- Posts: 192
- Joined: 11 May 2012
It is not exactly a "spot", it is an area 3,000 miles by, may be 1,000 miles depending on what you want to include ... and I say Christianity really spread from Rome (Roman Catholicism) and Greece (Orthodox Church) in Europe.
For much of its history it was not connected the one we see it now (they had no maps). It was separated by impassible forests, deserts, mountain ranges and so so. Therefore, I think you have a false image in your mind if you see it as a "spot" and are looking for some magical cause. If you take "India" as a concept, it was not a definable "one", it was many conflicting nations.
If we accept the theory of evolution, humanity spread out of East Africa and so arrived in the Middle East first. It took a long time and many environmental factors for it to reach elsewhere, e.g, the Americas because we had to walk there and even longer to sail across the great oceans. Ditto, we had to wait until the Ice Age thawed out in order to settle the north of Europe.
It happened there because it had a good climate. Not too hot, not too cold, plenty of rain.
I guess a large part of reason is tied to history of arable agriculture and its effect on the civilization of humanity. It is said to have started in the "Fertile Crescent" of the Tigres and Euphrates, and the geographical coincidence of being at the end of what became called the Silk Route, a trade route from China and the East to the Mediterranean and Europe. In short, the area is at the center of a busy crossroads which was good for business.
Another big part in the race to civilization and power is the availability of metals (good for farming and killing your opponents) and the Middle East and India were "fortunate" in that elements (as was England later in history).
As we know, those "holy" people spent a lot of time slaughtering their family and rivals, murdering and raping ... including the likes of Ashok, and his armies, who used Buddhism as a political tool to unite most of India. They needed metals to do so.
On one hand, tribal spiritualism or animism as a religion or religions are universal. They arise wherever humanity exists. On the other, I am not sure that Europe or the USA is any less in the number of cults they has produced.
Personally, I'd go as far as to say, that happy and content human beings living in rich natural environments don't bother establishing religion and killing each other off in great numbers ... the two going hand in hand. They just live in happily and sustainably and are grateful for the natural world around them. That is the alternative, from the pigmy tribes of Africa to the aboriginal tribes of Australia, or the plains people of North America.
I'd would say it is only greedy, hateful, aggressive who need to invent fearful invisible gods in their own image and develop organization religions in order to build empires and control and tax their subjects. The BKs have just chosen a subtle way of doing so.
Before they came, the rest of us were just happy and gave thanks to the sun and the moon, motherhood and nature.
Rather than look to geography, a better question might be, "where did the restlessness, discontent and aggression in their genes come from?", e.g. the so called Aryans from the north invading Dravidian India.
Why weren't they happy in their own homes and why did they have to colonise other people's in order to build their empires?
Do you have a point you wish to make?
Your question suggests to me that you have a hunger to study history of humanity. There are plenty of books to read on the subject. I think you will find the answer is mostly politics, religion is a tool of control.