If Judaism is the oldest Abrahamic religion, why does it have so few followers compared to Christianity and Islam and why by such a large margin?
If Judaism is the oldest Abrahamic religion, why does it have so few followers compared to Christianity and Islam and why by such a large margin?
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Judaism tries to disincentive people to convert while Islam and Christianity both try/have tried very hard to convert people, often at the tip of the sword.
Is the disincentive effort a filter? To weed out those who are not fully committed?
Indeed.
That's rad.
Until you realise that they do the same shitty conversion tactics as Christians, just to those who are ethnically but not religiously Jewish.
I was considering it only from the... I suppose... Intellectual viewpoint perhaps?
Here are all the reasons you shouldn't want to join our club.
And also, from a very naïve viewpoint too. The subtleties of an ethnic religion are an entirely foreign idea to me.
Okay just to make something clear: While Muslim rule spread by force, getting told "comvert or die" was generally a very rare occurrence. Better living conditions for non-Muslims were a thing depending on the time and place, but even then the Islamization of the modern Muslim world outside Arabia was a very gradual process that took, for example, four hundred years in Egypt of one-sided cultural osmosis. Admittedly there was some foul play involved at some points, but almost nobody was converted at the tip of a sword.
Convert, pay up an extortionate tax and/or become a slave, or die, is forced conversion.
pay up an extortionate tax
Jizya is less than the Zakat, the equivalent tax for Muslims.