As an affictionated for History, have been reading hundreds of book since early stage. It always called my attention the history of religions and their impact on mankind. Coming from a traditional Roman Catholic family was naturally driven to the church...
Once I brought my mom to Thailand, a traditional Buddhist country. She was shocked to what she saw as "a country without God" cause she hadn't seen a single Church around. She was terrified...
Actually I did it on purpose cause I wanted to show her there is something else out there. After a week travelling around Thailand seeing all its rich culture, fascinating people, food and the millions of temples around I asked my mom:
"What would be your religion if you were born in Thailand? You have seen their deep respect and devotion to Buddhism, you also saw they are simple and normal human beings, just like us..."
I got no answer... but I'm sure she gave a lot of though to it!
It is easy to understand that Culture and Geography play a key role on people's Religion choice but what would it be if it had happened differently?
Take Thailand as an example. Few know, but It could have became a Roman Catholic country.
The Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Thailand in 1518 and they were allowed to open a Christian mission. In fact the Thai king gave a large donation to build the first Christian (Roman Catholic) church in the country. English traders who arrived in 1612 were agents for the East India Company and were more interested in building a factory than a church. Under King Narai, who was interested in the West, European missionaries and adventurers exerted considerable influence at court. However, when King Narai died in 1688, members of the government, fearing the missionaries proselytizing efforts, killed or expelled all Westerners from Thailand. It remained a closed country to the Europeans for the next 100 years.
The History repeated itself over the centuries with comings and backs of Christians trying to bring Thailand to another path, but they failed.... and I pray to God on that. Thailand is a fantastic country, Buddhism is deeply inside of its soul and anything different would make it lose its magic.
Can you imagine what it would be to the western civilization if the Roman Empire hadn't adopted Christianity? For the good or the worse thank Emperor Constantine on that. Couple of centuries late Islam rose and started to spread into the Middle East, Africa and Asia... Just imagine the 200 millions of Brazilians (biggest Catholic country in the world) turning its head to Mecca 5 times a day to pray to Allah.
China has started overseas navigation at least 100 years before the Europeans. There are indications that Chinese Admiral Zheng He has reached as far as America... Well, China navigations broken the Economy of the state and made China close itself and stop the adventure, but just imagine if they continued and had settled down in America. USA would be now driven by Confucius principles?
Anyway am always curious and imaginative in terms of History...
Wherever location you are or beliefs you have just imagine what it would be if History had been different!
