Would we've been better off as pagans?

Actually that is a not a Christian position so I can only assume you make it a personal view without any support. By the way the didn't believe Jesus was a messiah because Jesus failed to fulfill the role. I don't want to attack your faith why to you feel it important to attack others?

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ummm no it does not.... but nice try.

 

To destroy them.

 

Christianity's impact on Europe has been for the better. Pagans fought each other all the time. Many had war as an integral part of their religion. Christianity's critics have emphasized it's negatives aspects to an extreme. Do you know how many people were convicted by the Inquisition? Under 10,000. The Inquisition found most people innocent, but that doesn't make for a very good anti-Christian narrative, does it? An anti-Christian narrative might tell you about how Galileo was imprisoned for creating the heliocentric theory, but it was actually created by a monk, and Galileo was found innocent at first trial, but basically told not to 'preach' his theory. He published a book on it, and so was put under house arrest. Not sent to prison, but kept at his lovely home. :/ Not the best story, but it's clearly got to be tweaked for a really good anti-Christian narrative. While the Church had it's faults, how many earthly authorities- kings- do you think would be lenient a second time on a man who publicly defied their will?

The Cursades, in general, were about defense, not invasion. The true story doesn't make a great anti-Christian narrative, so it's tweaked. They don't mention that the Turks took thousands of miles of Christian land, or that they slaughtered the populace of Jerusalem, who for the last five centuries were under moderate Muslim rule that welcomed Christian pilgrims. The Turks, however, robbed and killed pilgrims. They were on Byzantine land. The First Crusade was about pushing them out and securing safe passage for pilgrims (that was the entire point of the Templars and Hospitallers, but that doesnt make for a juicy anti-Christian narrative).

You'll also hear of how Christians in the First sacked Jerusalem. You won't hear how the Papacy condemned their actions and stated all those who did such thing s lost their heavenly reward for the Crusade. You won't hear how tolerant the Christian rulers were. You won't hear how Saladin'the Just' offered no quarter to Christian Knights, or how when HE took Jerusalem all but a few hundred (who paid a noble's ransom) were sold into slavery.

 

What exactly isn't a Christian position? I'm not following you here. And what role didn't Jesus fulfill? Obviously he didn't fulfill any role for those non-believing jews, so what's your point? And who exactly am I attacking here?

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Yeah, men never dominated society until those Christians came along. The Babylonians, Persians, Assyrians, Hittites, Greeks, Romans, Gauls, Huns, Carthaginians, Phoenecians, they were all societies where women were equal... oh, wait.

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What he's describing isn't even a right wing Chridtian view. He's describing something that exists bur is more fringe than the Latter Day Saints.

 

Yes it does, I have a copy of it here!

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Well being as they are all one twisting version of the same original tales....

 

Yes, because...

That alone seals the deal for me.

 

Then you should have no problem quoting it to back up your claim. It doesn't say anywhere that women must be subservient.

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Then you should have no problem quoting it to back up your claim. It doesn't say anywhere that women must be subservient.

 

oh. I see. Well, I can't hold general ignorance against you.

 

What do I care how many people follow something?

 

so why do you say the Christianity is the only religion? If you don't care why should you say anything?

 

It's been thoroughly tweaked by people on both sides trying to make their own political points, and which side was 'attacking' and which 'defending tends to depend a great deal on the point of view of the person telling the story. There were all sorts of reasons behind it (on both sides), some 'noble', some considerably less so, some based on understandable misunderstandings of what the other side were doing or attempting to do. There were also some appalling acts of inhumanity on both sides, especially when seen from a modern perspective - in that it was a product of its times. The truth it it wasn't exactly the most glorious period in human history, or in the history of Christianity or Islam, for 'peace, love and understanding'! No point in playing 'the blame game' with it at all, though - the important thing is to understand the arguments and feelings on both sides, recognise that it is now in the past, and try to move on with greater understanding of what can go horribly wrong when different cultures and major religions clash with each other.

It also had various effects, of course, on Europe and on the Middle East, not all of which were entirely negative (but not all of which were positive either). Certainly it's fair to say that it would have been a lot better for most of the people involved at the time had the circumstances not been such that the whole mess happened, but whether that means that it would have been better if those major religions hadn't existed at all is a different question. For that question the negatives of massive and bitter conflicts full of appalling acts have to be weighed against the positives of learning and study and so on.

