/lit/ - Literature

>>16258247
Nothing would happen. It would have had the same impact that stoicism did. You cannot organize a society around esoteric philosophy the same way you can around a system of religious belief. The best you can get is individual adherents who might sway the decision-making process. Granted, there was no higher authority in this instance, but there would have been a lot of head-scratching.

>>16258271
Rome already had a religious belief, they only needed a firm metaphysical underpinning. Which is what Neoplatonism gave.

>not understanding that the pagan philosophies continued through the church

Wig Nat historiography is so retarded

>>16258247
>Would we be exploring the stars by now?
Well are the chinese or maybe the thousand other atheist/pagan people exploring the stars? There is your answer.

>>16258288
My point is not that Rome did not possess religious belief, but that it is harder to organize it around philosophy than a religion. There is a genuine distinction to be made, one that Plotinus even points to, when he dismisses mythological thinking in favor of the metaphysical. Roman pluralistic theology is easily understandable by its populace, a system carried over from the Greeks, familiar and identifiable names, faces, and stories for the pantheon. How do you explain apophatic theology to those people? You leave them with nothing. The resistance would be fiercer than that engendered by christianity

>>16258247
Can someone explain the image? I want to BTFO the christian/theology fags whenever they appear in random threads.

>>16258315
The Chinese actually are, they're sending out tons of satellites and are doing tons of astronomical work. They aren't putting people on Mars, but then that's a different subject.

>>16258271
I think it's also important to note that what gave the Church power was that it introduced itself into the patron-client system of Rome in a way that Stoicism and (Neo-)Platonism really couldn't. The Christian Church could give bread to the poor in return for them acting as hatchetmen and bully boys, because it could pool resources from various centers of power, but the Stoics and (Neo-)Platonists were still just a collection of individuals all doing their own things. There was no set political doctrine, so people would just do whatever they felt like. That's not bad, but it means you can't use a crisis to your advantage to gain power as an organization, only as a series of individuals.

Perhaps Plotinus BTFO'd the doctrines of Chr*stianity, perhaps not, but 99.99% of Christians didn't give a shit then and don't give a shit now. Perhaps that's a sign that it's just KVKED HYLIC garbage or whatever, but then Plotinus doesn't have followers today, and Jesus does, so clearly something worked.

Dubs and you're gay.

>>16258343
>Christian Church could give bread to the poor in return for them acting as hatchetmen and bully boys
What about when people "confessed their sins"? I bet you could blackmail/espionage both the sinner and whoever else is involved in the story.

Man, I hate religion.

>>16258381
Presumably you could. The Romans were absolutely HORRIFIED of the prospect of snitches (there's a few words that they used, they're usually translated as "informers", but I'm not near the book where I got this from), rightly so because they were also snitching on each other, so that sounds like a perfect tactic to use.

But that's also an incredibly applied example of what I'm talking about: the sort of contact between a member of the organization and the laity that doing that would require, even if "confession" wasn't a specific ritual and the clergymen were just overhearing whispers and gossip, just wasn't feasible for the Stoics or (Neo-)Platonists.

>>16258247
>Would we be exploring the stars by now?

Why are humans so obsessed with space?

>>16258413
cool

>>16258332
I’m sorry, you need this explained for you?

>>16258407
Is there anything we can do to revert religion and also provide people a reason to live? :(

>>16258326
>How do you explain apophatic theology to those people?
Yeah you shouldn't try and do away with the Roman religion and I think the Neoplatonists worked very hard in their thinking to make sure their metaphysics actually did not contradict their own polytheistic religion.

It's not like the Christian pleb really understod the nuances of the trinity, essence-energy distinctions or the divine simplicity of Aquinas. I mean they were barely even read to from the Bible, even in church. Sources from medieval Europe basically shows that really the only thing the laymen cared about was stories about the saints and the priests was more likely to tell them stories of saints or moral philosophy of the Church Fathers than to actually tell them about the Bible. This was one of the driving forces for the Reformation, and it was really only with the printing press that people started reading the Bible(including monks and priests).

But, yes, it was certainly harder for the Neoplatonists.

>>16258424
Yes, I don't know shit about the origins of it. I just remember reading somewhere it was based off a meteor crashing into earth or some shit. Maybe a book recommendation might help? :(

>>16258413
to cope with their mortality

>>16258442
>Neoplatonists

What's Neoplatonism? I'm a burger.

Plus my old history teacher tried to explain it as "It's just Catholicism with Greek gods included lmao" and I never trusted it.

