This is bull shit! What about before 3500BC? Christianity is nothing but the Egyptian religion resurrected...nothing about that in here. Nothing about Sumer or Akad or any of the religions practiced there. Let's go further back.

Interesting... no religious conflict since the founding of Israel, eh?

As a Flash programmer I say - Very cool Flash. Nicely done.

A couple of things I would change historically - Since there's really no proof that Judaism existed as a religion until about the 11th century (long after the biblical date for Abraham - who may not even have existed), I would adjust this.

Please take a look at the timeline on my website here: http://www.TalkingTimeline.com - and see what you think.

im looking forward to the next revision where "birth of dawkins" is added...

and what about the religions of america before the conquer???

Some of the most spectacular wars of religion have been between Protestants and Catholics, and the Catholics and Orthodox have had some pretty good dust-ups too. How about including that?

On the whole, though--nifty!

Actually, I'm pretty impressed by the flash aspect. The information on the other hand was fairly simple at best, but it does give a pretty decent indication of how each religion has spread. Not bad.

Josh Boldman
http://www.joshboldman.com

The flash aspect is great, good job!

But who knew there were so many religions. I mean wow I counted 5 religions...... that's like 4 more than my nutsoid christian neighbors (incorrectly) say this country was founded on.. It's nice to see something so broad and all encompassing. Who knew that religion started around 3000 B.C from a complete vacuum. I wonder what the Chinese, Greeks, and Egyptians, let alone the rest of the world not in the Middle east, were doing..... must have been atheists, too bad they abandoned the light.

Shouldn't this instead be a map of monotheism. that exists today..... minus quite a few currently practiced religions. I know I know you point out hinduism as polytheism. Ask a typical hindu and they will say their religion is monotheistic in the same way Christianity is...gotta love that trinity. Of course some philology scholars might make the same arguments about the Egyptian and Greek religions that apparently didn't exist.

It's great to make a map but in the future please qualify it or make it more accurate. Misinformation is worse than no information, and map of this quality might just get you a job with the Bush administration.

All that blue spreading all over? Filled with sword-point conversions of native religions. Also, assumes that religions can't coexist, for whatever reason. Utter bullshit, in other words.

The animation is nice, regardless.

If this animation was an exam of a first-year religious studies student, s/he would not passed. Both "time" and "space" are TOTALLY screwed up! Made in the U.S.A., I guess. Very little knowledge of the outside world and its history... Not that anybody cares.

Very primitive and provocative sketch.

As an geographer and cartographer - I feel obliged to make a few points on this....

- the flash-based map is (as many are) certainly innovative. There are now countless maps of this kind on the web, which is no longer such a new or innovative thing. - what is more relevant in this 'information-era' - is the 'information' portrayed on these types of maps and how they inform or mis-inform their readers. Mapping the geographical spread of 'religion' is probably one of the more contentious subjects for any geographer/cartographer.

- it is not that the map is right or wrong / accurate or inaccurate - rather, the information portrayed is contingent upon the geographic scale at which the theme is presented, the data source that is used, and the artistic license exercised by its author. In cartography - it is the process of 'generalization' that is often used to create an aesthetic quality that draws a readers eye to a pattern and therefore, an underlying message, ....and such messages can be both 'explicit' and 'implied'. Although the author has emphasized it is a 'brief' history of religion, - there remains a subtle danger in it falling into a fallacy of "over-generalization", and recursively feeding our minds with out-dated assumptions about the geographical spread of these particular religions.

- other comments (re: diaspora, and native traditions)....raises the question "What is 'Religion'? ....or the 'religion' as it is mapped here? Certainly, these are some of the major religions - but certainly not all of them. The solid colour tones covering various geographical territories gives the impression that they are geographically mutually exclusive and uniform where ever they spread. More correctly, these patterns are more the 'politically dominant religious states' that emanated from the middle and far eastern parts of the world as they spread globally (all of which had their own military force).

- if we use the concept of 'wisdom traditions' - which is more inclusive of native and other early spiritual traditions (e.g. celtic) - then this map is grossly inadequate and dangerously misleading in its message. Africa, and North and South America were teeming with a rich mosaic of native spiritual traditions - many of which - if portrayed geographically - overlapped and meshed in many forms.

(e.g. see Murdock's Map of ethnic groups in Africa: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~anthro/courses/306/real_afr.html)

- and its not only with the native spiritual traditions - but also these major religions themselves that need some further differentiation. ... as someone pointed out above - the map not only under-represents Judaism - but also Christianity in its early, middle-age and modern forms has always had multiple forms and geographical influences. For example, missing from the early Christian representation is its meshing with pegan traditions and others that were more closely related to various Judaic sects of the time (....of which early christianity was but one).

- in the far east, the boundaries between Hinduism and Buddhism - and the territories they cover - over shadow many sub-sects of these religions (is Buddhism a religion?) as well as many other traditions covering these territories over the same time periods (e.g. Chinese traditions, Confucianism, Sikh, etc...).

- in short, we must be careful here both as map authors and map readers in how we create and use these types of maps. It is unfortunate that the information/data source used in the Maps of War (religion) simply reinforces a western/amero-euro-centric portrayal of these religions and the geographical territories they occupy. This mistake was made by Huntington in his 'clash of civilizations' - (it's too bad Harvard/Yale scholars never learned to incorporate some basic principles of geography in their own research methodology - but then again, the shut down their geography department in the lat 40's!). Geographer's like Harm de Blij have been trying to correct these errors in public opinion and especially in public and foreign policy (e.g. portraying the human world as a 'mesh' of civilizations a.o.t. 'clashes' of civilization 'blocks')

- we sometimes say it like this: just because somebody says something or writes something, it doesn't mean its 'true'. Same with maps - just because they show something dazzling and pretty to look at - it doesn't mean they're 'true'....

- using integral lingo - I have to say this map attempts to cover great span, but lacks the necessary depth that is needed to adequately portray the subject of geography and religion. As far as these 'flash-based' map technologies go, they're way too novice in my opinion - platforms like Google Earth or NASA's World Wind are needed to portray the multi-scalar contextualization of these types of themes.....