Wow, that's incredible. Even more interesting. Abraham only founded one religion, but from that religion came Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It's why the holy books of all three religions have many of the same people, including Mary, Joseph and Jesus.
All three religions view Abraham as their first prophet. Christianity developed from Judaism, and Islam developed from Judaism and Christianity. The three religions share many holy places.
Many of the same traditions are found in all three religions. Multiple wives, homosexuality being a grave sin, the woman being subservient to the man. Teaching Mystical Creation in place of Science.
It's actually secular laws that shape those religions in society. Some have more successful that others. Iran is currently in chaos because the people want religion out of government. That is the entire basis of the current revolution. The people of Iran want to be more like we are now. Isn't that amazing?
What is incredibly ironic is that many of those that support the Iranians throwing off the shackles of religion actually want to make the US more like Iran is now. Isn't that ironic? We want to put more religion into government and they want to remove it? It's incredible!
Careful how you throw that "We" around, rdean. There are many, many people on all "sides" of the political debate who don't want churches messing around with our government - or perhaps even more important, government messing around with our churches. Too many people forget the concept of separation is meant to protect the Church as much as the State, if not more so.