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ouinon
chemical reaction
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 Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 8:08 am Post subject: *Why Did the Christian Myth Have Such an Impact?* |
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Why did the new christian myth have such an impact?
The Roman Empire declared it the official religion of the empire in 360 AD, ( although Constantine had converted to it already in 321 AD ). Why did they? What was it about the christian myth which made it so compelling that the largest empire of the epoch, outside Asia, chose it as their official religion after centuries of polytheistic practices?
Christianity was the first religion to combine polytheism with monotheism. What was it about this blending which was so revolutionary?
Jewish monotheism had remained isolated from all other religions until then, unaffected by Egyptian and Roman attempts to treat their god as just another one in a huge number of gods.
What Christianity did was completely new; it put a polytheistic archetype, that of the king who is sacrificed and reborn, ( and which was present in almost all of the Greek, Indian, and neighbouring area's polytheistic mythologies ), into a monotheistic context/framework.
The new mythology did not try to pretend that the Jewish god was just one of many, instead it introduced a whole new dimension into the monotheistic myth, one between humans and ( their one ) god, habited by one at least of the archetypes of the Gnostic Mysteries. And so added a dimension to people's experience of life and the universe.
I think that the christian myth may have had the impact that it did because it almost literally expanded human consciousness, ( "expanded" the universe, in a way ). It triggered new mental attitudes to existence, ( not just moral and/or political, but a new consciousness of the scale and depth of things, a new awareness of layers of things in relationship to each other ), which led to modern science.
I am interested in what others think was the reason for its huge impact. Meme-hybrid vigour? 
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Synth
Deinonychus
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 9:08 am Post subject: |
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I skimmed through the last parts of what you said lightly, and from that I'll tell you modern science had nothing to do with christianity, especially back then. As I mentioned before in the religion bashing thread, we are hundreds and hundreds of years behind BECAUSE of the christians, back then it was considered "blasphemy". Why is it so popular now you ask? It would have died in the early years when it was supposed to, if the crusades didn't happen. If you didn't believe, then you were physically tortured until you "did", or you were just murdered in some barbaric way. From that point on, parents taught it to their children to keep its plague from dying. It was programed into their small brains in its growing stages, in a time in their life before they can think for themselves. It's absolutely horrible that this continues to this day... So horrible.
Keep in mind that it started as a cult made up of a bunch of outcasts and a whore, it's HISTORY, nothing can change that. They were a rebellious group in the Roman Empire that stirred up a whole load of problems, the head freak got what he deserved if you ask me. |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Synth wrote: | | Modern science had nothing to do with christianity, especially back then. As I mentioned before in the religion bashing thread, we are hundreds and hundreds of years behind BECAUSE of the christians, back then it was considered "blasphemy". |
Hundreds and hundreds of years behind whom?
Modern science arose exclusively in Christian countries because the Church encouraged scholarly activity, financed it, valued it, disseminated it, and despite attempts to censor ideas and discoveries which flew in the face of what it believed to be the truth, was a major factor in the emergence of scientific experiment, notably alchemy, which led to modern chemistry, aswell as basic physics. The Church wanted to understand the universe. Countries under Islamic rule had a period of flourishing scientific and philosophical activity in the mid-middle ages, but this died a death as its censorship grew worse.
The Church was in favour of the kind of logical step by step reasoning which led to early scientific breakthrough and development. When it tried to stifle thought it more often than not acted as a spur to people thinking harder, more rigorously, in an attempt to prove their theories.
| Quote: | | Why is it so popular now, you ask? |
Actually no  ; I asked "why did the new christian myth have such an impact?"; in other words, what was so compelling about it that in the first 250 years, ( without any state support of any kind), it grew massively in strength and popularity, and that the Roman Empire chose it in 360 AD as the official religion?
| Quote: | | It would have died in the early years when it was supposed to, if the crusades hadn't happened. |
It didn't die in the early years ( 70 - 360 AD) despite having no official status, no state organisation supporting it, certainly no armed forces imposing it on people. Why didn't it die, like all the other new religions constantly popping up all over the classical/mediterranean world at that time?
