Why did christianity win out (from a secular / historical perspective)?

[John D. Brey]

I never knew European football was so religious!

I can't speak for the religion or not of the football or the football field, goal posts, jock straps, what have you, but many or most of the players and fans are part of that thirty-one percentile you poo poo.



John

 

[The Hammer]

Christianity is the majority religion today, and has been for 1700 years (or so).

Something has to be special about it... or not?

From the christian perspective, the answer is easy - it was god's plan all along, so of course christianity is the winner.

If you don't believe in it, then there must be other explanations. What are they?

Murder. Forced conversions. Murder of rival priesthoods.

 

[John D. Brey]

Murder. Forced conversions. Murder of rival priesthoods.

Are you a Darwinist? Because what you write would simply make Christianity the fittest since they survived. Evolution isn't moral you know. So suck it up buttercup.



John

 

[The Hammer]

Are you a Darwinist? Because what you write would simply make Christianity the fittest since they survived. Evolution isn't moral you know. So suck it up buttercup.



John

Survival of the fittest is a myth as bad as Jesus. Just ask the Nazis.

 

[vijeno]

What is it exactly that Christianity won?

Followers. Lots and lots and lots of those.

 

[RestlessSoul]

It became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

How and why though?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Rome was, argumentatively, one of the top cultures of the ancient world. Christianity was born within the Roman Empire. It was initially persecuted, but would go on to become the official religion of Rome in the 4th century AD.

This merger created a unique partnership between the Christian faith and the World Class Secular Empire of Rome; preach to all the nations. Christianity would eventually take over the partnership; Theocracy, but was smart enough to cherish and retain the Roman secular half to form the Catholic Church and the Holy Roman Empire. Christianity became part of an ancient world class leadership tradition. This history of Christianity is very unique.

Had Christianity, after having established the Theocracy, decided to purify the faith and throw out the baby with the bath water; get rid of anything Rome, they would have lost advantages and that winning Roman attitude; faith without technology and prosperity lacks advantages. It took this unique blend of Roman Christianity to institute the Declaration of Independence and form a country of free people. Rome was known for not needing supply lines but could transform the land to their needs. The current trend toward socialism is due to the decline of Roman Christianity in culture, and its role as a leader. Socialism is a downgraded secular replacement, based on mercenaries instead of partners.

The Holy Roman Empire would last 1000 years, from 400's until about the 1400's, when it began to divide; Protestant, Science, Explorers and Atheist Movements. After that it was like the amalgam of Rome and Christianity was breaking down into various ratios of the two attributes. Nazi Germany was like 95% Roma, while the Catholic Church would lose its aggressive Roma ways, to become more ceremonial but still classic and prosperous. Atheism, which also spawned from the original empire, is more like secular Roma, but with the modern Pagan casino gods of dice and cards. Roma persecution of the weaker Christianity, has been reinstated by the Left. Now with the Christian soldiers once again learning to battle in the arena of ideas; old house divided.

Three things to remember about the Holy Roman Empire;
it wasn’t holy, it wasn’t Roman, and it wasn’t an empire.

 

[vijeno]

If you don't believe in it, then there must be other explanations. What are they?

My own little theory:

At some point pretty soon after it started, christianity developed into the perfect storm.

* It had just the right amount of revolutionary potential, without being an outright call to arms.
* It gave poor people some hope, but also gave the rulers the opportunity to stay in power.
* It merged monotheism and polytheism in a new and exciting way.
* It had a trinity, a saviour, a monotheistic father god and a rudimentary mother goddess, thus diversifying its USP.
* It appealed to those for whom Judaism was an exciting and exotic, but also strange and weird phenomenon.
* It did away with the pesky kosher laws and circumcision, but still demanded a lot from converts, making it appealing to the world-weary, but yet accessible without bloodshed or dieting.
* It had a dramatic origin story, involving murder and betrayal, friendship and hate, death and resurrection.
* It spoke to feelings of guilt and shame and gave an easy solution for those.
* It put faith front and center, rather than race or ritual, making it accessible to everybody and easily transferrable across the globe - while setting sweet honey traps for those inside.

On top of all that, Hera was finally not putting up with Zeus' philandering, and Ares had kinda lost his bow-and-arrows mojo.

As for what happened before that, I don't know. I don't think we can know for sure how it all started. I doubt that it was down to one or two distinct founders, and I think of Acts as a fairytale and of Luke as a big whopping liar, but that's just my evolutionary predilection I'm sure. ;-)

 

[ajay0]

Buddhism became a world religion due to the efforts of Emperor Ashoka the Great who sent missionaries around the world through land and sea routes to propagate Buddhism two centuries before Christ. It is considered the first missionary religion and the fourth largest religion in the world.

I think the same model was adopted by Constantine the Great who was the first roman emperor to convert to Christianity after centuries of brutal persecution of Christians. Constantine similarly used the empire's resources to spread Christianity and the organisational excellence of the Roman system was employed for this purpose. This was a continuous process with later Christian emperors and kings patronising the spread of Christianity.

Other religions lacked this kind of political and financial support.

Buddhism and Jainism were contemporary religions, but Jainism did not get a patron like Ashoka or Constantine, and hence Jainism continues to be a minority religion with just 5 million adherents and have not gone beyond India.

 

[Twilight Hue]

I can't speak for the religion or not of the football or the football field, goal posts, jock straps, what have you, but many or most of the players and fans are part of that thirty-one percentile you poo poo.



