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 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:


God is supposed to be a constant. Perfect and omnipotent. Thats what the Bible tells us.

God is constant, humanity is not.

And God is uninhibited by human limitations. Limitations that, mind you, God defined in the first place.

 Allod wrote:
Assigning this interpretation to other people, however, is entirely pointless.

Very well said. Textual literalism is the province of fundamentalist zealots, who can also be atheists.

 Fafnir wrote:
There's interpretation, and then there's genocide.

Actually, genocide is an interpretation (generally speaking, not just regarding the Bible) of facts rather than a fact.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
We're judging the God that they claim said all this was OK and that we should worship today.

No, you're judging the God that you read into the text. I wonder, do you guys seriously think that Passover is about the Jews celebrating genocide?

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

From our modern point of view, yes... it's abhorrent. However, back near the "beginning" of civilization, the best ways to ensure a conquered enemy stayed that way, was what we now call genocide. The Khans did it throughout Asia....

As a historian, when reading history, you REALLY need to turn off the morality part of your brain... I mean, by most modern "morals" polygamy is dead wrong, yet in the past, rulers/wealthy people had entire harems of women to keep them happy. What you're doing is quite literally forcing your own morals onto a situation, where you shouldn't be... Because often times, for those people, at the time of their actions, they were doing the right things, by their standards

.

Again thats not the point.

We're not talking about the values and morality of people thousands of years ago.

We're talking about the values and morality of the God who according to the Bible and religions that are still practiced today, supposedly commanded, permitted or personally committed these acts.

God is supposed to be a constant. Perfect and omnipotent. Thats what the Bible tells us.

Saying that "you shouldn't apply your morals to people who lived thousands of years ago" is ignoring what the Bible itself says about God. We're NOT applying modern morality to ancient people. We're applying modern morality to the actions of God who is supposedly still around, and who was around during Biblical times and did some very nasty stuff.

 d-usa wrote:
Well, killing firstborn sons is good for evolution I guess?

Nope, still not on topic...

So what? After 20 pages of discussion, how much more is there to be said thats On Topic?

If there is nothing on-topic to talk about then I guess you stop talking?

Or make a new thread (#376 I guess) of "God is a dick!"

The rule of "stay of topic" doesn't go away just because a topic is exhausted.

 Manchu wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
We're judging the God that they claim said all this was OK and that we should worship today.

No, you're judging the God that you read into the text.

No, I'm judging the God that the Bible explicitly describes and concluding that he is an evil God if the Bible is true. (which (a) I do not believe - if God(s) does exist I doubt he resembles the God of the Bible and (b) as an atheist I doubt the existence of God anyway).

What is the point of the Bible, if it is not accurate? I was raised and taught to believe that the Bible is the truth and Word of God. That the events described really did happen.

To pretend that the Bible is just allegory, that you can interpret from it whatever you want to is apologism, and reduces the book to the same level of fictional literature as the Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia.

I wonder, do you guys seriously think that Passover is about the Jews celebrating genocide?

No, its a celebration of their liberation from Egypt.

Try arguing against what we actually say, not what you imagine we think.

I'd just like to point out that god killing people isnt murder, as murder is the killing of one person by another. Plus the person doing the killing has to be real...

 d-usa wrote:

Or make a new thread (#376 I guess) of "God is a dick!"

I'd strongly suggest against that. I once got modded for pointing that out as the conclusion of another theodicy argument.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

No, I'm judging the God that the Bible as read literally and concluding that he is an evil God if my reading of he Bible is true.

Fixed that for you. You'd think people in this thread would just nod their heads with 'Biblical literalism is dumb' and actually agree on the issue, cause that's basically all that's happening here.

What is the point of the Bible, if it not accurate?

Which sections? The Bible contains history, law, philosophy, metaphysics, and imo a little black humor. Taking it literally basically devoids the text of all context which is presumably the point of understanding it.

To pretend that the Bible is just allegory

If you actually bothered to read you'd notice some of us don't claim it as allegory (not all of it anyway). Ignoring that most of Jewish history as described in the Bible is likely an exaggeration*, treating it as the literal word of God is literalism, which I thought people could agree doesn't work (unless you want to call God a dick apparently, in which case it works just fine). Treating it as a living document created by people offers a lot more information.

*if Israel was as great a Kingdom as the Bible describes there'd be more archeological evidence of it.

Try arguing against what we actually say, not what you imagine we think.

That's kind of ironic given the past few pages of this thread.

