Why are ancient religions gone?

and thats what I despise..........

 

It was simply the process of how the world works in its barest of forms. Strong majorities survive and the minorities eventually trail off into nothing, if not very little.

 

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And that more so happens due to the fact that some generations are dumber than others. With one dumb generation, an entire empire of righteousness could in fact collapse. This is true! ^__^

 

I don't think there's ever a "dumb" generation. There's only ignorance. Ignorance may be confused with stupidity, but there's an ocean's difference between them.
Changing of customs from one generation to the next can cause a downfall, but influences in other cultures in the sense of language, science, and religion are there. Take the Roman Empire for example. Even though it collapsed due to the sheer size of the empire and poor border defenses, Latin and Rome remains a HUGE influence on pretty much everyday life. Rome had spread Christianity under fear of death, and Latin is now the base of scientific words and started the six Romantic languages.
So I don't believe that the ancient things are really gone; more like they're hidden under modern cultures and customs.

 

Your opinion, seeing as your apparent faith is a source of bias. Most people however, would see such conquering as a sign of superiority, strength, and intelligence.

 

Fads end, people move on to the next "big thing" whether voluntarily or by force.

Thereby killing the old religion which at the time was considered the one and only truth.

Funny how fickle humanity is when it comes to religion.

 

this is very true. That would be the plus side of it....converting the victor to the defeated culture.

not neccesarily. I do think that the Romans were smart at all, the one who were smart were either evil, or if right killed by the evil ones. Persians were superior to someone like the Romans, and they lost due to one bad generation

 

The Roman Empire ended when the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths banded together and sacked the city of Rome. But much of Rome had already converted to Christianity by that point if I recall correctly. Since when Rome fell, began what is known in history as the Dark Ages, when humanity descended back into myth and supersition. When the devil and evil spirits ran rampant in Europe.

Though I am interested in what you mean by 'the evil ones'. If you mean the Gothic Tribes, then say so. And you have to remember that evil is a point of view. The Goths didn't see themselves as evil I'm sure and they only wished to reclaim their lands.

It's just a progression forward...or perhaps in this case a regression.

 

Right now my parents are saying old things die quickly if not done correctly these days. Example, in the isrealites time, they had to sacrafice a small lamb to their god everyday. Then they can't eat bread with yeast in it and then offer the young lambs blood to teh altar. They then carry the altar whenever they move to a different location. They would never work on Sundays, they wouldn't offer infected lambs, they wouldn't even sin. If there was a sinner with them, they are punished by sending them out of teh grounds, or they are stoned to death or they can't go home for 7 days. Those are lost because they are too strict these days.

 

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"no matter how far away the light is, its never gone really gone."
-Kinda of a quote from Kingdom Hearts eh?
Ancient religions never truly die, as long as one person believes in them.

 

i believe that the reason that ancient religions are gone, is because of war. War or conquests back in the olden days would pit different cultures against each other, usually with different religions, the 'winner' being given the right to choose how and of what faith the victimized civilization is to believe.

So I feel that this is why a number of religions have gone the wayside.

 

Well when you said that Destined, it reminded me of when Germans hated Jews and then WWII stopped all of that so I wonder if that even had to do with this anyways?

 

War is only one answer to the question. Sure Germans slaughtered millions of Jews but as said before, Christians have converted members of now extinct religions with force. Wich leads us to the war back again. Take the Inkas (or Maya, can't remember witch one is it) for example. The Spanish crusaders totally annihilated them. A whole religion in a ALMOST single blow. I know I'm making no sense but in conclusion I've come to this answer: The ancient religions most likely vanished, becouse of Christianity spreading so wide with basicly one kind of way. Convert or die. So either way, the religions falled.

 

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so, does that make Christianity evil?

 

No, it makes people who use Christianity as a means of justifying their acts of war evil. Just like a gun isn't evil. The person using it to shoot someone and hold up a store is using it for a bad act.

 

You were right. The Inca's. :P

It is not "Christianity" which is bad. It is the act of the people, using the sword to convert others by force for a means of private justice, which is bad. Christianity alone is not evil or bad in any form. It's the people, the human, portraying the religion by a certain action, that could therefore portray the religion as bad.

