[dragonwriter]

> The problem is that the survivors of those schisms (Catholicism, Eastern orthodoxy, Russian orthodoxy, the Anglican church, Protestantism in its many flavours, Sunni Islam, Shiite Islam, etc, etc, etc) did not survive because of their logical or intellectual rigour, or because they were more consistent or coherent then the parent branch that they splintered off from. They survived because they won political, violent power struggles.

Actually, in many cases, they survived because neither side won the power struggle. E.g., Both sides of the Chalcedon(/Ephesus) schism, the East-West Schism, the Protestant/Catholic schism, the Old Catholic/Catholic schism , the Catholic/Anglican schism (even in England), the reverse schisms between the Uniate Churches and their previous Church of the East/Oriental Orthodox/Eastern Orthodox communities, etc. survive.

[vkou]

Yes, you are correct. 'Won' is a loaded term there - but my point was drawing a distinction between heresies that are still around, and ones that very convincingly lost the struggle for their survival.

From my understanding of European history, that didn't happen because their rhetoricians and intellectuals sat down to peacefully hash things out over tea and crumpets. They didn't survive because of the strength of their arguments - but because of the economics behind them, and because of the caprices of the particular personalities involved.

I'm willing to accept that in the past two centuries, these processes of religious selection have changed substantially [1] - but the fact that this entire argument is painted in the framework of major religions that were established long before the end of European religious wars leads me to believe that 'how religions splintered in 500 AD' is far more relevant for surveying the modern religious atlas than 'how religions splintered in 1900 AD.'

[1] As long as we close our eyes to that Sunni-Shiite thing that's still on-going, and is likely to keep going for the foreseeable future.