>>16258475
i heard god is basically zeus after people kept changing him

>>16258475
>It's just Catholicism with Greek gods included lmao
Catholicism is just paganism with Jesus included

>>16258475
>It's just Catholicism with Greek gods included lmao
neoplatonism and Catholicism are mutually exclusive
neoplatonism is just gnosticism

>>16258505
>neoplatonism is just gnosticism
You don't know what you are talking about

>>16258475
>>16258494
>>16258496
>>16258505

>>16258326
>a system carried over by the greeks
No it was not, at the time of the monarchy all of the familiar roman gods were already well established as gods of the latins, this was before any contact with the greeks of S*cily, the only real "greek carry over" was the original pythagorean connection (attributted to king Numa although that is unclear) which was metaphysical, not even religious. Other notable additions of foreign cults come in the cult of Minerva (which was not Athena as she was etruscan and a goddess of craftsmen, and stayed so untill the fall) and later greek cults such as that of Hercules or Castor. Still, even those were thoroughly latinized, so much that during the Republic, when the greek Herakles was established a cult in Rome, he was perceived almost like a different entity, so much that his temple was never allowed in the Pomerium, whilst the latinized Hercules WAS. The same happened to Castor btw, he remained the cult of the equites even though his greek form had nothing to do with horsemanship.

>http://www.gutenberg.org/files/18222/18222-h/18222-h.htm
Source

>>16258542
LOL recommend a book to help us learn pls :(

>>16258591
Go back

>>16258505
Complete idiot

>>16258608
:(

>>16258413
Maybe humans are trying to escape cataclysms

Op is a faggit.

>>16258271
>You cannot organize a society around esoteric philosophy the same way you can around a system of religious belief.

>>16258475
So you have this guy, Plato, and he comes up with a philosophy. See, the Greek Gods aren't the HIGHEST, there's even HIGHER Gods above them. But they're abstract. They don't listen to prayers or sacrifices, right? There's a highest God, The Good AKA The One. The closer you get to that (it's not really a "him", it doesn't do anything but exist so other things can), the better you are. Zeus and Ares and Aphrodite are real.

Then you have the Neoplatonists, who say ah, we have a system to get you CLOSER to that The Good AKA The One. So, it's Platonism, with a mystical practice.

There's more to it, the Neoplatonists on here will REEEEEE, but that's the simple version of it.

>>16258571
There's this weird opinion among /lit/ Neoplatonists that the Romans didn't have a theology. Neither does Japan, or China, for that matter. They have this odd definition of theology, wherein it's not a set of background assumptions about the world and how it works involving man's place in the world and how man works, but rather its a system created by man. So, before Plato, the Greeks didn't have theology either. It's this odd idea that things can only happen if an intelligent being makes them happen according to some plan, that you can't get emergent order through large amounts of micro-chaos over time, which is just simply not how reality works. It's very anthropocentric.

So then when you point them to Dumezil's works (I've seen anons use him, and I agree, he read basically everything there was in Latin about Roman religion), and the works of various thinkers on the divine, they get really upset, because that's not theology, because no one sat it down and made it up in one sitting (which isn't actually how Plato's works came about either, but they think it is).

>>16258247
>Would we be exploring the stars by now?
Nice power fantasy faggot but in reality

>>16258247
He knew it was a lie, he did it for power.

>>16258309
Not as retarded as you. If the church is pagan, it's not only redundant but blasphemous by its own standards.

>>16258496
YHWH is Mithras

>>16258247
Rome's conversion follows the same pattern of religious change that all civilizations inevitable went through as they move through different stages of political and technological complexity. If they hadn't taken christianity something else would have come along, or the existing religion would have morphed into something more resembling a "world religion" like christianity.

>>16258475
>"It's just Catholicism with Greek gods included lmao"
Unironically true. Well, more like Catholicism is neoplatonism with the Greek gods stripped out, but what's the difference.

>>16258344
That settles it, OP is a fag.

>>16259202
Julian and Iamblichus tried to mold Hellenism into that, but Julian died young and Justinian eventually shut it down.

>>16259202
True. In the decades and centuries precceding christianities widespread adoption monism/dualism to the detriment of polytheism in general was on the rise. Sol invictus, manichaeism, etc.

>>16258571
Not saying there weren't significant distinctions, but origins aside it's well known that Roman civilization had a massive cultural inferiority complex and after conquering the Hellenic world adopted many of the rites and practices of their subjects. The deities in the Roman pantheon have direct equivalents in the Hellenic pantheon and many religious practitioners at the time acknowledged some degree of continuity. Much of the mythology is an adaptation to the Roman context. After all, Aeneas figured in Greek literature first. This degree of continuity is what made Roman paganism more palatable to its subjects. A hypothetical conversion to "neoplatonism" (which is first and foremost an erudite philosophical system lacking sacraments or communal ordinances beyond inward-directed contemplation towards a monadic divinity that cannot be conceptualized ) would be a whiplash on an epochal scale and not go over well with anybody.

