- Posts: 192
- Joined: 11 May 2012
I don't know. I think it is too big a question. One problem is, India is so big and it was not one nation or people for most of its history.
There were a number of studies that showed a link between education and intelligence and atheism, e.g. High IQ turns academics into atheists and libraries written about India. Of course, India also has its atheistic and skeptical traditions. I guess if you combine a lack of education, a lack of human rights and feudalism, no books or TVs, lots of rules about sex ... the only thing left to express your hopes and desires is through "religion".
For whatever reason, unlike the dominant Middle Eastern abrahamic cults, like Christianity and Islam who preferred conversion by the sword, India develop the idea of religious pluralism ... acceptance of other beliefs rather than domination. But even that is too simple a view. Is "Hinduism" one religion or many.
And what of America and all the Christian and New Age cults there?