What was it about the christian myth which had such an effect? 
| Quote: | | If you didn't believe, then you were physically tortured until you "did", or you were just murdered in some barbaric way. |
The Crusades happened between the 10th and 12th centuries, ( by which time Christianity was a state affair), and were motivated more by territorial avidity than religious intolerance or ideology. I know that early ( from 360 AD onwards) roman ( catholic) empire-building crushed, demolished, extinguished all traces that they found of the old pagan religions, with as you say, much violence, torture and destruction of ancient sites. But this was after Christianity had already had its major effect on the romans.
What interests me is why it had such an effect on the biggest empire of the time in that part of the world.
| Quote: | | It started as a cult made up of a bunch of outcasts and a whore, it's HISTORY. |
It's a myth; the Gospels are a parable teaching a new spiritual "truth"/concept. The only people of the epoch who believed, or pretended to believe, that it was history were those who did not believe , or did not want to believe, in the importance of this new myth; the Jewish leaders and many romans. They deliberately chose to treat the Gospels as if they were history because then they could do what you just did, and for example describe the character/archetype Jesus as "the illegitimate son of an unmarried woman". And similar slurs in an attempt to ridiculise/banalise the myth, make it a matter of mere history.
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Delirium
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:13 pm Post subject: |
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Welp, if you evangelize a lot and kill/harass anybody that stands in your way, you can have a huge impact on the world.
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ouinon
chemical reaction
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Delirium wrote: | | If you evangelize a lot, and kill/harass anybody that stands in your way, you can have a huge impact on the world. |
I don't think the early christians ( pre-Roman Catholic empire) killed or harassed people. They probably did a fair amount of evangelism, but so did many other religions.
But why did so many evangelise about it, and why was their evangelical activity so successful, compared to all the other religions around at the time?
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Synth
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:24 pm Post subject: |
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| What I meant was that we are supposed to be hundreds of years ahead of what we know today because of them. I don't know where you are getting your information but from what I have learned they have always been against science of any kind, (as god was the answer to everything, saying it was something else was blasphemy). It still happens today, why do you think so many people whine about evolution being taught in schools instead of creation? Like I said before, I chose not to read your first post fully so our time-lines got mixed up a bit. Your information seems a little faulty, but you even said it yourself, the crusades didn't happen until christianity became more popular. From what I remember, the Empire was experiencing a lot of problems, which caused spiritual confusion. |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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| Synth wrote: | | The Empire was experiencing a lot of problems, which caused spiritual confusion. |
Possible. That might have been why the Roman Empire made Christianity the official religion, as a huge band-aid, but why had Christianity achieved such prominence that they thought it would act as an effective unifier?
People, the common people, were always "experiencing a lot of problems", I think. What was it about Christianity which would have led to such vast numbers converting to it?
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Khan_Sama
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:40 pm Post subject: |
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ouinon, what you're saying has happened with every other religion except Judaism and Islam. Many point out that Islam is a syncretic religion of Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, and Arab Paganism. However, Islamic view is that every other religion was revealed by prophets such as Muhammed (S), Jesus (AHS), etc, were initially Islam. However, as a compromise later on, what they revealed was combined with existing religions as a compromise, for many reasons, such as to put an end to civil riots.
I have read many books on Zoroastrianism, it's the first religion which I've taken an extensive study on. Basically, it's a combination of monotheism and polytheism, just as Christianity and Hinduism are. Zoroastrianism has the same concepts as Islam, however, it has many factors similar to Hinduism, such as fire veneration, Ahuras (Asuras in Hinduism), Daevas (deva), etc.
Hinduism, like Christianity, is a monotheistic faith, or soft-polytheism as it's better to describe it as. In Hinduism, they believe in one deity - Brahman. They believe that Bhagvans (superhuman men/women who are incarnations of God) are the ones to pray to, as only holy men (sadhus) are the only ones who can communicate with God directly (Catholics believe that only the Pope may communicate with God directly). Similar to how Christians pray towards a cross, or an idol of Virgin Mary ("veneration" as it's considered in the Catholic chruch) towards the east, Hindus pray towards clay and stone idols of incarnations of God. Hindus & Zoroastrians pray through idols or representatives of the Amesha Spentas (archangels) in the case of Zoroastrianism to make their prayers reach God. Similarily, Christians pray through Jesus to reach God, not directly. "In Jesus name we pray, Amen".
