The modern world minus Christianity and Islam.

[GabrielWithoutWings]

How do you think the world would've ended up if Christianity and Islam had either remained very confined to their local areas or if they'd never existed at all?

Would Scandinavia have a United Heathen All-thing? Would we Caucasians most likely be in Europe right now? Would the Native American Tribal Nation enter the second World War? Would there be Constitutional amendments in Central and South American banning human sacrifice?

 

[Madhuri]

Perhaps the aborigines would have been left alone entirely.

Truly, I think there is little way to know how the world would be now.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

How do you think the world would've ended up if Christianity and Islam had either remained very confined to their local areas or if they'd never existed at all?

Would Scandinavia have a United Heathen All-thing? Would we Caucasians most likely be in Europe right now? Would the Native American Tribal Nation enter the second World War? Would there be Constitutional amendments in Central and South American banning human sacrifice?

My personal view, is that this is akin to asking how the world would be without God.
There would be no world without God.
That is not to say all the sects of these religions are God's religion, but there would be no Christianity or Islam without a God, therefor no world either.

 

[Breathe]

I still expect that there would be Caucasians in the Americas.
However, I don't think they would have gone there to convert others, and I doubt that many.


I imagine there would have been some minor quabbles and stuff, but eventually people would have come to an idea that people were worshipping the same gods with different names - easier with say, the Indo-European gods to begin with, but I think with some extent they would have done the same with others - see Egyptian-Greek syncretism and so on.

I think in some areas, like say, Britain, a syncretic religion would have taken over in some areas: the worship of Celtic gods and Norse gods would have become the norm, but there would be a chance that it could have become a very divided group based on ethnicity, but I'd hope things would probably have gone inclusive, hoping that humans would be willing to settle differences.

I kind of expect that human sacrifice would die out - either naturally or prohibited by laws. Scandinavia with a united All-thing, who knows. Politics is a fickle business now, probably would be the same then.

 

[lunakilo]

I guess the old Roman/Greek/Norse/Celtic/... religions would have survived.

I am sure they could have found somereligious reason to fight with each other.

I don't think that this would have stopped europeans going to the americas. Many people went there in search of a better life toescape the over crowded eoropean continent and not for religious reasons.

 

[Flankerl]

We would probably all speak mongolian.

Which is actually not bad.

 

[Levite]

It's funny, a while ago, I actually sketched out the outline for an alternate-reality novel about a world where Christianity never flourished, and as a result, there was not really Islam as we have it. I ended up with most of Europe being controlled by a loose confederation of Celtic and Germanic nations, most of the Middle East being controlled by a quasi-Islamic Empire called al-Muminin, Asia Minor and most of the lands around the Black Sea being controlled by a Byzantine Empire that never fell, and the west coasts of the Americas being heavily colonized by China, with the east coasts of the Americas lightly colonized by Celts and Scandinavians, and everything in between being tribal states of different Native American Nations. I also postulated that, without the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, and the suppression of the sciences by Christian zealots in the Dark Ages, humanity would achieve the equivalent of 20th century technology by around what would be for us the year 1500 or so. I had the novel culminating in the equivalent of the year 1969, with the first successful waves of human faster-than-light starships beginning to colonize other planets.

I always envisioned that there would still be conflicts and wars, still various kinds of traumas, social upheavals, and whatnot. Just for slightly different reasons.

 

[LuisDantas]

Really hard to predict. I suppose on the one hand there would be more religious tolerance and less discrimination against atheism. On the other hand, ethnic and national conflicts would perhaps be much more serious.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

It's funny, a while ago, I actually sketched out the outline for an alternate-reality novel about a world where Christianity never flourished, and as a result, there was not really Islam as we have it. I ended up with most of Europe being controlled by a loose confederation of Celtic and Germanic nations, most of the Middle East being controlled by a quasi-Islamic Empire called al-Muminin, Asia Minor and most of the lands around the Black Sea being controlled by a Byzantine Empire that never fell, and the west coasts of the Americas being heavily colonized by China, with the east coasts of the Americas lightly colonized by Celts and Scandinavians, and everything in between being tribal states of different Native American Nations. I also postulated that, without the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, and the suppression of the sciences by Christian zealots in the Dark Ages, humanity would achieve the equivalent of 20th century technology by around what would be for us the year 1500 or so. I had the novel culminating in the equivalent of the year 1969, with the first successful waves of human faster-than-light starships beginning to colonize other planets.

I always envisioned that there would still be conflicts and wars, still various kinds of traumas, social upheavals, and whatnot. Just for slightly different reasons.