 LordofHats wrote:


Fixed that for you. You'd think people in this thread would just nod their heads with 'Biblical literalism is dumb' and actually agree on the issue, cause that's basically all that's happening here.

So tell me, how am I supposed to read it? Pretend that all the nasty, uncomfortable bits don't exist?

If you actually bothered to read you'd notice some of us don't claim it as allegory (not all of it anyway)

If the Bible is not literally true, yet it is not allegory for other events (natural disasters etc) then what the hell is it?

What you're doing is moving the goal posts, over and over again.

If the destruction of Soddom and Gomorrah was not the literal work of God, and it was not allegory for something else such as a natural disaster, then what was it?

If the earth was not literally flooded and destroyed, yet it was not allegory for something else then what was it?

Christians use these sorts of stories to preach about sin and the wrath of God, yet when challenged and asked why would a loving God kill so many people (including many innocents no doubt) , they retort "You're reading it wrong".

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

So tell me, how am I supposed to read it? Pretend that all the nasty, uncomfortable bits don't exist?

There's a post earlier in this thread that answers that question;

Try arguing against what we actually say, not what you imagine we think.

You're question has been answered several times in this thread but you prefer to happily ignore those posts apparently to continue ranting. It is what it is. A bunch of words written by people about themselves, their god, and their lives. There's allegory (Genesis), folklore (the Patriarchs), history (most of the content), law (most of Deuteronomy), and some poetry which probably sounded a lot better a 2500 years ago (Psalms).

You can rant about a reading of the text you dislike, which is fine when discussing people who actually read it that way, or you can adopt a different reading on the text that more suitably fits your outlook (or don't). But stop shoving words in people's mouths.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
the God that the Bible explicitly describes

You are well-answered on this point above. Re-read those posts or don't. I'm not going to repost the same stuff ad infinitum just so you can continue to ignore me "NO U"-style. Like LeVar Burton says, don't take my word for it. Go learn about textual criticism.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

I wonder, do you guys seriously think that Passover is about the Jews celebrating genocide?

No, its a celebration of their liberation from Egypt.

Try arguing against what we actually say, not what you imagine we think.

So is the story of the death of the first born about genocide or is it about liberation?

Why does the story have to be about one or the other. It being about liberation doesn't mean that genocide didn't happen in the course of it.

Well, I'd actually say the deaths of the first born sons is a mass killing, not a genocide. Part of genocide is targeting a group indiscriminately (killing everyone of a specific ethnic group), but that event was targeted at a specific kind of person within a ethnic group. I.E. I feel it's too targeted to be called genocide.

But yeah. I'm not sure why it couldn't be both at the same time. The story most certainly rose in the aftermath of the Babylonian Exile when the Jews were shifting hard away from Henotheism to monotheism. The story was likely a folk tale to reinforce the narrative of their special relationship to God, a process that took hold and became the dominate theological belief by the Hellenistic period (possibly in response to it too). If such an event happened in Egypt's history, Egypt would have recorded it, but didn't. Exactly what the narrative was attempting to convey is likely lost to us as a modern audience today. Even today Jews heavily define their identity with their religion. It may serve no purpose but to be a historical narrative of events coming from oral history.

 LordofHats wrote:
You're question has been answered several times in this thread but you prefer to happily ignore those posts apparently to continue ranting. It is what it is. A bunch of words written by people about themselves, their god, and their lives. There's allegory (Genesis), folklore (the Patriarchs), history (most of the content), law (most of Deuteronomy), and some poetry which probably sounded a lot better a 2500 years ago (Psalms).

So if it's all just a bunch of allegory and poetry meant for people 2500 years ago then why exactly should we believe that the bible is at all relevant today? Why shouldn't we treat it like all those other ancient myths and religious texts that we analyze as literature that tells us a lot about the people that wrote and believe in them, but don't believe in ourselves? Why should we dismiss all of the unpleasant stuff as "just a product of their culture" or "it's all symbolic" but then insist that Jesus actually existed and died for our sins, and god really exists?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LordofHats wrote:
Treating it as a living document created by people offers a lot more information.

Of course it does, and that's the obvious way to treat it. But when you treat the bible as just a work of literature it very thoroughly undermines any claim that Christianity is true.

treating it as the literal word of God is literalism, which I thought people could agree doesn't work (unless you want to call God a dick apparently, in which case it works just fine)

Literalism only "doesn't work" if you start from the premise that the bible must be true, and all you're allowed to do is figure out how to interpret it so that Christianity is justified. Literalism works just fine for any other purpose, it just comes to the inevitable conclusion that the bible is a bunch of ancient myths about a sadistic monster, and you shouldn't believe any of it.

