SecularFuture

Some theories suggest that Christianity started kind of how Scientology did, as a cult pushed by the influence of one man and his disciples. And by "one man" I mean Paul, not Jesus. Does anyone have any information, or know where I could find more information on the origins of these 3 religions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

WCH

Judaism is really fucking old. Hard to pin it down to a single creator, as it kept changing forms. Christianity... just read the NT, with the knowledge that the epistles of Paul predate most of the gospels by at least couple decades. If Paul didn't create Christianity, he definitely popularized it.

As for Islam, whoever it was that wrote the Koran, which I'll be generous enough to say was probably actually some dude named Mohammed. He wanted to unite Christians, Jews and various Arab sects under one religion of peace that everyone could agree was great... but he failed, miserably. Honestly tried, but people didn't take to his ideas as well as he hoped, so he fought them instead, and the rest is history.

Doug Shaver

That sounds like an instance of what Heinlein, through one of his characters, called the "Devil Theory of sociology": When any bad thing happens, it's always because one or more bad people made it happen.

As the last poster noted, nobody, but nobody, knows in any detail how Judaism got started. What we know in general, though, points to an evolution from earlier polytheistic religions including some kind of merger of at least two of them. Almost the only people who question that any more are biblical inerrantists.

The origins of Christianity are subject to more debate among modern thinkers. However, even allowing prominent roles for a historical Jesus of Nazareth or for Paul, or both, most scholars see a heavy infusion of earlier religions into the thinking of the first people we would recognize as Christians. It wasn't just about Paul or Jesus.

What little research I've done concerning Muhammed tells me that the origins of Islam are murkier than those of Christianity. I have no clear opinion on his historicity, but in any event I don't think he or a handful of people who knew him started any religion all by themselves.

SecularFuture

Thank you both very much for your replies.