Both Christianity and Islam spread, to some extent, by fire and the sword while they were small. They renounced violence—more or less—when they became top dogs. It could be worth considering whether this is a useful pattern for small movements to follow.
Muhammad also didn’t threaten his first few followers with death. So the pattern could be a little more complex:
Start friendly, gather believers among nice people. You would lose all violent battles, which is why you don’t even try them, and instead rely on your image of a nice person attacked by assholes.
At some moment you are strong enough to try a violent coup. (If your estimate was wrong, bad luck, you become a very short lesson in history.) Invent a plausible story about why you have to kill the infidels for greater good. You can use the fact that your enemies are perceived as assholes and your friends as nice people, as a leverage. Go and kill, kill, kill!
At another moment you have to slow down because you are already too big. You have to focus on developing internal bureaucracy to prevent the whole system falling apart. Your original story of nice people “proactively defending” against the powerful assholes starts seeming less plausible. You have to focus on fighting internal competitors, which leaves less energy for fighting outside enemies. Also it becomes in your interest to preserve the status quo.
Christianity didn’t become the official religion of the Roman empire through a violent coup.
On the other hand once Christianity did become the official religions the barbarians came and destroyed the Roman empire. Somehow those Barbarians did take Christianity back home. That’s the dark ages.
They renounced violence—more or less—when they became top dogs.
No, they didn’t renounce violence, they just no longer needed to go to war against already conquered and captive populations. But violence was used to keep them on top, and stomp out the competition. That’s been on the decline in Western Christian countries for centuries, at least in terms of enforcing generally recognized Christianity.
Both Christianity and Islam spread, to some extent, by fire and the sword while they were small. They renounced violence—more or less—when they became top dogs. It could be worth considering whether this is a useful pattern for small movements to follow.
While Christianity was small it was mostly a minority religion. Do you really think it spread by the sword in 250 AD?
Muhammad also didn’t threaten his first few followers with death. So the pattern could be a little more complex:
Start friendly, gather believers among nice people. You would lose all violent battles, which is why you don’t even try them, and instead rely on your image of a nice person attacked by assholes.
At some moment you are strong enough to try a violent coup. (If your estimate was wrong, bad luck, you become a very short lesson in history.) Invent a plausible story about why you have to kill the infidels for greater good. You can use the fact that your enemies are perceived as assholes and your friends as nice people, as a leverage. Go and kill, kill, kill!
At another moment you have to slow down because you are already too big. You have to focus on developing internal bureaucracy to prevent the whole system falling apart. Your original story of nice people “proactively defending” against the powerful assholes starts seeming less plausible. You have to focus on fighting internal competitors, which leaves less energy for fighting outside enemies. Also it becomes in your interest to preserve the status quo.
Christianity didn’t become the official religion of the Roman empire through a violent coup.
On the other hand once Christianity did become the official religions the barbarians came and destroyed the Roman empire. Somehow those Barbarians did take Christianity back home. That’s the dark ages.
No, they didn’t renounce violence, they just no longer needed to go to war against already conquered and captive populations. But violence was used to keep them on top, and stomp out the competition. That’s been on the decline in Western Christian countries for centuries, at least in terms of enforcing generally recognized Christianity.