How could I forget! My apologies!
I thought you were talking about your trikes…
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You are little more up on history I admit. In the modern era, Abrahamic faiths have been very invasive and fascist, agree? Anyway, all through history, the only way to truely control a new conquest is to destroy and replace their religion. That’s what Romans always did and that’s what the European conquerors did here.
No, they did not unless the local religion was inimical to the Emperor worship. That was what destroyed the Jewish Temple in 70CE. The Romans were tolerant of religions and practices that did not cross their laws.
Even the Jews had a special exemptions at various times (as did the christians, who were considered jews) to accommodate their refusal to sacrifice a pinch of incense to the Emperor.
Please get some facts right.
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Yes. As an evolving dominant religious ideology that has also absorbed “pagan” beliefs and had the acceptance of new prophecy/prophets to spur it along.
No. Do not agree.
Fascism Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and strong regimentation of society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
Think back to general historical political setup.
Do Monarchies come to mind?
(arrows up in the right corner allow for full context) Do you not understand the approach you take? What did the Greeks do? What about the Mongols? (Religion in the Mongol Empire - Wikipedia)
The British Empire (Protestant Christian) may have viewed their religion and government as superior however ** the British Empire had a **Muslim population of ** 94 million, larger than the empire’s 58 million Christian population. (perhaps categorizing them as “Abrahamic” allows your mind to treat them as somehow one 
)
Current “world super power” the USA 
…how would you define their influence of politics/religion ideologies on the global scene?
You are just wrong here. Europe is Christian now because of the romans (after Constantine converted to Christianity). The romans converted European pagans to Christianity by extreme FORCE! Sometimes death.
As a matter of fact Hitler entertained the idea of talking Germany back to Norse gods!
In my opinion he would have been more successful had he done this instead of killing Jews.
Give us a source for this, please.
Where do you get your information? It would be helpful if you sourced your statements before spewing them.
It would also help if @Socialdarwin specified which of the Roman Empires he means. The original Roman Empire(*), The Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, or the Holy Roman Empire. The Holy Roman Empire was something entirely different, but seeing that Socialdarwin has a somewhat confusing argumentation style, I included this.
(*) Pre-christian. They did not force any religion upon their conquered territories or vassal states. They did, however, apply extreme brutality when they sensed activities that could threaten the hegemony of Rome.
From … Christianity comes to Denmark
“The transition to Christianity in Denmark took place gradually and without major conflict. The Vikings regarded the new belief as supplementing the Nordic gods – it was not simply a choice between the old and the new religion. The Vikings’ belief in many gods meant that it was possible for the new Christian god, White Christ, to be worshipped alongside gods like Thor and Odin.”
I will take the word of the National Museum of Denmark over unsubstantiated claims.
From … Christianisation of the Germanic peoples - Wikipedia
" The gradual rise of Germanic Christianity was, at times, voluntary, particularly among groups associated with the Roman Empire. From the 6th century, Germanic tribes were converted (or re-converted from Arianism) by missionaries of the Catholic Church.[2][3]."
I’ve never heard that before, any citation?
Himmler was the Pagan, (s)Hitler was born and raised a catholic. As far as I’m aware he never claimed to be anything else.
What is now Germany and Denmark was never under the Roman Empire, even at its greatest extent:
Though the Holy Roman Empire (considered by the Roman Catholic Church to be the only legal successor of the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period[*]) covered the land areas from what is now Germany down to northern Italy, it never covered Denmark:
@Get_off_my_lawn Thank you, now I know a little more than when I woke up this morning.
When I am in error, I own it, else I would remain ignorant.
That’s probably why he called the Nazi movement “Positive Christianity.” " As I have argued elsewhere, in many ways we can see that, in the church of Christ as well, Hitler was this kind of anti‐clerical – not a complete anti‐Christian, not an apostate (and certainly not an atheist) in the church of Christ, but instead believing he knew and understood, and ultimately fulfilled the religion of Christ better than its hated clergy and institutions. Other Nazis who subscribed to ‘positive Christianity’ similarly combined a strong anti‐clericalism with a vision of Christianity which, while radical, was not simply ‘heretical’ or beyond the pale of past Christian thinking."