 

I'm not going to deny that christianity did indeed 'civilize' and help maintain knowledge by writing it down in books et cetera, but I am going to say that education has always been there; in rome, in greece. Probably reserved for the highger classes or restricted by wealth, as with the medieval system. Looking at philosophy and science we see that people, especially the greeks, were much freer to think because neither society or their religion were much against thinking about certain things as were christianity. hell, they had people thinking about atoms and inventing steam and what not, whilst in christian times the high point was that christ was god but human at the same time or something; a complete waste of mind power in my view. iirc, the greeks had a much different view of the gods than the christians, i don't quite remember what but it was something along the lines that the gods didn't know everything like the christian god and they actually encourage people to learn. And of course, centres of learning were common in greece. greece is a good example for everything it seems.

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greco roman paganism helped also.

yes, yes it did. not alone though mind you, and luckily christianity can be interpreted in so many ways; the US got the freedom version of it.

 

them jews weren't the most female friendly people for sure. nor friendly to non-jews, or foreskin.

 

people kill eachother all the time for any reason, it's irrelevant. But i'll agree that some pagan religions, like our asatro (norse paganism) were a tad violent to say the least. But I don't think it matters much aactually, just look at history. did they kill eachother pre-christian? yes. did they stop when everyone was christian? no. did they kill for religion pre christian? was the world divided by mutually hostile religions? sometimes but mostly no. was it the case after christianity, yes. I'm not anti christian, it's just that I honestly think that europe would've fared better of equally well had christ just not been there.

I know, I actually bring that up when anyone speaks about it; the muslims were the real agressors or atleast equally to blame as the christians. I just hate it when they try to paint them like peaceful hippies getting attacked by murderous zealous crusader nazis. But see, this is also what i'm talking about: did people view it as a big deal that someone wasn't of the same creed as they back in antiquity? it was expected that they weren't but people traded, killed and whatnot; religion not being a big factor.

So what has christianity brought us that nothing else could, and what bad has it brought us that wasn't there before?

 

I think Christianity brought to Europe the concept that the universe was made by one creator, with one set of physical laws. I think this assumption makes it easier for concepts like the scientific method to develop when you think the world is put together following the same instructions. I doubt a pagan civilization would have come to that conclusion since their worldview was more willy-nilly and magical. But you make a good point that Christianity lead to the scientific observation that ultimately undermined it.

 

I actually think it would make little difference over the scope of the last couple of millennia. I'm certain Eupopean history would be very different, but over all, mankind would have still progressed. Perhaps if not for the burning of the Great Library of Alexandria, our technology would be far ahead of where it is today.

Historically, religion has served the dual purpose of guiding peaceful coexistence, (obviously not always successfully), and exercising control by a ruling class. The fallacies of religion are the fallacies of men. The benefits of religion are those of a stable social order that can be universally applied. I'm not convinced that the current crop of religions offer any particular advantage over another set. The goals and methods of all religions seem to be pretty much to same.

 

It was Christians ended the Gladitorial games, and preserved much of the knowledge of Greece and Rome in Monasteries. Meanwhile the Pagan Celtic peoples left bodies in Bogs all over Europe as human sacrifices to their various Gods. You should also recall that for most of the time Rome Ruled Egypt and it wasn't trade so much as tribute. It was also Christianity that provided the rallying point that kept most of Europe from going Muslim. It is extremely doubtful that a polyglot paganism could have done as well.

By the way these latter day attempts to sanitize ancient pagans are not only ahistorical in the extreme, but utterly laughable to people who actually know something of the history.

 

It has been tweaked on both sides - I'm just not familiar with the side tweaking it in favor of Christians today. From what I've read, it seems like that was really popular until the 20th century. The 'tweaking', at least insofar as I have seen, has been really one sided. It could just be that I'm in college and haven't been to Church in a while.

In reality, it's effects were mostly positive. You seem familiar with it, so you probably already know about how trade, banking, etc. developed through the Crusades. But, despite the colossal conflict and carnage, it was relatively small. The sheer size of the opposing sides was so large that the conflicts were less common. It also provided such unity (within the faiths) that conflict with the faith became less common (though still indeed common).

