Comment on Daily reminder that the good old days of the Empire weren't THAT good...
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 days ago
Fuck Rome. They spread the plague of christianity all over Europe and exterminated nearly all the European religions
Other way around. Christianity spread itself through Europe, and exterminated both Rome and Roman religion.
There’s a reason that the religious conflict with the invading Germanic tribes in the Late Empire was overwhelmingly not “Pagan vs. Christian”, but “Arian Christian vs. Nicene Christian”
So you’re saying that Christianity didnt have its big break when the empire interpreted the bible in 320CE?
I’m saying that Christianity at that point had already spread its tendrils as far south as Ethiopia, as far east as India, as far west as Scotland, and as far north as Germany. It was not the adoption of Nicene Christianity by Rome which decided the dominance of non-native religions in the region’s history; only the dominance of Nicene Christianity specifically in Christianity of the region.
Traditional European religions lacked the philosophical and cultural defenses necessary against the proselyting of Christianity, whose appeal, furthermore, intensified in times of worldly crisis. The Empire itself adopting Christianity sped up the process - and empowered Christians to act with impunity in the last ~150 years of the dying Empire’s life - but was not a fundamental turning point, especially as Christianity at that point had already established church structures which gave it the power of a state within a state.
If Christianity was so virulent, why didn’t Judaism do the same thing? Christianity is just a Jewish cult, after all. I blame Rome!
If Christianity was so virulent, why didn’t Judaism do the same thing?
Because Judaism actively discourages converts, even (or even especially) at that early point; while Christianity has proselytization as one of its highest and most important values.
Judaism’s conception of the afterlife is often unclear; Christianity always posited a very clear conception of heaven and eternal torture, with the latter reserved for everyone who did not accept Jesus Christ.
Judaism is an extremely chauvinist ethnoreligion which regards belonging to the ethnic group as necessary to (and often synonymous with) participation in the faith; Christianity is a theoretically culture-neutral faith which regards personal participation and association as the main signifier.
The core faith of Christianity is contained within a fairly small number of fairly simple holy texts written for the purpose of outreach which claim to be divinely inspired, while the core faith of both Temple and Rabbinical Judaism is predicated on an extensive corpus of legal and philosophical disputes which are not immediately intuitive to outsiders or newcomers.
Christianity always posited a very clear conception of heaven and eternal torture, with the latter reserved for everyone who did not accept Jesus Christ.
Nah. Jesus said the only path to eternal life is through Him. That implies that if you die a sinner, you go to Sheol and just burn up into nothing.
A lot of people think Christianity has eternal torture because the King James Bible translates the words Sheol and Hades both as Hell. But Jesus was saying two different words. Now, there are multiple different ways to interpret the word Hades, and My take is not a popular one. But since the Bible is polytheistic, I believe that when Jesus says Hades, he actually fucking means Hades. The Greek underworld, ruled over by the god of death. Which already had eternal torture for many thousands of years at that point.
I submit as further evidence the fable of Lazarus and the rich man. Jesus says the rich man died and went to Hades, and then asked the angel of the Lord if he could come to heaven instead. But the angel said “nah fam, can’t do it. It’s against the rules”. I think Yahweh couldn’t save the rich man after death, because he had passed into Hades’ realm.
Anyway, the point is Christianity didn’t invent the eternal torture thing, and actively rejected it in other places.
justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io 2 days ago
Don’t forget they wiped out the cultural heritage of the Gauls and Brits.
Wiped out most of the Gauls outright, really. Estimates of Caesar’s conquest was 1 in 4 Gauls dead, 1 in 3 enslaved.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 days ago
These the same Gauls whose culture and language remained vibrant and present in archeological finds until the arrival of the migrating Germanic tribes?
The same Brits whose culture, likewise, survives until the Anglo-Saxon migrations pushed them into enclaves in Wales and Cornwall?
No, accepting Caesar’s numbers ("Caesar considered that a million Gauls had been killed, and a million enslaved.") with modern estimates of the Gallic population (~6 million) results in 1/3 dead or enslaved. The issue is that mixing-and-matching numbers like that is highly questionable, even if you want to take Caesar’s conveniently round estimate as literal and accurate.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 2 days ago
ngl, guy who brags about killing a million people and enslaving another million sounds like a piece of shit. Even if he’s lying, he still wanted to be seen as a genocidal oppressor of holocaustic scale. Any society which would approve of such supposed actions is evil.
I stand with the barbarians.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 days ago
If saying “I won over a large number of enemies” is all that it takes to count as a piece of shit, I have really bad news about the Gauls for You.
That’s not even close to the message, especially considering the rest of the Commentarii.
… how do You think Gallic societies reacted to their leaders murdering and enslaving others?
Of course. What’s a little human sacrifice and executing the slowest member of each tribe for ‘disloyalty’ between friends?