Possibly the most common factor in pagan/semi-monotheitic faiths is the concept of trinity. In Hinduism, the trinity is - Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). In Zoroastrianism, the trinity, or the "Ahuric triad" as it's known, is - Ahura Mazda (The Wise Lord, the monotheistic God), Mithra (a Hindu/pre-Zoroastrian deity who was later incorporated as the Ahura of the sun, was later worshiped by Roman soldiers during their wars with the various dynasties based in Persia, will explain below), and Apam Napat, the deity of rivers and lakes who keeps rebellions in check. Similarily, the Egyptian trinity laid the foundation for Christian trinity. However, the Egyptians used to blatantly promote or demote their Gods as they wished. The most common trinity was Osiris, Horus, and Ra, however, there were many other trinities, such as Ra, Horus, and Isis. They also used to merge their Gods, such as Amun and Ra became Amun-Ra.
Of course, the symbol of the Egyptian faith was the Ankh:
Which later became the Coptic cross:
Which evolved into the modern day cross. It is actually a representation for the Zodiac chart. It mainly represents the crux constellation in the sky, during which the sun aligns itself with on December 25th (in the mediteranian sea area) during the winter solstice, a popular pagan festival all around the world.
Most of Christianity is based on the pagan religions based in Rome. The Sunday worship factor is taken from the Mithraism, most of the rites are exactly what the pagans practiced, such as joining hands in prayer, folding them when in sin, choirs, holy ash, holy wine, forgiveness by priests for sins, etc. The figure of Jesus, the artistic drawings, are inspired by "Sol Invictus". Sol Invictus (the almighty Sun God), was a syncretic official faith of the Later Roman Empire which incorporated Mithras (the Romans and Greeks preffered to call Mithra as Mithras, as they prefered to call Ezu as IESUS, which later became Jesus in English), El Gabbal (A Syrian solar deity), and Apollo. This pagan faith, along with the worship of Isis (basis for Virgin Mary veneration, Isis was a popular deity with Roman merchants long after Paganism died out in Egypt) laid the foundation for the corruptions of Christianity that began with the First Council of Nicaea. Hence, Christianity is 80% pagan, 20% monotheistic according to my estimations. All the Christian festivals, such as Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc, are based on pagan festivals. Christianity is indeed a beautiful soft-polytheistic religion.
As far as I'm concerned, from all my research, Islam is the one and only non-syncretic faith, every other faith has some degree of pagan syncretism in it.
Last edited by Khan_Sama on Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:52 pm; edited 4 times in total |
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ouinon
chemical reaction
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Khan_Sama wrote: | Zoroastrianism is a combination of monotheism and polytheism, just as Christianity and Hinduism are.
Hinduism, like Christianity, is a monotheistic faith, or soft-polytheism as it's better to describe it as. In Hinduism, they believe in one deity - Brahman. They believe that Bhagvans (superhuman men/women who are incarnations of God) are the ones to pray to, as only holy men (sadhus) are the only ones who can communicate with God directly.
Possibly the most common factor in pagan/semi-monotheistic faiths is the concept of trinity. In Hinduism, the trinity is - Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). In Zoroastrianism, the trinity, or the "Ahuric triad" as it's known, is - Ahura Mazda (The Wise Lord, the monotheistic God) ... Mithra ... and Apam Napat.
Most of Christianity is based on the pagan religions based in Rome. The Sunday worship factor is taken from the Mithraism, most of the rites are exactly what the pagans practiced, such as joining hands in prayer. The figure of Jesus, the artistic drawings, are inspired by "Sol Invictus". Sol Invictus (the almighty Sun God), was a syncretic official faith of the Later Roman Empire which incorporated Mithras.
