Also because the region was conquered by Muslims so it did not last. It was the majority religion of the Asian parts of the Byzantine Empire.

North Africa played a very important part in the development of Christianity. Augustine, Tertullian, Jerome and Origen were North Africans. Monasticism evolved in Egypt.

No, it's because your education is western-centric and Islamic invasions took over the east. Eastern Christians have been subjected to genocide at the hands of Muslims for 1300 years.

Edit - really, someone is asking for a citation that the Islamic conquests happened? Next should ask for a citation that the sky is blue...

This is basic world history, like the discovery of the new world, Alexander the Great's conquests or the Roman empire...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests

And yes, it happened over 1300 years ago, the first decisive battle was the Battle of Yarmuk, year 636 CE.

the linked article describes military campaigns between state armies, not genocide

Armies famously never kill anyone right?

are you contending that every battle where someone is killed by an army counts as genocide?

This is such an incredibly ridiculous statement it's hard to believe it's in good faith.

No, the battle itself isn't genocide. But generally invading a country and defeating the defenders is a precursor to slaughtering civilians, aka. genocide.

In the case of the Middle East, they were Greek/Syriac/Coptic and Christian, then they were conquered, then they were Arab and Muslim. Demographic changes like that that accompany an invasion aren't exactly a coincidence.

If you read about Islamic conquests, you would see that in the vast overwhelming cases, no such events took place, if ever. Demographics changed because people entered Islam. Islam is against genocide.

Muslim colonization of India resulted in 80 million hindus being killed.

https://www.firstpost.com/opinion-news-expert-views-news-ana...

Because hindus are not of the people of the book (jews, christians and zoroastrians), they weren't offered the choice of becoming dhimmis (pay jizya, 2nd class status), but the choices were convert to islam or muslims would fight you.

This is not how it works, and that statistic is wrong. You cited an opinion piece, not a proper primary source.

Jizya does not mean second class status; and non-People of the Book are not forced to convert (neither are People of the Book).

Without lies, islam dies.

https://quran.com/9:29/tafsirs/en-tafisr-ibn-kathir

> Fight against those who believe not in Allah, nor in the Last Day, nor forbid that which has been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, and those who acknowledge not the religion of truth among the People of the Scripture, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.

> Paying Jizyah is a Sign of Kufr and Disgrace

> Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated.

You can't do religious flamewar like this on HN, regardless of which religion is being discussed. No more of this, please.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

So za3faran can just lie about islam and you punish me for correcting his lie?

You didn't correct anything. My email is in my profile if you wish to have a proper academic discussion with primary sources.

The qur'an verse and Ibn Kathir's tafsir are not enough for you?

Not at all. I'm asking you to refrain from religious flamewar (or any flamewar) on HN, and to stick to the rules when commenting.

If you expect moderators to adjudicate complex questions of religious scholarship, we can't: we're unqualified, and it's not our job. We prefer to stick to things that (a) are our job, which (b) we're qualified for. Those tasks are altogether more mundane, such as telling HN users they're not allowed to put down entire religions or each other.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How can “genocide” apply to a voluntary religious group? And even if it could, the linked wikipedia article doesn’t seem to support your claim, either. Do you have anything else we could review?

Genocide, as defined by the UN, includes religious groups.

https://www.un.org/en/genocide-prevention/definition

I didn’t know that, thank you! Now to find if the original claim holds up, and not just the semantics.

Citation needed. Since year 1300 or for 1300 years? The former is closer to the truth than the latter, AFAIK.

Neither are true.

Ok, so an edit to the parent post cites my comment as an incorrect citation needed as if it's incorrect.

Another statement also claims that genocide was performed because it also includes religious groups.

None of that is wrong.

What is wrong is claiming that they actually performed genocide. They overtook, yes. Did not perform genocide. Even the cited article says, that "christian communities were dissatisfied with the change". If there was genocide, who was left to be dissatisfied?

Not a lot different from what the Christians did to non believers in the West, really.

Or the soviets did to believers, for that matter

while tribal hunters simply killed for access to the best hunting grounds? Mongols killed why? IMO you can reconstruct this line of thought easily -- humans killed other humans brutally and without fail; some humans interpreted the world in divine terms and guarded fertility; Religion combines many strands with intention, while the killing for other reasons does not cease.

Don't forget the crusades.

The first crusade in 1096–1099 was to drive out the muslim colonizers from the holy land

> it's because your education is western-centric

Your education seems to be Facebook-centric.

Useless comment. At least say why you think I'm wrong or something. But no, you brought a Reddit comment to a debate.

You're all over this thread, I replied to you once substantively elsewhere and that was enough. But this comment of yours was especially ridiculous (to borrow your description of those who "debate" you) and I couldn't control myself, my apologies. I stand by my point though.

Way back when I heard someone state that the reason Christianity spread so wildly was because it was foundational to proselytize and convert non-Christians to the faith. That makes complete sense to me.