Historians estimate that the Crusades - all of them - took a toll of 1,000,000-3,000,000 lives, 0.3-2.3% of the world population. Less than 1% of the world population at that time, except spread out over 200 someodd years. The Mongol conquests, over a couple hundred years, claimed 30,000,000-60,000,000 lives, 7.5-17.1% of the world population. I mean, the Napoleonic wars claimed more over a decade (3.5-7mil), and what did that have to do with religion? The bloodiest *religious* conflict was the Thirty Years War and, being form Sweden, I'm sure you know that was really less about religion than most people think. I mean, Sweden (who I consider the principal leader of one coalition) had France and the Turks on their side.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...asters_by_death_toll#Wars_and_armed_conflicts

But what has Christianity brought us that nothing else could? When you phrase it like that, nothing. What did the Hellenists give us that NOTHING else could? Nothing. When you phrase it like that, the answer is pretty much nothing. That's why I think of it more along the lines of "would."

So, what did Christianity bring us that Paganism (in all it's Euro-variations) would have? I'd venture to first say a sense of unity beyond an Empire and trade, but I think that was contingent upon the Muslim expansion (Battle of Tours, Turkish invasion of the Byzantines, and then Reconquista and the Siege of Venice happening about the same time). It brought some sense of unity, but not that much.

Perhaps one of the biggest things that we got from Christianity was the preservation of language and literature. I wonder how much has been lost, but the Roman would have fallen even without Christianity's influence (the pacifism of which I think played a minor role). So much of it was destroyed. The oldest copies of Plato's Republic, the Illiad, and the Oddyssey are all from 10th century Churches (something interesting to point out when people say the Bible isn't reliable because the oldest surviving copy was written 40 years after Jesus' death).

I'm curious - what do you think would be different about Europe if Christianity never picked up in Europe?

 

I think the Chief difference is that the Crusades would have never happened and the Europe would have been a part of the Ottoman empire by 1700.

 

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I agree, I'm an Asatruar myself.

 

Big surprise. Just what is so great about picking a religion with a pantheon of gods with very violent tendencies? The Vikings were hardly the most laid back and tolerant of people, although they did avoid some of the pitfalls Christianity introduced.

 

I believe so, but then, I am a fan of lions. Imagine what fun it would be for the whole family: "Look kids; that lion just chewed the Christian's leg off!!! Mom will be so disappointed she missed it; I should have never sent her to get beers!!!"

 

In some respects, things would have turned out better with a pagan Europe, but the pagans weren't all peace-loving people.

The hordes that crushed the Roman Empire were mostly pagan, and they weren't exactly nonviolent people.

Nonetheless, it's interesting to think about what would have happened if Constantine had never supported Christianity.

There's actually a good chance that, if Europe had lacked a unified religion in Christianity, the Muslim conquests might have been more successful in Europe and would have converted most of the continent to Islam.

If you look at the patterns most predominant in human history, usually, smaller religions die out as one or two larger ones convert the masses.

If it hadn't been Christianity dominating Europe, it most likely would have been Islam instead.

Personally, I prefer Christianity over Islam, but I can't say that I believe in any religion.

 

it's an interesting thought but I don't think there'd be anything stopping pagans from doing that, especially considering the advances the greeks made prior to christendom. I think the idea of universal laws would've come by in any case. And I'm actually rather confident in saying that had the greeks not been conquered by romans and thus having their technological progress pretty much halted we'd progressed a lot faster; some historians say that there might even have a been a mini industrial revolution as the greeks already had steam and very advanced mechanics. To attribute all thatto their religion is perhaps unfair but religion is what seperated peoples from each other in those times, what made them unique, so it's a big chance religion was some driving force behind it. And christians were just as much into magic as any other, witches anyone?

In my view it says much that the knowledge being preserved came from pagan times, and I believe pagans would be just a qualified to preserve knowledge, as they did until christianity came along. Gladiatorial games yes, were much more due to the romans' peculiar lust for blood; it was not shared by most of the other pagans. Yes, a pagan europe would've been very vunreable for muslims without christianity, but in this scenario without christendom there'd probably be no Islam either, seeing as they were much influenced by it. Most of the time rome did not rule egypt and prior to conquest they did trade. egypt and rome was juste examples anyways. And you should know that I'm quite knowledgeable in history.

indeed, and my point being that christianity did little to stop wars.

As I said before there must have been something very special about the greeks, most likely culture and thus religion, that made them so interested in and good at mathematics, geometry, philosphy and whatnot. I believe greek paganism, if given the samew opportunity as christianity, would've given us much better results. But I agree that the question is badly worded, this is also very hypotethical stuff.