This pagan faith, along with the worship of Isis (basis for Virgin Mary veneration) laid the foundation for the corruptions of Christianity that began with the First Council of Nicaea. Hence, Christianity is 80% pagan, 20% monotheistic according to my estimations. All the Christian festivals, such as Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc, are based on pagan festivals. Christianity is indeed a beautiful soft-polytheistic religion. |
Thank you very much for all that information.  Very interesting. I will need to go away and think about all that now.
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Last edited by ouinon on Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:04 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Khan_Sama
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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You're very welcome. ^_^
I edited my post a bit, btw.
Here's an early representation of Jesus Christ (Christ is a pagan title, derived from Greek "Kristos" which means "the annointed one") as Kristos Sol Invictus. In later Byzantine art, a beard was added based on oral traditions of his looks. The primary basis of Jesus in art is Sol Invictus, which is based on Mithra and Apollo, El-Gabal was a rather disliked God in Rome as he was forcefully imposed on the Romans by the Syrian Emperor Elgabbalus:
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ouinon
chemical reaction
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 5:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Khan_Sama wrote: | | Zoroastrianism is a combination of monotheism and polytheism, just as Christianity and Hinduism are. ... Hinduism, like Christianity, is a monotheistic faith, or soft-polytheism. ... ... ... |
So is it possible that one reason why the christian myth had such an impact, ( even before being taken on by the Roman Empire as a popular unifying trademark/"club" rules ), was that the Jewish religion was the last remaining "exclusive-monotheistic" one? All of the others, ( at that time, 500 years before the Islamic religion was invented ), were already "soft-polytheist".
Perhaps a big part of the evangelical/ising fervour/passion was the result of the sudden liberation felt by many of the Jewish people after centuries stuck in a big-brother style monotheism, on finally being "allowed out".
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Warsie
OG Balla Representin' Da Souf Sydeeee of Chi-City
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:14 pm Post subject: |
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surprised no flamewars broke out yet 
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Khan_Sama
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: |
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| ouinon wrote: | | Khan_Sama wrote: | | Zoroastrianism is a combination of monotheism and polytheism, just as Christianity and Hinduism are. ... Hinduism, like Christianity, is a monotheistic faith, or soft-polytheism. ... ... ... |
So is it possible that one reason why the christian myth had such an impact, ( even before being taken on by the Roman Empire as a popular unifying trademark/"club" rules ), was that the Jewish religion was the last remaining "exclusive-monotheistic" one? All of the others, ( at that time, 500 years before the Islamic religion was invented ), were already "soft-polytheist".
Perhaps a big part of the evangelical/ising fervour/passion was the result of the sudden liberation felt by many of the Jewish people after centuries stuck in a big-brother style monotheism, on finally being "allowed out".
. |
Islamic view is such that there were 140,000 prophets, and each preached Islam. As time went on, their teachings were corrupted, many of which became modern teachings. Islamic view is that Islam was not "invented", it always existed, however, Islam as preached by Muhammed (S) is the only version which is uncorrupted.
Again, Judaism also has some polytheistic influence - but very little. For example, in some synagogues, you'll find Zodiac paintings in the floor. The Jews blow the Ram's horn, which represents the Zodiac before Taurus, Aries, which is when Moses (AHS) rescued the Jews.
The Jews were strictly against believing that their messiah would not be a non-Jew from the Davidic line. Hence, they rejected prophets like Jesus (AHS) and Muhammed (S), although the description of the messiah which the Psalms provides matches Muhammed (S) exactly. A few Jews converted (to Islam as preached by Jesus AHS), most of them escaped to India, to Kerela, where they're known as the Cochin-Jews. Their form of Christianity was very similar to Judaism - 3 times/day worship towards Jerusalem, Sabbath, no trinity (blasphemous), etc. Then, the Portuguese conquered Cochin, and forced them to convert to Catholicism. The Ethiopians, in their Tahweedo (monotheistic) Orthodox Church, follow a very similar pattern. They believe in the trinity, however, they pray three times a day (towards the east, in the same manner as Muslims - this manner was followed by all Jews in the past, but only the Sephardic Jews continue to do so), they fast exactly like how Muslims do, and their dietary laws are the same as Islam (no pork, kosher, but fat is allowed, dairy along with meat is allowed, etc). The reason behind this is simple - the Egpytians converted to Christianity en masse, and imposed their basic ideals on Christianity - the cross (ankh), trinity (Osiris - Horus - Ra), and the solar calendar. Everything else was imposed later on, during the councils of Nicaea. The Ethiopians, although allied to Rome, were free from Roman control, hence, the "reforms" of the Nicaean councils did not affect their church. Until the Portuguese conquest of Cochin, the Christian-Jews of the city were the last to follow Jesus's (AHS) uncorrupted monotheistic teachings.
