Requirement of belief Threats/Promises of the afterlife Conflicts with the other major Religions Belief that they are the only true Religion Just thought it would be interesting to start a list and see how long it gets, so feel free to add your own.
Some share Jesus, or the basic story of him. Jesus is more of a re-writing of even older religious myths. There were similar gods and powerful beings described thousands of years before Jesus, like a little-known god named Mithras, the Egyptian god Horus and others. The Christ story mimics these very closely, from a holy life, baptism, death and a three-day resurrection. Some of these old, original stories include additional details like a missing body in a tomb found by two women, or a person who baptizes the hero, and the baptizer is later beheaded. There's also Krishna which is the greek translation of Christos, which is also the greek translation of Christ... Even the "virgin birth" isn't original...... In fact, in the catacombs at Rome are pictures of the baby Horus being held by the virgin mother Isis - the original "Madonna and Child" - and the Vatican itself is built upon the papacy of Mithra, who shares many qualities with Jesus and who existed as a deity long before the Jesus character was formalized. The Christian hierarchy is nearly identical to the Mithraic version it replaced.
That is pretty interesting when you let yourself think about it. Especially when you're not so worried about going to hell.