Sounds like a great novel.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

It's funny, a while ago, I actually sketched out the outline for an alternate-reality novel about a world where Christianity never flourished, and as a result, there was not really Islam as we have it. I ended up with most of Europe being controlled by a loose confederation of Celtic and Germanic nations, most of the Middle East being controlled by a quasi-Islamic Empire called al-Muminin, Asia Minor and most of the lands around the Black Sea being controlled by a Byzantine Empire that never fell, and the west coasts of the Americas being heavily colonized by China, with the east coasts of the Americas lightly colonized by Celts and Scandinavians, and everything in between being tribal states of different Native American Nations. I also postulated that, without the destruction of the Library at Alexandria, and the suppression of the sciences by Christian zealots in the Dark Ages, humanity would achieve the equivalent of 20th century technology by around what would be for us the year 1500 or so. I had the novel culminating in the equivalent of the year 1969, with the first successful waves of human faster-than-light starships beginning to colonize other planets.

I always envisioned that there would still be conflicts and wars, still various kinds of traumas, social upheavals, and whatnot. Just for slightly different reasons.

Sound like that would fit a trilogy better.

Rome might not have fallen when it did with out Christianity. Their many gods kept them on their toes, and they would have kept their blood lust.

 

[Madhuri]

I would definitely be curious to see what the world would be like now if those religions had not ever come about.

Saying that though, it is only the every aspect of history that has brought about my current existence. So in a sense, I owe gratitude to everyone and everything that existed before my birth otherwise I might not be here now.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

otherwise I might not be here now.

:no: Now that jus't wouldn't do...

 

[LuisDantas]

Is that reason to have gratitude? It is not like there is any reason to expect things to have turned out worse otherwise. We simply don't know, and IMO we lack the means to even guess.

 

[Madhuri]

Is that reason to have gratitude? It is not like there is any reason to expect things to have turned out worse otherwise. We simply don't know, and IMO we lack the means to even guess.

Well for instance, the existence of Christianity had such a huge impact on Britain alone, influencing who died and lived, the culture and attitudes etc.

Who knows if all of my ancestors would have survived, married the same people, had the same attitudes that led them to discovering new lands, killing multitudes of people in those lands, sending the same people from England to these countries etc. if Christianity had never been born?

If everything in history had not occurred the exact way it has, perhaps you and I would not be here today.

 

[Invisible Pink Unicorn]

Without Christianity, Islam might never have come into being as it borrows heavily from Christianity.

I think the world would have been a much better place. No colonialism, fewer wars, more education. More humanity. Perhaps there would have been no dark ages, and the "Rennaisance" would have happened earlier.

Or perhaps Africans or Native Americans, because they were never colonized would be the first to develop industrial societies while the Europeans still lived in mud huts.

 

[Riverwolf]

I think the world would have been a much better place. No colonialism, fewer wars, more education. More humanity. Perhaps there would have been no dark ages, and the "Rennaisance" would have happened earlier.

Nonsense. All of these things existed in some form or other before Christianity. The Dark Ages occurred because the Roman Empire fell. Alexander conquered much of Eurasia, demonstrating colonialism.

So, these things would still exist. They may have manifested in different areas and in different manners, but they would still exist.

IOW, I don't think the world would be essentially different.

 

[Invisible Pink Unicorn]

Nonsense. All of these things existed in some form or other before Christianity. The Dark Ages occurred because the Roman Empire fell. Alexander conquered much of Eurasia, demonstrating colonialism.

This isn't colonialism per se. It might be more of imperialism, but then again imperialism also implies that a capitalist driving force is behind it, which didn't fully exist in Alexander's time. Colonialism includes racism as part of its structure. For example, the Romans had a different understanding of race than we do, and being a "Roman" was more about being educated and being a citizen.

The colonization of the Americas by the whites, were white supremacist colonialism in which the natives were oppressed for looking different. And they were inspired almost directly by Christianity.

 

[Riverwolf]

This isn't colonialism per se. It might be more of imperialism, but then again imperialism also implies that a capitalist driving force is behind it, which didn't fully exist in Alexander's time. Colonialism includes racism as part of its structure. For example, the Romans had a different understanding of race than we do, and being a "Roman" was more about being educated and being a citizen.

The colonization of the Americas by the whites, were white supremacist colonialism in which the natives were oppressed for looking different. And they were inspired almost directly by Christianity.

That's a shaky argument at best, as it's basically arguing semantics. Bottom line, the problems that exist today would exist regardless of Christianity or Islam, because they're part of human nature. This is demonstrated by similar (of course, not exactly identical) incidents throughout history.

 

[Randy Cavitts]

Or perhaps Africans or Native Americans, because they were never colonized would be the first to develop industrial societies while the Europeans still lived in mud huts.

Not necessarily, because the Romans had a quasi-industrial society (not a mechanised one) even before Christianity arrived. On the other hand, most of Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the Native Americans lacked even rudimentary writing, without which it becomes nearly impossible to create lasting contributions to science or technology.

Also, the Chinese had blast furnaces and steel as much as 2,000 years ago to some sources, and the East Indians had made a lot of advances in mathematics. So it likely might have been the Chinese or Indians, if not the Europeans who developed industrial society.

 

[sadiq]

A world with a much larger number of my co-religionists?