get wiped out over time. All of the major ones seem to have a blood soaked period in their history. All have also been used to justify terrible actions. Buddhism could be argued I guess - I am not so sure - there are several reports of aggressive actions towards Christian misionaries and you do have the human sacrifice to contend with. Definitely Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Shinto, and Hinduism have their blood soaked periods.
As far as your question I am not sure a modern world could have evolved from Buddhism as compared to Christianity. That is a major thought of western civilization for better or worse that an eastern mysticism (Christianity) was fused with an Aristotelian thought process leading to what we have now (leading ultimately to the Enlightenment). Buddhism would have never led to such a progression.
You could probably define a better moral code than the New Testament, but I think it was a pretty good start. I think it calls for a more active faith than Buddhism, but I admit I have not studied Buddhism. Buddhism proceeded Christ and it is also a remarkable faith.
Christianity was built upon the "blood" soaked period of the Old Testament, and it has been misused in so many ways. Enlightenment thought which included elements of Christianity is the basis of our democracy, and it was not perfect from the start and it is still struggling to be better.
Gandhi had it right when he said, “If Christians would really live according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian today.”
As far as achieving our global leadership, the fact that we have oceans separating us from major powers as a big consideration. We also had the opportunity to exploit a vast land just as modern tools were being developed. I think Enlightenment thought also had a major hand in it, but I am not going to say that it was God's divine will (too much blood was unjustly spilled to conclude that).
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