| Warsie wrote: | | surprised no flamewars broke out yet |
I do believe that the purpose of this thread is not to criticise Christianity but to validate whether it's a myth or not. I personally disregard it as a myth, and explained my point of view. Christianity is a beautiful, yet paganised religion.
Of course, I must point out that there are 100% pagan religions which still exist, which neo-pagans regard as religions uncorrupted by monotheism. Examples are - Chinese traditional religion, Shinto, and the Bön religion (which has been deeply affected by Buddhism). Then there's Animism, the pre-pagan religions common throughout third world countries. |
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pezar
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| Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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I think that there's a fair amount of dumb luck involved. Rome was at its peak around 300 AD. Afterwards, it started to go downhill rather badly. It experienced the worst hyperinflation in the known history of fiat money. A pound of gold went from costing 300 denarii (Roman currency) in 300 to costing 3 BILLION denarii 50 years later. The only thing that comes close is the Weimar Republic inflation of the early 20s. Modern Zimbabwe may be experiencing an inflation of similar proportions, although it's hard to tell since the country has been closed to journalists.
Anyway, after extreme hyperinflation, the affected economy is wrecked. Usually the central government retains enough power to replace the currency. But Rome was losing ground. The empire was shrinking as minority after minority forced out starving legions, and the Germanics were attacking with increasing frequency. During times of real or perceived chaos is when new religions take hold. The army was the first to suffer and thus the first to convert. By the time Rome abandoned most of the provinces around 430 AD, soldiers had spread Christianity far and wide.
Rome itself was in such bad shape that the populace converted in droves, seeking forgiveness for having brought the wrath of God upon themselves. During the two main economic depressions in the US in the 20th century, religiosity grew greatly as people sought solace in faith. Now multiply the 1970s by a billion. Rome was so bad off that people were grabbing at anything they could. Some were driven to self-purging via self-injury and self-mutilation. There were a number of self-harm cults. All eventually consumed themselves, as any cult that worships self-harm does.
In the end, only Christianity was left. It had absorbed a lot of pagan and mystery cult practices, but the core remained, and in western and central Europe, it was what was left behind by the empire. So basically, after the empire had consumed itself, the only power structure left was the Church. There were remnants here and there of the old Roman bureaucracy, but they soon died out. The Church was able to simply squash dissent and force itself on a population too exhausted to resist. It took another 700 years to convert eastern Europe, as I'm sure Chaotica would love to tell you. But in the end Europe was Christianized.
Christianity simply came along at the right time, just as Rome was headed into its final slide. Rome was an empire of military conquest and occupation, and as money became worthless, the soldiers starved and converted to Christianity. They then spread it to the natives. What we now call England was fully Christianized by the mid-400s. The Germanics were Christian by the time they finally conquered Rome. Basically, anywhere you can name in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa that Rome touched, Christianity took root. In the last two it was largely supplanted by Islam.
But there are Christian remnants in Egypt, what is now Iraq, Ethiopia, and a handful of other places. These Christianities look very different from the Roman faith and its heirs such as Protestantism and the neo-Protestant Christian cults in the US. Ethiopia in particular has a very harsh Christianity that requires much fasting. The Copts put a special value on hermitude, on becoming a hermit and living in a cave in the desert, just you and God. They herald from a Christian tradition of self-denial that involved living upon a high platform for most of one's life. The faith of the Assyrians and other Iraqi Christians tends to be more Roman. |
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Khan_Sama
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| Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 12:21 am Post subject: |
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pezar, regarding the hyperinflation, history is repeating itself.
Yes, you're quite right. However, I believe the adoption of the pagan characteristics was purely political rather than anything else. |
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