Diffusion of Religion

1 Key excerpts on "Diffusion of Religion"

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  eBook - ePub

  Sacred Worlds

  An Introduction to Geography and Religion

  • Chris Park(Author)
  • 2002(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Religions of the World edited by al-Faruqi and Sopher (1974).

  Even a simple summary of the distribution of major religions towards the close of the twentieth century indicates that many of them have spread considerably beyond their country of origin (Table 4.1 ). Thus, for example, Christianity has spread from an initial source area within present-day Israel to span the globe. Hinduism, in contrast, remains largely confined to its country of origin (India). Given the enormous impact of religion on many dimensions of human geography (see Chapter 1 , pp. ), the question of how and why religions spread at different speeds and in different ways is surely of more than marginal interest to geographers.

  Table 4.1 The spread of major religions around the world

  Origins

  One particularly striking aspect of the geography of religions is that all of the main world religions originated within a relatively small area in what is today south-western and southern Asia. The fact that they originated there at different times only serves to heighten the curious coalescence of religious birthplaces. Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century attempts to explain such puzzling geographical phenomena relied heavily on environmental determinism.

  Environmental determinism

  Environmental determinism is founded on the assumption that human activities are controlled or determined by the environment. The adoption of such a perspective in explaining the origin of the major world religions is not new. As far back as 1795, according to Buttner (1980:93), the German geographer Kasche pointed to the influence of climate on religion. Kasche (1795:35) wrote that ‘a raw or mild climate often has an influence which is often ignored but which is none the less remarkable. The gentle climes of Italy bring forth none of the phantoms, ghosts and apparitions that frighten the superstitious inhabitants of the colder North.’

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