/lit/ - Literature

>>14895290
Actions of individuals leading to undesirable societal effects are what makes them immoral. Believing that morality starts and ends with preventing bodily harm is ridiculous, and saying anyone who disagrees with that is 'a larper' is plain retardation. Aversion to outmarrying and homosexuality arent vestigial beliefs that stuck around from select bronze age groups, they are patterns of belief and behavior that were naturally selected for over hundreds or thousands of years.

>>14698688
You have to consider the religious landscape of Rome, and that of the Early Church. You had basically two options, Paganism and Judaism. The pagans were, well, retarded. For an individual belief in the Gods was more or less transactional, you kill a chicken on this day in front of this altar and a God will make your wife conceive better. And this went all the way to the top. The Romans for example when practicing augury thought that seeing an eagle at the start of a war indicated extremely good fortune. So to curry favor with the fates, they started releasing eagles outside their temples every time an augury was done. A blissful afterlife was reserved for exceptional individuals only, people who were heroes to the city or the state. The Gods didnt really care about you, they might throw you a bone if you offer some meat but that's about it. The closest thing they had to mass was the parading around of an idol and the festivities surrounding it. Theres also the debauchery of late antiquity, which everyone knows about. As life in the Empire became progressively harder, faith in aloof gods waned and mystery cults started popping up, which Christiany would come into direct competition with.

Most of the first Christians were Jews by birth, but Judaism was also becoming a burden to uphold. The law of the Pharisees was becoming overly complex and punitive, anyone who questioned their authority lost their heads, and finally they got the temple and the kingdom destroyed by goading the Roman's to invade.

So for a Christian in the first or second century your only other options when it comes to religion are brain melting, retarded, nonsense. For the founders it really was the one true path.