>>16258987
Name one society that has ever been organized around the contents of this book.

>>16258505
It actually is only that neoplatosnists, being the brainlets are think that
>world good

>>16259142
Don't neoplatonists believe in the gnostic monad? we'd probably be trannies like the directors of the matrix lol

>>16258288
>they only needed a firm metaphysical underpinning
Religion doesn't require anything of the sort.

>>16258288
The One is a absolutely incompatible with the Roman pantheon.

>>16258247
What's up with your picture. It's well know the Edict of Milan in 313 what it did was to make Christianity a licit religion in Rome, it did not tried to force conversion and most of Rome was still pagan. And way before this, there was precendent of Rome trying to adequate Christianity through the law, for example what Antoninus Pius did.
And Constantinus was not someone dumb in any degree, he understood the situation and context of the Empire.

>>16258247
More then likely some other regressive ideology would have sprung into existence to arrest man's artistic and intellectual progress. Consider Communism and it's various off-shoots which are really just Christianity with the mythological elements stripped out. Luddites will always exist and will always find some half-baked philosophy to justify their fear of the future; we will never get our space-stations or atomic-powered automobiles.

>>16258247
Would we be exploring the stars by now?
we would probably be in another dimension by now

>>16259978
Most clueless statement in the thread

>>16259776
No.

>>16260694
>regressive ideology
>Consider Communism and it's various off-shoots which are really just Christianity with the mythological elements stripped out.
>it's all Luddites
This is enough 4chins for the day.

>>16258247
>wOuLD we Be ExPLoRinG tHe STarS bY nOW?
Imagine dunking on Christianity while believing in a crypto-Christian progress narrative...

>>16262401
If what you aspire to is destructive, but you believe yourself progressive, you are regressive.

>>16259171
Birthday parties and christmas are pagan.

>>16258247
We unironically would have been set back so much by it.

>>16258247
christcuck larpers absolutely seething itt

>>16259776
>gnostic monad
what the fuck do you think this means

>>16260694
>Consider Communism and it's various off-shoots which are really just Christianity with the mythological elements stripped out.
retard

>>16258247
Learn this for once: only revealed religions can sustain civilizations, and no, the noetic anabasis of the platonists is not the same revelation as the revelation of the egyptians and christianity.

>>16262882
Explain Mormons

>>16262413
this

>>16258288
By the late empire pagan religion had become so confuse and synchretic that most people were making fun of it anyway. Christian and Jew philosophers were using the weapons of greek philosophy to justify their gods, which incidentally were also all about excluding other gods, while Greeks and Romans tended to include and absorb new pantheons into their own.
Christian religion also had lots to say about masses of poor and huble people, which were swarming the late empire at that point. You tell poor, frightened people living in a decadent empire that they'll go to paradise if they are good, and that they are all sons of god, and that the flesh will be resurrected and they'll believe it.

>>16262856
Would you care to elaborate?

I love how 300 pound shitposters on the internet have the gall to assert that emperor Constantine is inferior in any way to them. He accomplished more in the first 20 years of his life than you will in your entire lifespan. He was more intelligent, charismatic, strong, fit, literally any positive attribute one could possibly think of than you. You are subhuman trash. Constantine was a great man and one of the best leaders of Rome.

>exploring the stars
>christianity held us back!
the midwit reddit motto

>>16263318
>accomplished more
destroying Rome and civilization to give it to fanatic christcucks is not an accomplishment

>>16262368
t. never read plotinus and can't substantiate any refutation because it's absolutely correct.

>>16263318
Are you gonna cry if anyone criticises your muh perfect idolised roman emperor some more?

>animefag
checks out

>>16263349
>>16263386
Lol stay seething Maxentius

>>16263265
you are the one who should elaborate, how does a materialistic cult with the telos of immanentizing the eschaton in purely material conditions, without metaphysics, without mythopoesis, without theurgy, anything close to christianity? and why christianity and not buddhism which is also universalist?

>>16258475
>>16258475
your history teacher was smart.

