes the cause of warfare and strife and influences men to kill each other, its absence is preferable"

      "If a religion become the cause of hatred and disharmony, it would be better that it should not exist. To be without such a religion is better than to be with it"

      "If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division, it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion would be a truly religious act"

      all quotations from 'Abdu'l-Bahá (1844-1921)

      just thought these were interesting given the context of the discussion...
    • Esstee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Religion is simply another excuse to justify wars. It is just as unsound to contemplate the removal of a right to worship in people as it would be to raise bloodshed over ideologies. Those who fear indifference will seek to eliminate the contrasting components either consciously or unconsciously. Looking at Dawkins for example... a typical case of rallying up social indifference by presenting himself as a liberator at the expense of others. However what Mr. Dawkins fails to realize is that he brings nothing to relieve the troubling future we face as a nation. He does however, raise profits from his book sales in the process. It is all to easy to point out problems which surround us but acting positively towards a problem is something of a different story.

      So religion is the cause of wars and devisions in the world? Those who have studied human psychology would know that wars and suffering runs deeper than the measurable aspects of life. It remains as a global circumstances, an inevitable fact. Religion, Race, Languages, Genre, Money, Property, Precious Materials, Food and Resources and so many more to choose from... choose your pick! - there all popular excuses.

      As long as there is a left and right side to a road for humans, there will be causes for wars. It's to bad that people obsess over waisted arguments like unrealistic human right revocation when the world which sustains us is most likely not going last the length of our lifetimes...
  • iupetre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Too bad he couldn't have put in mythology to show how it was displaced and replaced.
    • jammerb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Huh? - all it shows is mythology.
    • maiku00, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1buddhism isnt so much mythology as it is introspective psychology and philosophy
  • kermithefrog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah lets play that game.. judge a group by its abuses... here, i'll go next, ***** crackers are all rednecks and want niggers dead!
  • morkon, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Muslims conquered LAND through conquest, they did NOT convert through conquest as the site said. They would encourage people to convert through no taxes on Muslims, and higher taxes on non-Muslims.
  • kazisdaman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1cool!
  • emptycan, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Hey, did you notice the Christianity is the only religion started by the death of someone? All the rest have as a start the birth of their founder.

    I find that odd.
  • anomalya, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://thecreationfallacy.blogspot.com/
  • deboosher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i think i dugg this once.
  • z4nd3r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0hopefully one day there'll be a map of the destruction of all religions and the rebirth of reason!!!!!!!!!
  • cptn_cardboard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1poor jews...
  •  

    Login or register to add a comment

    Create a new account or login to join in the conversation on Digg. You'll also be able to Digg stories to help promote things you like.


© Digg Inc. 2008 — Content posted by Digg users is dedicated to the public domain.
DIGG, DIGG IT, DUGG, DIGG THIS, Digg graphics, logos, designs, page headers, button icons, scripts, and other service names are the trademarks of Digg Inc.