 Manchu wrote:
No, "purpose" is a rational concept. I agree that we can choose irrationality, however.

And, like any book, the Bible has to be read (i.e., interpreted). It's not the Bible that makes God out to be a dick; rather it's the way you choose to read the Bible.

So you telepathically tell god you love him or you burn for all eternity in a place that he is totally cool with maintaining but is fine with the universe snuffing itself out.

Guess it sucks for the aliens that don't know about Christianity.

Not all powerful, evil, dick. You bet on the wrong horse. Cosmic turtle is where its at.

 Ravenous D wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
No, "purpose" is a rational concept. I agree that we can choose irrationality, however.

And, like any book, the Bible has to be read (i.e., interpreted). It's not the Bible that makes God out to be a dick; rather it's the way you choose to read the Bible.

So you telepathically tell god you love him or you burn for all eternity in a place that he is totally cool with maintaining but is fine with the universe snuffing itself out.

Guess it sucks for the aliens that don't know about Christianity.

Not all powerful, evil, dick. You bet on the wrong horse. Cosmic turtle is where its at.

Hell isn't about burning. It's about being removed from God's grace.

And how do you know the "aliens" haven't had their own prophets?

Or that they've managed to concisely disproved religion? Meh, I doubt that that'd stop people from still being religious in any case ("La, la, la, can't hear you big bi-tentacled creature").

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Or that they've managed to concisely disproved religion? Meh, I doubt that that'd stop people from still being religious in any case ("La, la, la, can't hear you big bi-tentacled creature").

While specific religious myths have been proved false, it's impossible (within our current understanding of the Universe) to disprove any specific deity entirely. That said, there's no reason to actually believe in any of them, since there's no actual evidence suggesting their existence either.

Ah, heh, I was pointing that such a species would have a far greater understanding of the matter, and be capable of putting the whole thing into purely scientific terms. But yes, as has been said elsewhere, its up to religions to provide evidence to prove their own validity, not ask for others to prove that they're false.

But of course such a species could then be disproved by the argument that they could be making it all up to exploit us, no matter how full proof their argument was ...probably. Which is the point that its up to an individual and a gradual change in society's standing on the matter to ever amount to the abandonment of faith systems.

The flipside however is that we discover a godlike being that's worshipped universally as the Creator. Then it'd be the case that perhaps agnostics would be sceptical, but then again I have no idea those that subscribe to the idea of a divine creator(s) would be too please with an alien being their supposed god either.

 Peregrine wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
You're question has been answered several times in this thread but you prefer to happily ignore those posts apparently to continue ranting. It is what it is. A bunch of words written by people about themselves, their god, and their lives. There's allegory (Genesis), folklore (the Patriarchs), history (most of the content), law (most of Deuteronomy), and some poetry which probably sounded a lot better a 2500 years ago (Psalms).

So if it's all just a bunch of allegory

Read the list again. Really, I list a bunch of things that aren't just allegory and poetry.

Why shouldn't we treat it like all those other ancient myths and religious texts that we analyze as literature that tells us a lot about the people that wrote and believe in them, but don't believe in ourselves?

Because unlike those other texts its still alive. It's a world view and context that can be reshaped to fit what people need. This is probably why the 'super religions*' have lasted so long compared to so many others. They're flexible.

Of course it does, and that's the obvious way to treat it. But when you treat the bible as just a work of literature it very thoroughly undermines any claim that Christianity is true.

Only if you subscribe to inerrancy, itself an idea that didn't even come up for Christians until science started showing that the Bible contained historical and scientific errors.

Literalism only "doesn't work" if you start from the premise that the bible must be true, and all you're allowed to do is figure out how to interpret it so that Christianity is justified. Literalism works just fine for any other purpose, it just comes to the inevitable conclusion that the bible is a bunch of ancient myths about a sadistic monster, and you shouldn't believe any of it.

That's just circular logic you're using to disavow any interpretation that isn't literalism. Nothing in the Bible's text demands it be taken literally/errant. That's just what Christians ended up doing after a few hundred years. Literalism doesn't work in the modern world and it only worked before because our understanding of the world was too limited and vague to go with anything else. Most modern Jews, much like their much older forefathers who wrote these texts so long ago, have a more utilitarian (the philosophy not the religion) outlook on their texts. The only reason Christians are large don't adopt it is tradition and modern culture conflict, not a Biblical rule or law that actually exists.