It's not like it was this passive meme that spread because people who encountered it loved it so much they wanted to join.

This is called being a “universalizing” religion.

The big three universalizing religions are Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism.

You can understand a lot of religious history as just those three religions expanding and displacing other belief systems.

Contrast with non-universalizing religions like Judaism, Hinduism, and Shinto.

Hinduism is hardly non-proselytising. After all there's not a lot of Buddhists left in India. The Brahmin caste pretty intentionally and comprehensively reacted to and pushed out Buddhist practices once they became threatened by them.

That is one important aspect, but there are several to my mind

- Life in the bronze age was very rough, and quality of life in cities was basically inhumane. Women were highly represented among earliest converts, as Christianity comparatively was rather progressive and demanded baseline respect for them. Also, pagan religions of the time, despite cultural significance, didn't promise much of a payoff for plebeians for all their toil. Conversion was easy after Paul pushed the case that they shouldn't have to convert to Judaism, with all that would entail.

- Especially in the early days, this was very much a pacifist religion, in addition to having an apocalyptic fixation. To Rome, "Render therefore unto Cesar the things which are Cesar's" is a handy sentiment for the populace to have. They fought and won several uprisings just from the Jews who wanted their independence (and expected their forthcoming Savior would literally help deliver this), and the vast empire was beginning it's slow decline. Killing Christians and making martyrs out of them didn't make much sense in the long-run.

- There is a magic sauce in universalizing, it extends the shared culture within territories and makes it easier to convince people to wage war for you. Prior, the motivators were mainly tribal/blood connections, and money.

The Jews for their part were content with what they had, Christianity didn't provide much value-added, especially for the "zealots" who were ready to die for freedom. The "Love-thy-neighbor" sentiment is sort of similar to parts of Leviticus, but the cranked up pacifism and relaxed outlook over some rules was a departure. I think the "afterlife" bit was a lot more persuasive for gentiles. Then of course the rituals and conception in the collective consciousness evolved over time, from influences like Augustine and others.

By the time there was a true Christendom, powers that be dropped the (absolute) significance of pacifism, as that was no longer as useful as it was.

The reason Christianity spread so wildly is that Emperor Constantine found it more politically useful for Christians to die in his military than the lions den, so he put the military might of the Roman empire behind it. If not for Rome and the imperial powers that followed, Christianity would probably have died out like all of the other weird Jewish apocalypse cults of the day. We might all rather be Mithrainists or something.

If you come from a American Christian background these are really worth exploring. Being ex-catholic/ex-Christian I found that they share enough to make them more accessible (I guess) than other religions, but also different in thought from what I grew up in, and those combined really help me expand on my personal thinking. I did a study group that a Greek orthodox priest put on for non-orthodox and it was awesome. Watching him shutdown old school American Christians and their focus on decoding a few sentences in English when he pointed out 'that's not even really what the words mean in the original text' and then getting mini-lessons on old languages and meanings I felt like I was back in school and completely changed a lot of my surface level understand of Christianity (asking my family religious questions the answer was don't questions/it's this because it's this).

From the comments here I think I'm going to look into the Indian off shoots. Up until now I've mainly explored through Egyptian, Syrian, and Greek/Russian orthodox friends. I wonder if there is an Indian style church established in the US that would have literature created to be accessible to an American church centric point of view? I've always envied the deep spirituality my Indian Christian/Muslim friends have had, I wonder if exploring the Indian church could help me with that. I did a couple year long study with a Pakistani Muslim friend but I didn't really connect with it, though his beautiful spirituality/groundedness/family beleifs have been a godsend as a life mentor.

For indian you can check the st thomas christians or syrian christians or malankara nasranis from state of kerala that trace their origin to st thomas visit in the 1st century and were under the church of east. They follow the syriac based liturgies. I mentioned to specifically check with these because other christians in india are all latin rite catholic or protestant, which all started with european arrivals and so most won't be much aware of the histories outside their group. And checking with any hindu or muslim from india won't do any good because first they are not even much aware of all these different denominations, and most outside kerala won't be aware of all these since this community is historically concentrated in that specific region of the country; now the second reason is the nation is now in hinduthva peak where there is a lot of conflict from majority hindus with muslims and christians and the ideology itself say muslims and christians are internal threats and they all just dismiss everything about christianity as fake and try to always associate christianity with euorpean colonisation and hence anti national cheaters.

Now the migrants of st thomas christians or syrian christians or malankara nasranis community from the state of kerala are present in western nations, including america and have churches there. Currently, the community is split into the following different denominations:

* Syro malabar catholic church - follows a modified east syriac litrugy * Malankara orthodox syrian/malankara jacobite syrian church - follows west syriac litrugy * Syro malankara catholic church - follows a slightly modified west syriac litrugy * Marthoma syrian church - follows a protestantified west syriac

You can check with these churches to know more.

Thank you!