Abrahamic religions spread because Christianity and Islam developed beliefs that the whole world should follow them. The Jewish people never developed that belief, so there are very few Jews in the world.

The number of proselytizing religions is small. The reason there are many people who follow them is the result of the way people spread those religions: trade, missions, and conquest.

Hinduism is rooted in a diversity of ways to live, rather than the "straight and narrow".

@AlanTennant gem of an insight right there

We have a pagan society in Cambridge UK.

A wikipedia search and a websearch for "writing direction theory" doesn't bring up anything relevant in top results. Care to explain?

@JussiVilleHeiskanen This is my own personal theory, so it will take a while to explain. It will sound ridiculous when you first hear of it, but it has to be mostly true. It is implicit in this chart noone understood:

https://manifold.markets/EnopoletusHarding/do-you-understand-this-chart

Basically, if your posture is of the kind in which the Chinese writing direction/Chinese characters are most intuitive ("White" in the chart), you will get certain kinds of religious experiences.

You can ask further questions.

@EnopoletusHarding Theory? Which academic discipline are you in?

@GazDownright None; I had to learn this myself.

@EnopoletusHarding there's a lot - and I have to stress this - a lot left to learn

I think the premise for your India comparison is erroneous, Harding.

The countries are many where monotheistic religions have become the majority, but animistic/polytheistic/magical beliefs remain a part of the religio-cultural fabric.

Simplified answer regarding proselytizing: Not that many religions proselytize like Christianity and Islam. For example, Juadism and Hinduism does not.

All the proselytizing religions were reforming religions in their inception. No original religion is such.

Buddhism is pagan by usual definitions, but also "pagan" is a pretty euro- & christian-centric word. It kinda doesn't apply. India has absorbed a lot of religions, but it's got so much plurality that each corner was affected differently. Hinduism + Islam gave them Sikhism, which ended up fighting against the encroachment of both its forbearers. Buddhism came out of Hinduism (edit: or perhaps better said: in reaction to Hinduism). Christianity is prevalent in some areas.

Relations with Pakistan meant Islam was pretty "othered", and I'd bet the effects of British rule (+ maybe the Himalayas) did a lot to give protective intertia against secularist Communism when it arose in China.

Every religion is proselytizing in some way, and just about every major religion has historically been willing to do it with conflict. Most just can't hold a candle to the raw persistent violence the Abrahamics have exerted on others, which is probably a function of technology, population density (and the disease production that comes out of it), and explicit beliefs about "one true way". Some Abrahamic religions and sects are fairly "live and let live" but most of their seminal texts often include passages about spreading the message and the big ones have historically derived a lot of state-like power from doing so.

IIRC India's pluralities have so much more insulation from these effects because of how fractured they have been historically: massive populations, myriad different languages, difficult terrain, and so on.

@Stralor fact check: it's most just Christianity and Islam proselytizing in a major way

@GazDownright No, there are many many more religions than the Abrahamics and Indics. Christianity and Islam are outsized in how they handle it, both in modern day and historically, but it's really only their scale and how much the habits have carried into the modern world that's unique. Among the Indics, Buddhism was famously militant, and Hinduism did a lot of conversion! Going back, ancient civilizations often were built on state religions, which de facto enforces assimilation during times of expansion. Sure, pre-Christian Rome was highly diverse religiously, but that fact being notable shows how much they were the exception to the rule, AND even then they weren't shy of oppressing other religions when they felt it necessary.

@Stralor proselytizing in a major way, which for example is different to forced conversion

@GazDownright Now I will concede that I'm painting in broad strokes. Among modern religions, Judaism doesn't actively proselytize, nor does Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, or Shintoism. That's not to say there aren't larger structural forces that grew their belief bases and caused conversions, which is really what we're talking about.

@GazDownright The issue with the term "proselytize" is it comes out of Abrahamic tradition (originally meant converting to Judaism, non-forcibly). Same issue with "pagan." Using these terms is pretty inadequate for measuring a society built on a different foundation, which is why I'm coming back to systemic cause and effect like militancy and state power.

Are you asking for ways to operationalize the question in form of a market?

@JussiVilleHeiskanen Didn't think of that, but that's a good question. What is your suggestion?