Even the definition of literalism changes. The Nazarines were probably way less literal than us because they were still working out what they believed and given how many of them went into gnosticism, they had some wild ideas. A Christian of the 13th century might be abhorred by the liberalism of many Christians today who we would consider quite conservative.



*Super religions defined as Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Taoism due to their scale of adherents, cultural influences, and longevity. Hinduism doesn't qualify due to limitations that utterly prevent it from spreading outside of Indian culture.

 LordofHats wrote:
Read the list again. Really, I list a bunch of things that aren't just allegory and poetry.

Yes, but nitpicking the fact that I didn't copy/paste every item from your list is missing the point. None of those things justify claims like "god exists, and Jesus was the son of god and died for our sins". A historical account of important events that people 2000+ years ago felt like documenting is very interesting if you're a historian, but it doesn't do anything to justify belief in Christianity. So you're left with two options:

1) Interpret the bible as a factual account of god's existence and actions, in which case you're dealing with a religion that worships a sadistic monster.

or

2) Interpret all those horrible things as allegory or whatever, in which case you've just undermined the entire justification for your religion. If god's mass slaughter is just an allegory then why don't you similarly dismiss the entire story about the life and sacrifice of Jesus as an interesting bit of poetry with no truth behind it?

Because unlike those other texts its still alive. It's a world view and context that can be reshaped to fit what people need. This is probably why the 'super religions*' have lasted so long compared to so many others. They're flexible.

Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Christianity isn't a dominant religion because of some magic "flexibility", it's a dominant religion because majority-Christian nations happened to be really good at conquering everyone else. The fact that the US has an overwhelming Christian majority has way more to do with the fact that Christian settles genocided the non-Christian majority that used to live here than anything to do with which religion was "better". It's all about guns, not bibles.

That's just circular logic you're using to disavow any interpretation that isn't literalism. Nothing in the Bible's text demands it be taken literally/errant. That's just what Christians ended up doing after a few hundred years. Literalism doesn't work in the modern world and it only worked before because our understanding of the world was too limited and vague to go with anything else. Most modern Jews, much like their much older forefathers who wrote these texts so long ago, have a more utilitarian (the philosophy not the religion) outlook on their texts. The only reason Christians are large don't adopt it is tradition and modern culture conflict, not a Biblical rule or law that actually exists.

Now you're just missing the point entirely. Obviously biblical literalism is false. It's a ridiculous belief that isn't supported at all by the evidence, and in fact directly contradicts the evidence over and over again. The question is what do you do now?

Your position is that the bible must be true and valuable, so you must reinterpret everything until you've found a way to make it true. The result is a convoluted mess of rationalizations where anything you don't like is desperately explained away, while anything that "proves" the things you want to believe in must be kept.

My position is that you don't need to do all of that. The bible's value as a factual answer to questions like "is there a god" is obviously nonexistent, so that's the end of it. Toss it on the same pile with all of the other books of literature and mythology that humanity has written. It's an important cultural artifact that gives tremendous insight into the people that wrote it and believed in it, but there's no reason to think that any of it* is true.

And the simple fact here is that your position is the unreasonable one. I look at the evidence and come to a conclusion, you start with a conclusion and then look for a way to make the evidence fit it. If you don't like the portrayal of god as a sadistic mass-murderer then stop believing in that god, don't look for ways to explain how it really wasn't that bad.

*At least the important supernatural claims about god and religion.

 Peregrine wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
Read the list again. Really, I list a bunch of things that aren't just allegory and poetry.

Yes, but nitpicking the fact that I didn't copy/paste every item from your list is missing the point. None of those things justify claims like "god exists, and Jesus was the son of god and died for our sins". A historical account of important events that people 2000+ years ago felt like documenting is very interesting if you're a historian, but it doesn't do anything to justify belief in Christianity. So you're left with two options:

1) Interpret the bible as a factual account of god's existence and actions, in which case you're dealing with a religion that worships a sadistic monster.

or

2) Interpret all those horrible things as allegory or whatever, in which case you've just undermined the entire justification for your religion. If god's mass slaughter is just an allegory then why don't you similarly dismiss the entire story about the life and sacrifice of Jesus as an interesting bit of poetry with no truth behind it?

Because unlike those other texts its still alive. It's a world view and context that can be reshaped to fit what people need. This is probably why the 'super religions*' have lasted so long compared to so many others. They're flexible.

Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Christianity isn't a dominant religion because of some magic "flexibility", it's a dominant religion because majority-Christian nations happened to be really good at conquering everyone else. The fact that the US has an overwhelming Christian majority has way more to do with the fact that Christian settles genocided the non-Christian majority that used to live here than anything to do with which religion was "better". It's all about guns, not bibles.

I disagree with your first two points....Well, namely that the God that the Christian and Jewish faiths are based on is a "sadistic monster"... The times in the Bible where we wiped whole groups of people, were most often as a punishment for their "sins"... which, judging by the fact our modern world hasn't been wiped clean yet, could say something about where we are just yet. OR, some of these stories are allegory, or were written from a point of view where the writers simply didn't understand WHY a people were wiped out, and thus wrote it as "God did it"... Perhaps some of these guys were killed by plagues, or natural disasters?





Strangely, I agree with the second part of your post. As a Historian, I've studied and read up on the overall development of what we now know as the Western World, or what was once called "Christendom". And the thing is, with very few exceptions, our European ancestors were EXTREMELY adept at warfare... From the R/D of weapons and armor, to tactics/strategy, to even the societal values, and individual expectations. Where Christianity does have flexibility that we don't really see in other religions, is in when/how we "update" beliefs... For instance, most of us no longer believe that it is right to own slaves. Heathens are no longer "subhuman" and deserve to be killed. People who dont convert aren't killed, etc.

 Peregrine wrote:

2) Interpret all those horrible things as allegory or whatever, in which case you've just undermined the entire justification for your religion. If god's mass slaughter is just an allegory then why don't you similarly dismiss the entire story about the life and sacrifice of Jesus as an interesting bit of poetry with no truth behind it?

Again, circular logic. No one called the mass slaughter's allegory. Much like any other Mesopotamian culture, the Jews went to war because their God told them to it's a religious justification for action that isn't a surprising find within the Bible. Especially account for the time when those sections were being added. 40 years in the desert, 40 years in Exile at Babylon? It's not hard to see the ancient Jews were struggling with recovering from the Babylonian conquest and like many cultures of their time resorted to one upsmanship of "my God's more powerful than yours."

Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Christianity isn't a dominant religion because of some magic "flexibility", it's a dominant religion because majority-Christian nations happened to be really good at conquering everyone else.

Then why isn't anyone really worshiping Zeus anymore? Or Re? Why did Zorastrianism, the first universal religion, fall behind ones that came later influenced by it? Why do religions like Judaism and Hinduism remain confined to specific ethnic groups/regions? If it were as simple as being a better butt kicker than everyone else, Islam would have stopped existing awhile ago cause after the Abasids stopped being good at anything Islam just kept getting conquered (Turks, Mongols, Europeans etc).

Your position is that the bible must be true and valuable, so you must reinterpret everything until you've found a way to make it true. The result is a convoluted mess of rationalizations where anything you don't like is desperately explained away, while anything that "proves" the things you want to believe in must be kept.

That's not my position (and how you got that it was is beyond me). The Bible was written by people. People are flawed. They'll use religion, culture, science, money, those seven deadly things, etc to do horrible things to other people. We've seen it in our own recorded history, should we be shocked the Bible's history contains more of the same? I don't subscribe to inerrancy, literalism, or the traditional views of divine insperation. If God wanted to plop his word down on us for all to behold, he'd probably have just done that (or rather the Bible would literally say it). Instead we have texts written by people about what they believed. We're free (somewhat anyway XD) to read those and decide what we want to agree with and what we don't want to agree with within the bounds of core tenants.

Really the only core tenants of Christianity are "There is a God who sent a man/god/zombie named Jesus Christ to save us from ourselves." We can go through the Bible and find all of its flaws, but so long as that Core tenant is intact the Religion will survive, and its premise is unfalsifiable.

My position is that you don't need to do all of that. The bible's value as a factual answer to questions like "is there a god" is obviously nonexistent, so that's the end of it.

Religion is not an answer to 'is there a God.' That's just display a gross misunderstanding of religion. Religion is a lot like science in what it tries to do. It tries to place a person into context with the world around them. Religion asks "Why are we here and where are we going." Christianity's answer to that question includes a God, but a diety is not integral to religion (hence Taosim/Buddhism).

And the simple fact here is that your position is the unreasonable one.

