How come most religions don't try to convert?

[Gleb]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Ok, so outside of a religious school it's silly to try to convert someone in my opinion. I understand the "the more followers the better" thing in many reigions, but everyone has his/her own reality. Trying to convert will only, possibly, cause people to eschew the religion.

Plus, people tend to look first on the religion itself, before looking at what it does and its followers.
For instance, many people may say something like: "Ah, you are pagan (or any other less spread faith), you will go to hell / you worhip Satan".

When my classmate heard of something like that started yelling: "Burn the witch!". I am not sure what was that, but I didn't even try to change his opinion. It's no use with such people.

[thalassa]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

When I look at another religion, I try to do it in the same way that I look at history or anthropology--on its own terms--specifically the terms of its individual denomination or tradition, not on mine.

...the Reformation *did* happen nearly 500 years ago. A lot has changed.

[Keldorn]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

I "Think" that in the conversion field of Christian and Islam there seems to be if you "Save" someone you rack up points toward going to "Heaven" I will not say that I actually know this to be true,but I seem to remember something like "Build up your treasures in heaven" thing from when I was growing up.

Shouldn't this be effectively irrelevant to most Prodestant doctrines. I thought one of their big fights with Catholocism was the whole issue of "saved, not through acts but through faith alone".

Spreading their faith is still at the end of the day an act.

[Alienist]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

It is actually interesting others have done conversions besides Christianity and Islam. I never said that others didn't try to convert. Almost every religion you can think of has done conversions one way or another but it strikes me as weird since Christianity and Islam do more conversions than any other religion and it's probably because they are universal religions and not ethnic religions.

[Orecha]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

I will give you credit that they have had forced conversions but it's exactly part of their doctrine and of course Jews and Buddhists certainly don't try convert today. Jews are usually well known for keeping to themselves but a lot of religions have had their forced conversion days.

There are actually quite a few Jewish groups invested in proselytizing. While many are groups like Chabad, who seek converts to their particular brand of Judaism (Lubavitcher Chasidic Orthodox) from "ethnic Jews" who are atheists, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, pagans, or even Reform or Conservative Jews, there are other groups who seek out new converts from populations with no connection to Judaism. BeJewish.org, for example, is one such organization, and there are many others (if you want examples, let me know). These are, of course, by and large, right-wing fundamentalist groups connected largely to some sub-branch of Orthodox Judaism, so people raised in Reform or Conservative environments (or other more recent liberal groups) have little or no experience with this. Also, it is true that on the radical right there are several Jewish groups that advocate insular and isolationist communities, but these are actually a far smaller minority than the proselytizers.

As far as Buddhism goes, there are also numerous groups actively engaged in proselytism today (the Dalit movement, for example). In the west, most average Joes are familiar with Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama. Yes, it is true that the Dalai Lama discourages proselytism, but contrary to popular belief, he is head of only the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism (not all of Buddhism...), which is a subsect of Tibetan Buddhism, which is already a minority sect itself.

I don't know about Christianity, but I learn in a religious-Jewish high school (only because of the high level of education), and the teachers definitely do try to convert students to Judaism and to be honest, this freaks me out. Students may keep resisting, but is it legal for teachers to try to convert?

In a Jewish school? Yep. 100% legal in the US, at least. As a private school run by a religious institution, it can teach pretty much whatever it wants about religion. I know of 3 religious high schools that, when teaching the state required section on evolution, preface it with a segment on creationism from their particular religious slant. Every religiously associated private school I know also requires public prayer and their equivalent of scriptural study (a high school down the street from me requires 2 hours of Talmud study, in class, every day). This happens all of the time, and Christian schools do the same.

[Gleb]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

I will give you credit that they have had forced conversions but it's exactly part of their doctrine and of course Jews and Buddhists certainly don't try convert today. Jews are usually well known for keeping to themselves but a lot of religions have had their forced conversion days.

I don't know about Christianity, but I learn in a religious-Jewish high school (only because of the high level of education), and the teachers definitely do try to convert students to Judaism and to be honest, this freaks me out. Students may keep resisting, but is it legal for teachers to try to convert?

[Alienist]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Not true. While these religions don't focus on proselytism today, both Judaism and Buddhism were major proselytizing religions in antiquity (not sure about Taoism).

Israelite religion (though a precursor to actual "Judaism") sought converts and on several occasions during the Later Kingdom Period even forced conversion upon an entire population. Once Judaism truly began under the Hasmoneans, forced conversions were commonplace (with "Hellenizers" being forced to chose conversion to Hasmonean Judaism or death). Pharisees (an early sect of Judaism that evolved into modern Rabbinic Judaism) were hungry for converts, and proselytized in market places, forums, and even public toilets throughout the Roman Empire (there are numerous Roman records supporting this).