John

It still was 31% which was the point. It's just not a big number.

Christianity isn't dominant by any stretch of the imagination, and it's not special, it's not the salt of the earth, and it's not the light of the world.

The proof of it is the considerable 69% dominant majority of the world's religious, whom doesn't even recognize Christianity as being even valid or worth considering given the fact that they're well... not Christian.
;0)

 

[Twilight Hue]

Survival of the fittest is a myth as bad as Jesus. Just ask the Nazis.

Of whom the fittest that survived, were the allies!

 

[MikeF]

Historically speaking, there's a strange irony in the fact that in the first century of the modern era Judaism sought a messiah who would not only save them from the goyim, but who could, as unlikely as seemed possible at the time, defeat Rome at the hands of a little ole Jew.

There is no greater drama in human record than the sight of a few Christians, scorned or oppressed by a succession of emperors, bearing all trails with a fierce tenacity, multiplying quietly, building order while their enemies generated chaos, fighting the sword with the word, brutality with hope, and at last defeating the strongest state that history has know. Caesar and Christ had met in the arena, and Christ had won.​

​

Will Durant, The Story of Civilization.​

​

John

Did Christianity defeat Empire, or was Christianity co-opted by Empire to serve Empire?

 

[sayak83]

Christianity is the majority religion today, and has been for 1700 years (or so).

Something has to be special about it... or not?

From the christian perspective, the answer is easy - it was god's plan all along, so of course christianity is the winner.

If you don't believe in it, then there must be other explanations. What are they?

Colonial conquests...
The same reason why English, French, Spanish are the dominant language today.
Christianity is the religion of the conquerors...like in ancient age Hellenic and Roman paganism was regionally dominant.

 

[John D. Brey]

Survival of the fittest is a myth as bad as Jesus. Just ask the Nazis.

The Nazis didn't survive. So even in their own scheme they're losers. I quoted the eminent historian Will Durant earlier in the thread giving his surmisal of why Christianity survived. In another place he said:

If art is the organization of materials, the Roman Catholic Church is among the most imposing masterpieces of history. Through nineteen centuries, each heavy with crisis, she has held her faithful together, following them with her ministrations to the ends of the earth, forming their minds, molding their morals, encouraging their fertility, solemnizing their marriages, consoling their bereavements, lifting their momentary lives into eternal drama, harvesting their gifts, surviving every heresy and revolt, and patiently building again every broken support of her power.​

​

The Story of Civilization Vol. 5, p. 44.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

Did Christianity defeat Empire, or was Christianity co-opted by Empire to serve Empire?

What's that Springsteen song say, "They're still here, he's all gone."

At its zenith, the Roman Empire was much smaller than the Holy Roman Catholic Church today. The latter peoples the entire planet. It's cultural predilections have, particularly with the help of her wayward son, Martin Luther, molded and affected almost every conceivable ideology in vogue today.

Two fairly recent historical treatise (Eric Metaxas, Martin Luther, and Joseph Henrich's, The WEIRDest People in the World) argue that there is almost no single person of the modern world who so directed the economic, scientific, religious, and cultural shape of the world we live in. And through the West, that cultural dynamic has spread to China and the East, Africa in the South, and the Philippines and Southeast Asia, such that the influence of the Holy Roman Church now circumnavigates the entire globe signaling the fact that the epoch or aeon begun in the first century with the death of Messiah is nearing its completion such that those who long to be free from the Church's influence may soon get more of their freedom than they bargained for.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The proof of it is the considerable 69% dominant majority of the world's religious, whom doesn't even recognize Christianity as being even valid or worth considering given the fact that they're well... not Christian.
;0)

You say a lot of things that seem historically and logically questionable at best?

In the Quran, Jesus is described as the Messiah (al-Masīḥ), miraculously born of a virgin, performing miracles, accompanied by his disciples, rejected by the Jewish religious establishment, but not as crucified or dying on the cross (nor resurrected), rather as miraculously saved by God and ascending into heaven.​

​

Wikipedia.​

Islam is a pretty large swath of the non-Christian world and yet they buy into Jesus as a holy man. Add Islam to the influence of the Christian Testament and you're pushing a real majority (better than 50%) of all religious ideology on the planet.



John

 

[exchemist]

I think becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire helped a great deal

Yes I think this is probably the main part of the explanation. Even as far as Britain was converted by the time the empire withdrew.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

I think becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire helped a great deal

Well of course, but it just begs the question: How did Christianity become so successful that it became the official religion of the Roman Empire?

 

[Twilight Hue]

You say a lot of things that seem historically and logically questionable at best?

In the Quran, Jesus is described as the Messiah (al-Masīḥ), miraculously born of a virgin, performing miracles, accompanied by his disciples, rejected by the Jewish religious establishment, but not as crucified or dying on the cross (nor resurrected), rather as miraculously saved by God and ascending into heaven.​

​

Wikipedia.​

Islam is a pretty large swath of the non-Christian world and yet they buy into Jesus as a holy man. Add Islam to the influence of the Christian Testament and you're pushing a real majority (better than 50%) of all religious ideology on the planet.



John

That's because you're not factoring in people who identify as. Christian , but in name only.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

That's because you're not factoring in people who identify as. Christian , but in name only.

What is your definition of Christian?