ABSTRACT
The religious patterns described in Chapter 3 raise interesting questions about how religions evolve, and what processes are important in distributing them through space and time. At different spatial scales it is possible to both describe and delimit a complex mosaic of religious variations. The global pattern begs fundamental questions about how and when Christianity became so widely dispersed, for example, and about why Hinduism has not been more widely embraced outside India. Maps of national patterns, in India, Britain and the United States, raise more questions than they answer-such as what role is played by immigrant groups in the dispersal of religions?, what factors allow some religions to survive in an area while other religions decline?, and how does religious mixing and enculturation in diverse societies change the original religions and sometimes give rise to new religious forms and expressions?