Buddhism has had its share of forced conversions as well, beginning with the early empire of Ashoka. After he realized that forced conversion wasn't really "Buddhist," he began sending missionaries all over the world, as far as even the Roman Republic. The Mongolian Khanate, after adopting Buddhism, began with forced conversion before moving into heavy missionary practice as well.

As far as other religions go: Hellenic religion under Alexander the Great and his successors (especially the Seleucids) was often forced upon their subjects, and heavily proselytized when not forced. Roman religion, under the Empire, was spread via imperial missionaries as well as often by the point of a sword. Shinto has forced conversion of small populations in the past as well as pushed missionary efforts, even into mainland China at one point. Even atheism and antitheism today are regularly proselytized via the internet as well as in person, though they generally don't view their efforts as proselytism (I've heard "educating" and "enlightening the ignorant masses" used).

So, yes, many religions the world over have had periods of proselytism, though your point about the lengths that Christianity and Islam go through is valid. I don't have a real answer as for why these two religions are so adamant about the entire world being just like them (except maybe "misery loves company"), but I think that with Christianity and Islam it's a combination of the relative "youth" of these faiths and their view of the earth as "God's Kingdom" that really push their conversion efforts to new extremes unlike the previous efforts of historical religions.

I will give you credit that they have had forced conversions but it's exactly part of their doctrine and of course Jews and Buddhists certainly don't try convert today. Jews are usually well known for keeping to themselves but a lot of religions have had their forced conversion days.

[Ventus]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Religions that convert others are the ones that teach that you must save other people who don't follow the same path in order to save them. The religions that have a punishment for not believing in that certain path.

While the others don't teach that you are punished if you simply don't believe in something certain.
That's my short and sweet opinion on this.

[Orecha]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Judaism was never into converting and neither was Buddhism or Taoism.

Not true. While these religions don't focus on proselytism today, both Judaism and Buddhism were major proselytizing religions in antiquity (not sure about Taoism).

Israelite religion (though a precursor to actual "Judaism") sought converts and on several occasions during the Later Kingdom Period even forced conversion upon an entire population. Once Judaism truly began under the Hasmoneans, forced conversions were commonplace (with "Hellenizers" being forced to chose conversion to Hasmonean Judaism or death). Pharisees (an early sect of Judaism that evolved into modern Rabbinic Judaism) were hungry for converts, and proselytized in market places, forums, and even public toilets throughout the Roman Empire (there are numerous Roman records supporting this).

Buddhism has had its share of forced conversions as well, beginning with the early empire of Ashoka. After he realized that forced conversion wasn't really "Buddhist," he began sending missionaries all over the world, as far as even the Roman Republic. The Mongolian Khanate, after adopting Buddhism, began with forced conversion before moving into heavy missionary practice as well.

As far as other religions go: Hellenic religion under Alexander the Great and his successors (especially the Seleucids) was often forced upon their subjects, and heavily proselytized when not forced. Roman religion, under the Empire, was spread via imperial missionaries as well as often by the point of a sword. Shinto has forced conversion of small populations in the past as well as pushed missionary efforts, even into mainland China at one point. Even atheism and antitheism today are regularly proselytized via the internet as well as in person, though they generally don't view their efforts as proselytism (I've heard "educating" and "enlightening the ignorant masses" used).

So, yes, many religions the world over have had periods of proselytism, though your point about the lengths that Christianity and Islam go through is valid. I don't have a real answer as for why these two religions are so adamant about the entire world being just like them (except maybe "misery loves company"), but I think that with Christianity and Islam it's a combination of the relative "youth" of these faiths and their view of the earth as "God's Kingdom" that really push their conversion efforts to new extremes unlike the previous efforts of historical religions.

[sirz345]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

In their religion they are taught you have to be this religion to get into heaven. Taoists, Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, etc. are taught more that you should be a good person than a practitioner of that religion, although they believe the message of their religion to be true you don't necessarily have to follow it to get into heaven.

[Briar]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Religion can be used in a political way. This is usually because of limited resources that are being fought over. If you want someone else to fight for you to get more resources, you often need to resort to religion to make people fight for you. The more people you have in your religion, the more fighters you have to throw at the enemy. The Middle East is a place where many worlds come together so there has always been wars that need to be fought over resources.

People will often say that religion is why most wars happen. Actually if these wars are broken down to their base reason we can see that they are animal like wars over what territory has the best resources. Just like wolves fight over the best hunting grounds, people fight over the best resources, we just hide it behind silly stories about gods and goddesses. How would you get someone to fly an airplane into a building to their death by saying something like "if we get control over all the oil we can make our leaders rich!" Nope, you claim god likes martyrs and faith brings the suicide fighters out of the wood work.

If our world changes we might see our religions changing to try to bring a group together to try to survive. I hope we never have to see this aspect of human behavior.