“Positive Christianity” was essentially Nazi ideology mixed with elements of Christianity:
Positive Christianity differed from mainstream Christianity in that positive Christianity:
- Rejected the Jewish-written parts of the Bible (including the entire Old Testament)
- Claimed “Aryanhood” and non-Jewishness for Christ
- Promoted the political objective of national unity, to overcome confessional differences, to eliminate Catholicism, and unite Protestantism into a single unitary positive Christian church[11]
- Also encouraged followers to support the creation of an Aryan Homeland
The New Testament was also altered; by removing the genealogies of Jesus that showed his Davidic descent, Jewish names and places were removed, quotations from the Old Testament were removed unless they showed Jews in a bad light, references to fulfilled Old Testament prophecies were removed, and Jesus was reworked into a militaristic, heroic figure fighting the Jews using Nazified language.
NO.
Fascists? Godwin’s law, already?
Religion had nothing to do with the rise of mainly atheist fascists, although the catholic church has tended to support such regimes once they are in power. Religions have long history of supporting the status quo, but they do not create it.
The Romans cynically exploited the local religions of conquered peoples and simply got them to sacrifice to Roman Gods . If such people were intractable , then the Romans simply destroyed them. Generally speaking the beliefs of conquered people were left alone and flourished in the Roman empire. The Roman empire was tolerant of local religions and was not racist in our use of the term. The were snobbish , with a belief in their cultural superiority. However, a barbarian could become civilised and become a full citizen and even emperor, which happened a few times.
EG :Just as it did with the Jews .The second Jewish revolt occurred from 66 to 70ce. For that the Romans sacked and destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. That revolt was finally crushed with the obliteration of the rebels on the fortress of Masada, 73-74 bce
One of the major reasons for Roman conquest was to obtain slaves. That was the first thing the Romans usually did to a conquered people.
Imo, Wars are seldom if ever fought on moral or religious grounds. The exception of course is the poor dumb bastards who do the actual dying.
Wars are begun by cynical old men conning gormless young men to go to a foreign country and kill their gormless young men.
There are two and only two causes of war; (1) To take something the other chap has( wars of conquest) or (2) to stop the other chap from taking something you have (defensive wars) Religion seldom if ever a causal agent
There is an ancient saying, I don’t know the origin, but think it might be ancient Roman:
" To the people the gods are real, to the wise man foolish, to the ruler useful" (Anon)
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If you bothered doing a bit of research you might not make as many ignorant claims:
"The official Roman religion was the worship of a large group of Greco Roman gods such a Jupiter, Juno, Minerva and Mars. A Roman priest was responsible for the proper ritual worship to the gods. The very success of the Roman Empire proved that the Romans had properly worshiped their gods.
The Romans were tolerant of other peoples’ gods, allowing natives in their provinces to worship whatever gods they chose. Beyond the official gods, individual families and regions had their local gods."
Oh LOL…
Really do some reading. There is some doubt whether Constantine really did “convert” to christianity. He made no attempt to prevent the Mithraic cult prevalent amongst his legions from flourishing. It was later subsumed by the christ war god. After the Councils of Nicea it was christians massacring christians until the current Latin Rite came out on top. Only after the 5th Century did the Christainised Romans start to apply the same force to the rest of their much diminished Empire. By which time they had lost much of what is now Germany, the British Isles and were in the process of retreat until the sack of Rome by the Germanic Goths and VisiGoths.
In short you ARE WRONG in your sweeping statement. From the elevation of Ceasar (Julius) the status of God Romans famously were indifferent to your religion provided it did not involve being contrary to their laws including the annual sacrifice to the God Emperor as I explained.
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Thought you might jump on that.
