My point of view is that there are specific reasons for each emergence of the three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Understanding the holy reasons is the key to devising a solution to contemporary issues, such as the War on Terror and the highly biased supremacy of the dollar as the key currency in the world economy.
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First of all, you have to understand why Japanese can fairly discuss this issue, while 99% of Japan's population has nothing to do with the three great religions; and Japan alone, based on its 2000-year national history, could cope with invasive power of the American/European Civilization, the central player of the modern history.
To understand the above assertion, you have to fairly understand Japan. You may regard Japan as a Britain in Asia. "Britain owes almost everything to the Roman/Greek Civilization; therefore Japan must owe almost everything to the Chinese Civilization," you may think, for example. But, there is a big difference. Japan is more unique against China than Britain is against the Roman Empire and the Greek Civilization.
English and Latin belong to one language group; however, Japanese and Chinese belong to different language groups. Troops of the Roman Empire once advanced into the Great Britain, then Celtic, up to the border to Scotland, but no Chinese troops have ever landed on the Japanese Islands. Romans built many cities in contemporary England and France or in regions of south of the Rhine river; but Chinese have never built any cities in the Japanese Islands.
From 2000 years ago to 1500 years ago, Japanese ancient chiefs tried to be acknowledged as a king by the Emperor of Chinese dynasties, though it was just a nominal title to show off to people in a chief's territory. Anyway, the war in 663 between Japan and China over a territory in the Korean Peninsula put an end to the rather equivocal relationship between the two countries.
(It is just like the establishment of Islam in the same era, putting an end to the rather equivocal relationship between Arabs and Israelites and Europeans; also in the same era the AngloSaxons invaded the Great Britain, separating themselves from other Germanic tribes still suffering from damage given by Roman troops centuries ago.)
Those Japanese chiefs had never sent their people as mercenary soldiers to China unlike chiefs in the north of the Alps did for the Roman Empire.
However, as with Britain who virtually imported culture form the Roman Empire and ancient Greece through their successors, Japan imported various cultural products from China.
More precisely, the ancient Chinese Civilization was relayed to, and preserved well in, Japan, while China undergoing various upheaval, including occupation by Mongols and Manchurians as well as the communist revolution, lost various ancient works and spirits as well as people who fled to Japan.
Actually, a lot of groups of refugees from war-torn China and Korea had fled to the Japanese Islands with culture and skills since the era when the Chinese First Emperor (BC259-BC210) occupied and unified the then whole mainland China for the first time through severe wars and battles and stern application of laws.
Even today, it is estimated, through gene analysis, that 30% or one third of the Japanese is of Chinese origin; also another 30% or one third is of Korean origin (immigration to Japan seems to have occurred over centuries dozens times, each in a reasonable size, around 2000 years ago to assimilate into indigenous Japanese). From a racial point of view, people unique to the Japanese Main Island, in more than a 10,000-year time span, account for only around 10% of the present population, who might have been moving around the Far East when ancestors of American indigenous people were moving to the new continent, America.
Japanese have loved literature, philosophies, and arts of ancient China as well as Chinese letters in addition to Buddhism introduced through China.
Though, all through its history, Japan imported valuable cultural works from each Chinese dynasty, it is the "eighth century" that the Japanese Imperial Court authorized a collection of original poems, called "Man-yo-shu," containing 4500 poems all expressed in Japanese language but written with Chinese characters whose sounds were applied to Japanese words.
(But, soon after the completion of Manyoshu, Japanese invented new letter systems as phonograms by adapting Chinese letters, which called "Kana.")
In other words, since the eighth century, Japan has developed its unique literature, which is one of big differences with the history of Anglo-Saxon culture in the Great Britain.
In addition, Japan had gold, silver, and other natural resources enough to buy and import various foreign products from China and Europe. Japan had mostly obtained those works and products through fair trade, not through invasion and wars, from the seventh century up to the 20th century.
But, when the Imperial Navy, with a fleet consisting of six aircraft carriers and other 14 world-class fighting ships as well as the then world-best zero fighter planes, attacked the US Navy in Pearl Harbor in 1941 (while the US Government, even knowing not performance of the zero fighter, was waiting for Japan's attacks on US bases in the Philippines), its history got into a fatal course and a strong grip of the God's hand, the result of which you can even see today in the EEE-Report.
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I am not so sure if you now consent to my conviction of significance of Japan's 2000 year history which has developed without arousing the world's interest, since it is situated at the End of the East from Jerusalem so far away (beyond the Arab land, Persia, India, and China).
If not, I hope you will change your view, someday, which you conceived and formed without systematically learning about Japan in an unbiased manner and with a right sense of purpose.
Now, I think I will be allowed by the God or Allah to discuss specific reasons for each emergence of the three great religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
(A certain US professor grouped the world into eight civilizations, one of which includes Japan and Japan alone. He is right in this regard, but we cannot expect him to advance his theory more profoundly, for even a professor in the Harvard University cannot comprehend Japanese culture and history, through adequate comparison with other Civilizations, as well as its significance to other Asians.
You had better listen to me, in this context, rather than learned men in the Harvard University or the Vatican who cannot become humble enough to gain a meaningful and valuable insight into Japan.
[In the worst case, they try hard to hinder other Asians in learning about and respecting Japan.]
Anyhow please do not misread my good wish to you, even at any unusual moment.)
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Wooden Pagoda Horyuji Temple built in 607, one of the oldest wooden buildings existing in the world:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dry%C5%AB-ji
Buddhism is one of the main spiritual bases of the Japanese people.
"A REMINDER OF WHAT I, THE LORD, HAVE DONE"