[wildcat]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

I tend to agree with some others, that the reason converting is most prominently seen in Christianity and Islam is that they view their religion as the one true religion, and the only way to reach the Divine. They believe that anyone that doesn't follow their religion is doomed to hell or not saved. So many believe it's their duty to convert as many people as possible. I don't know enough of the views of the Eastern religions in relation to how they view proselytizing, but from what I've read of their beliefs, it's much more fluid and doesn't "punish" people if they don't follow their religions. Do any Eastern religions send unbelievers to hell? There is no Taoist hell as far as I'm aware.

I can understand better why most pagans would not be the kind to try to convert people. Since most of us are neo-pagans, whether we are duotheists, hard or soft polytheists, panentheists, etc, we tend to believe that people reach the Divine on different paths, and don't necessarily believe that one path is inherently wrong than another. (At least, I haven't read or met any neo-pagans that exhibit that that type of thinking!). For me personally, I believe people have the gods revealed them to in different fashions, but one is not more "true" than another. Some might have had the Kemetic pantheon revealed to them, some have had the Hellenic pantheon revealed to them, but no one seems to exhibit the belief that one pantheon is right and one is wrong, but rather that people simply communicate with different gods, or different versions of the same kind of god (that's easy, when you're polytheist, imo). I am a naturalistic polythiest, that tends to believe that most gods are impersonal, so I don't follow a pantheon, but even then, I don't "disbelieve" in the pantheons, I believe all gods have the potential to be true gods.

When it comes to Abrahamic monotheists, I tend to have this suspicion that perhaps their god was originally from a pantheon from their region, that they ended up elevating over all the others. Perhaps some sort of jealous god, that they perceived that wanted his followers to refer to himself as the "one true god", since that reference seems to be used a lot by them. That's just a suspicion on my part though, definitely not an assertion. I guess I feel that way, because once someone told me that if I just try hard enough to open myself up to Jesus, that he would reveal himself to me. I responded back to him, that I had tried to open myself to Jesus/God, when I still believed that was the only religion available, and I ended up being approached by one of the pagan gods instead! He thought I was joking with him/making fun of him at first, since he didn't expect that response. And then he ended up saying to me that I must have been approached by a demonic spirit that was trying to lure me away from the "One True God". I just find that viewpoint to be so flawed, and really offensive to me. I really wanted to shoot back to him, that perhaps he's been led by a jealous god that tries to get his followers to ignore all the other "false" gods out there, but I refrained from doing so out of respect for his beliefs. But, ugh, that conversation got under my skin!

[Sonku]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

We are taking those two main religions at least they have a big number of followers, if you put it in a competitive way, they wrestle around for followers. If you find someone in another religions, you just know that that person is in it because of grand parents or parents and they don't really going into who is right and who is wrong.

[Bjorn]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

One thing I've never understood. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe that only a certain number of people can go to Heaven (It's 144,000 according to Wikkipedia), and these people must all be Jehovah's Witnesses. There must have been far more than that number of Jehovah's Witnesses alone. So WHY do they still keep trying to actively convert people to their particular branch of the Christian Faith? It's not good enough for you to even be Christian of another denomination apparently...

Kathleen Madigan touches on this very idea in her standup. She says something along the lines of "it's fine if you believe that but then would you go around trying to get more people to sign up? Not me, I'd be keeping that a very big secret!"

[Alienist]

Re: How come most religions don't try to convert?

Islam and Christianity share a common doctrinal point: both claim to be the only true religion. Regardless of actual populations, Christianity and Islam are outliers when you compare religions side-by-side on the basis of ideas. It is rare that a religion claims to be the only true path, and succeeds at surviving as long as they have. Most religions in the past, and most religions around the world, are ethnic religions; they are bound to the people and culture from which they spring. As such, they don't have any impetus to convert or proselytise. They're pluralistic, sometimes syncretic, and do not claim to represent the whole of universal truth.
When it comes to Neopagan religions, because they are revivals of the ethnic polytheism of antiquity, they often carry on that same mode of thought. Thus, they don't usually proselytise either.


Judaism was, and is, the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. It is framed as the covenant between those people and their god. In this, it has a lot more in common with ancient paganism than it does with Christianity.
You could say much the same about Daoism in relation to the Chinese.
As far as Buddhism goes, though, you're very wrong. Buddhism in Eastern Asia has been a proselytising religion. It proclaims itself to be the only true path to enlightenment.

Actually you're incorrect. Buddhism did spread, but they don't make it a practice like Christianity or Islam. Buddhists don't get closer to Nirvana by converting others and Christians and Muslims think they get bonus points for converting. They say that theirs is the only path worth following, but if that was the case why are there Buddhists that also follow Taoism and vice versa. In some cases is kind of opposite to Buddhism since Buddhism tends to think that this life is suffering while Taoism believes that this life is good and isn't focused on the afterlife