As far as I’m aware it was the emperor Theodosius 1 who made the sect we call christianity the state religion. It was also Theodosius 1 who first called those followers of ‘The Way’ of Jesus ‘*** Christians’ (4th century)
Theodosius approved of and encouraged the practice of the sect murdering any and all opposition and destroying their books. They continued that practice with gay abandon for the next 1500 years
*** There were literally dozens of sects claiming to follow the teachings of Yesua Ha Notzri .Most had their own sacared books, there were many often very different views. EG on the trinity and even on divinity of Jesus… The sect so revered today arrived where it is by being utterly brutal and ruthless as it amassed quite extraordinary wealth and power. The only reason the Catholic and Protestant churches stopped burning people alive is because temporal powers eventually stopped them.
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Of course, we often parallel and support each other in the actual history of the period. Because it IS the historical facts of the age, not wishful thinking (from theists) or errors from atheists who don’t actually do the hard yards when spouting off about events in the ancient world.
As we know, Constantines conversion was a political move designed to unite the forever internally combative “christian” churches into a homogeneous whole. Constantine seemed (like his legions) to have stayed with his Mithraic roots, and even, it certainly seems, to have introduced some of the liturgical elements into the christian sphere as well as some Apollonian symbolism.
That Constantines wife was an earlier wholehearted convert is indisputable. It was she who found the spear that pierced christ on the cross, nails from the true cross and many other supposed relics…oh and founded the Church of the Holy Sepulcher amongst other fake shrines and churches.
It was the Bishop of Rome in 492CE who first introduced the “Index” of banned books. This included just about every gnostic, adoptionist, Marcionic, or rival text in existence at that time. The list is very long and was added to in subsequent years. The texts and books were declared anathema and anyone holding, storing reading or disseminating them were to be killed and the works destroyed…ON SIGHT! No mention of Pagans, Mithrans, Apollonarians, no mention of Buddhists (who were a huge power at that time and well known in Rome) Hindus, Jains. This was a list squarely aimed at squashing in the most bloody manner any internal dissension in the Church and only in the Church.
Only when those bloody handed bastards consolidated their grip on the tenets of their “faith” did they turn their heads and proceed to enforce their “loving” god on the rest of the known world.
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Yeah , gullible old girl wasn’t she.
I’m aware that there’s no credible evidence that Constantine ever became christian. Some Christians like to claim he made a deathbed conversion, but I’m not aware of any evidence .
Also interesting to note that it was Constantine who called the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Things become much clearer when the council is understood to be about politics and power, not religion. (although that was the pretence)
It’s my understanding that the aim was to make Rome again the centre of
Christianity rather than Constantinople. Worked too.
Taking the list of books made by Athanasius of Alexander as the official Canon also ended up legitimising the Church of Rome. (and its persecution of dissidents)
As far as I can tell, Christianity was never more than a convenient tool for Constantine
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I’d like your opinion if you don’t mind.
By the Renaissance Christendom was arse deep in holy relics. EG enough pieces of the trues cross to build a small house ,and enough nails from the cross to hold it together. Not to mention straw from the manger, mother’ milk from Mary and several holy foreskins from the infant Yeshua. Constantine’s mother wen to Jerusalem and bought back a bunch of stuff . The only ‘real’ thing seems to have been oil from the putative holy sepulchre.
My question:
Context? At during the so-called dark ages, and for centuries after, the average human being never travelled more than 20 miles from his place (much like me in my retirement.) It seems to me that people had a very different idea of time. They may not have been able to grasp the concept of 1000 years, if indeed the bible was ever explained to the [illiterate] faithful in those terms.
Although the average man may have understood the earth is a sphere, I suspect he had only a vague idea of distances. EG even a relatively learned man such as Christopher Columbus apparently badly miscalculated the circumference of the earth.
In context, those people who bought holy relics 1700 years ago and later****, were not really all that gullible. Compare them with the literate gullible of today who fall for IT based scams and political charlatans such as Donald Trump ???
***Millions of believers today believe in miracles simply because the church claims there are such things
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