Uh, you spend half your tim in OT ranting about religion using circular logic. Pretty much this entire post you have here is nothing but circular logic. That's the definition of unreasonable

Religion is not evidenciary or quantitative. It's instinctual. You feel it, you don't prove it. Talking about religion in the context of evidence is ascientific and areligious. It just leaves you floating around in the sea looking like a douche.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

Sorry, but that's just nonsense. Christianity isn't a dominant religion because of some magic "flexibility", it's a dominant religion because majority-Christian nations happened to be really good at conquering everyone else.

Then why isn't anyone really worshiping Zeus anymore? Or Re? Why did Zorastrianism, the first universal religion, fall behind ones that came later influenced by it? Why do religions like Judaism and Hinduism remain confined to specific ethnic groups/regions? If it were as simple as being a better butt kicker than everyone else, Islam would have stopped existing awhile ago cause after the Abasids stopped being good at anything Islam just kept getting conquered (Turks, Mongols, Europeans etc).

I think religions are subject to evolutionary pressures. They have ways of propagating themselves (like preaching, or teaching your children your religion) and ways of protecting themselves (like promoting the idea that questioning religious beliefs or practice is unacceptable, or that blind faith - even and especially in the face of evidence to the contrary - is a moral virtue). Less well-adapted religions get overtaken by better-adapted ones. Conquering people is probably part of why these particular ones are so popular, but there were religions before them that they overtook, so I'd suggest they took over because they're better adapted for their particular evolutionary niche, inside our brains and our cultures.

 LordofHats wrote:


Then why isn't anyone really worshiping Zeus anymore? Or Re?

To these specific two, it's because the Greeks were conquered and assimilated by the Romans, and the Egyptians were conquered by Alexander, then the Greeks who came after him, then the Romans, then the Muslims. Their cultures were subdued and in large part replaced by those who ruled them.

Why did Zorastrianism, the first universal religion, fall behind ones that came later influenced by it?

Probably because Zoroastrians were persecuted by the Arabs (who were Muslim) when they conquered Persia.

If it were as simple as being a better butt kicker than everyone else, Islam would have stopped existing awhile ago cause after the Abasids stopped being good at anything Islam just kept getting conquered (Turks, Mongols, Europeans etc).

It's not as simple as that where Islam is concerned. The Turks were Muslim, the Mongols were completely unconcerned with religion, and the Europeans never even had control over the entirety of the Holy Land, let alone the entire Muslim world.

I didn't mention Judaism or Hinduism, because I didn't want to repeat one of my points. Basically, Christianity and Islam are widespread, not necessarily because Muslim or Christian nations conquer large numbers of people, but because they're very aggressive about spreading their influence. You won't find that among Jews and Hindus. They're the one true religion, as opposed to one religion among many.

Judaism and Hinduism have also been ingrained into the cultures of their respective people's for thousands of years. It's a cultural thing. Being a Jew means more than just worshiping the Hebrew god. Hinduism also isn't really a unified doctrine of beliefs either, so it's far more difficult to spread than Christianity, say, which has one book, one place of worship, one god, and one messianic figure, rather than thousands of all those things.

Their cultures were subdued and in large part replaced by those who ruled them.

Yeah but if it were that simple, everyone would be a Christian by now. The later half of Daniel is a mass reaction to the influence of Hellenist religion. If you look at history, religion spreads more rapidly in times of peace than it does in times of war. Buddhism, Christianity, and Taoism, all spread most rapidly before anyone started fighting wars over them. They exception is Islam which had a very unique historical position compared to the other three when it started.

Muslim or Christian nations conquer large numbers of people, but because they're very aggressive about spreading their influence.

Not just that but their influence is universal. When I say that I mean that the two aren't picky about adherent. Jesus died for everyone, not a specific group of people. Judaism is oriented around the idea of a special relationship with God and a specific group of people. Hinduism has historically been strictly tied to the caste system (and is one of the reasons why it still persists today contrary to official Indian policy). If you didn't have a cast you could participate in being Hindu, which confined it to places where the caste system existed. Hinduism and Judaism are culture religions. Jesus and Mohammed took the beliefs of the culture they came from and universalized them which made them applicable to a much larger mass of people.

EDIT: Another good example is the "Vodka Line." This is a line you can draw on the Eurasian continent (starting in Russia down to the Caucasus. and pretty much call everyone on the left Christian and everyone on the right Muslim. Obviously, this is because the people on the left tended to drink Vodka while the people on the right did not. There are other reasons obviously, but some historians of the Middle East and the late Abassid period have made it the butt end of jokes.