thanks to clear this up Fobo, I can always trust to hear a good & strong answer from you. :)
: In older times in western Europe, the lands where these religions came from
: were considered eastern. That's why we still call them the "Middle
: East" today; the Near East was around Greece, the Middle East a bit
: further (Arabia, Persia, etc), and the Far East was China, Japan, etc.
: Today, Western generally means European including what was once the Near East
: (e.g. Greek mythology is Western mythology) and those cultures of European
: descent, e.g. the modern countries of the Americas and Australia; but not
: indigenous cultures of those areas). As to Christianity, Islam, and
: Judaism being "Western", I'd say that only Christianity is
: deserving of that label, having been picked up by the Romans and made the
: official religion of most of Europe for quite a while, where it developed
: many layers far removed from it's middle-eastern roots. Eastern Orthodox
: Christianity may escape that umbrella, but Catholicism (which is the
: Christianity of most of the Spanish- and Portuguese-Speaking world,
: including most of the Americas) and Protestantism (some variant of which
: is the predominant Christianity of most of the English-speaking world,
: including the U.S., Canada, and Australia) are definitely Western in their
: heritage, as are of course the Christian denominations of various European
: cultures. Thus I think it's safe to say that the biggest chunk of
: Christendom is "Western".