 

Let's not forget about disease, either. With the arrivals of the Spaniards in Central America also came the arrival of numerous diseases, most of them effective in killing of large numbers of people. So the Spaniards come with say, smallpox, and come in contact with the Incas. The Incas, who, up until this point, had never come in contact with this disease before, have absolutely no immunity to it.
So the disease spreads from person to person until most of the civilization is wiped out, and then when the conquistadors decide to eliminate the culture, the Incas had no chance, seeing as disease wiped out most of them. Again, the end of a civilization brings upon the end of a religion.

Same thing goes with several Native American tribes. White settlers come, bringing with them disease that the Native Americans had never come in contact with, and the process goes on. In fact, during the French-Indian War (during the time of the Seven Years' War), several French generals decided to make victory easier by giving blankets infected with smallpox to the neighboring Native American tribes.
Sure enough, most of them died and were then defeated by the French. Another culture goes out.

Another example is the Black Death epidemic during the Middle Ages. That wiped out a lot of people from ALL religions, though it was probably a majority of Christians, since around that time in Europe most of the population was Christian, thanks to the Roman expansion.
I've obviously been reading too much of The Demon in the Freezer. But still. It gets the point across. xD

 

The other thing about people coming to the Americas wasn't just disease...it was their mindsets. For example, religion justified stealing stored foods from the Native Americans. The settlers would -find- *cough* food stores the Native Americans had and thank God for them figuring they were blessings and stole them, which caused strife when the Native Americans grew angry. The Europeans truly came with the belief they had divine inspired rights to steal and take what they wanted from the lesser people they met. They also did warfare differently and fought with superior weapons. Native American cultures tended to be more 'spiritual' with how they warred and had their own rules.

You are right though that disease is a big factor since many Native Americans and also Africans fell to diseases that Europeans had grown more adjusted to. 80% or so of the Incan and Aztec populations may very well have fallen to disease brought by the settlers. The Spanish though were also very nasty with their tactics while looking for their gold. They weakened the Aztecs and Incas in quite a few ways through nasty warfare. Small Pox was perhaps the biggest infectious disease though at the time. There was also biological warfare through using blankets with Small Pox exposure and giving them to Native Americans in Pennsylvania area etc. Another reported possible biological incident may or may not have happened when Spanish and British soldiers possibly poisoned water wells of the Native Americans by livestock that were ill using them. Disease may have been the route that quite a few of the Native Americans, Caribs etc died. Some of it though was intentional though most probably was not. Slavery and such of Native Americans because the Spaniards did not believe they had 'souls' for some time, and putting people together in tight areas probably also could be a contributing factor of disease spread.

In South America and Mexico as well as some south western states also had poor food growth that if threatened by outsiders was tilted and broke up communities of Native Americans too. This had an impact as well but you are right. Disease coming along with the settlers was a major reason for decimation of their numbers.

An interesting thing to note, since you brought up the Black Plague, though is that the Black Plague may not have spread through Europe so badly had a city not been attacked by the Mongols who tossed their diseased mostly dead or dead people over the walls with catapults and infected the people there and some managed to escape taking the disease with them, and ferrying the rats along on their ship. How guilty people are of spreading diseases can be debated. We like to believe that the past soldiers were dumb and yet these things did go on with intent if people were that desperate to use them. Though many Christians were taken out in Europe, most of Europe at the time of the Black Plague were Christians and of course, the religion itself wasn't weakened in any way, even if there was a life expectancy for clergy men of 3 weeks when the disease was really running rampant.

 

I don't know if this had already been covered yet... but HINDUISM still exists... and that is the most ancient one of all... worshiping idols... filled with gods and goddesses...

not ALL ancient religions are gone. HINDUISM is still going on strong.

but the reason for their disappearance... like everyone else before me have said... it's due to the top two religions of the wrold. CHRISTIANITY and ISLAM

 

this is true ^__^

true, and Judaism claims they've been going on forever to, but the aren't at the top like you stated. Hinduism is awesmoe non the less^__^