>>16263445
Both ideologies preach that their followers spend their lives in suffering and self denial, blindly following the orders of the moral authority in order to create a paradise where all are equal. All of that Theology is just bombast that the Church Fathers conjured up to sell their religion to the sophisticated Romans, who venerated Greek philosophy.
>and why christianity and not buddhism which is also universalist?
Buddhism does not preach that suffering is good or that it is noble, nor does it demand that Buddhists force their ideology on unwilling participants, nor does it preach blind submission to authority or harsh penalties for dissidents.

>>16262882
>what is China

>>16263445
Whig History and revolution, anon.

>>16263318
We weren't all lucky enough to have an emperor for a father.

>>16263445
Not that anon but I'll play with you:
because take the Christ out of Christianity, you are left with messianic Judaism. The marxists are messianic because they come from a christian episteme but their context is that of the XIX century when archaeology and paleontology were starting to figure out that there was death before 5000 BC. If there was no fall of Adam then there is no need for Christ, which means he was not the son of God but just the arian Christ all along. If Jesus was just the arian Jesus, then he was just another failed messiah. If he is a failed messiah, then the christian becomes a jew and still waiting for the messiah. Every single revolution since has been the attempt to fulfill this fictional covenant and establish the millenarian kingdom - the problem is that there was never a covenant, there was never a millenarian kingdom, God loves all people the same and there can be no offense against him other than direct hatred against him, and even then, in God man moves and lives and has his being, there is nothing that Man can do against God, only against himself

>>16260694
>progress de facto good
I disagree. Besides, Christianity did more for liberating the human mind for technocratic exploitation and “progressive” thinking than anything prior. There was a small slowdown in technological development but it really cleared the field for pedal-to-the-metal progress

>>16259142
Catholicism created a parasitic celibate class which convinced the most intelligent segment of the European population to not reproduce. The average IQ of whites would be 10+ higher if the god of the Jews just asked for a few virgin sacrifices and not a whole caste of eternal virgins

>>16263763
Let's not play this game, this tiresome game where you pretend that the Dark Ages never happened and pretend that all things that were developed after Christian hegemony were a result of Christian hegemony. It's tiresome and it's pointless. East Africa is highly Christian, why don't you go there and marvel at all the technological marvels they've created as a result of Christianity?

>>16263794
It’s a matter of 1) being great and 2) being liberated for exploitation. Europeans met 1) by default but only met 2) after Christianity hollowed out the European soul. Africans et al. are not great, or as great, as ethnic Europeans. Though if you want to be specific, most “progress” came from Germanics, whether Germs, Anglos, or flesh-suit Ashkenazis.

>>16263860
And why, pray tell, should we assume Christianity had anything at all to do with the Industrial Revolution? Merely because it was present? By the exact same kind of reasoning you could just as easily make the case that the Industrial Revolution came about because Leather shoes "hollowed out the European soul".

>>16263318
I'd watch an anime girl version of Life of Brian.

>>16263918
I don’t think I’m making my point clearly, which I apologize for. I do not think Christianity laid any sort of ideological groundwork for the industrial revolution except for maybe its most basic egotistical thinking. It was much more important in that it cleared out any native sense of self among Europeans. Once mass literacy was possible, they all realized how hollow its doctrines were, they scrambled to find an alternative, which they found amongst various (even more) egotistical and materialistic systems. This materialism was a necessary condition for the industrial revolution, but only flourished because Europe was already hollowed out. The IR simply hollowed out more to use as fuel for its progress.

>>16259978
It was already doing that around the same time.

>>16258247
>How would things have gone down if he had picked up The Enneads of Plotinus instead?
>Would we be exploring the stars by now?
I think the very opposite, Christianities seperation of God and the universe, created the foundations for modern materialism.

>>16258315
>Well are the chinese or maybe the thousand other atheist/pagan people exploring the stars? There is your answer.
The space race was literally started by Commie Russians, so I have no idea what you are going on about.

>>16264003
I understand what you're saying. I just don't think that the greatness of Western Civilisation needs any further explanation, we already know about genetics; and further speculation is futile because there are so many other variables that might have played some part in the rise of Western Civilisation, but we can't perform any kind of empirical experiment to determine which ones mattered and which didn't. Perhaps I'm just biased? I can't imagine universalism had any positive effect on Western Civilisation, even accidentally.

>>16263748
christcucks can't refute this

>>16263548
>Both ideologies preach that their followers spend their lives in suffering.
Where? Penitence comes from interiority and recognition of one's injustices and sins, acts worth of reprimands, this power can only come from the HS, which is literally called the Comforter.
>Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
>I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you that you fear mere mortals, human beings who are but grass.
The life of a monk is not imposed on every christian, there is something called vocation.

>self-denial
yes, and this is what Platonism, Hinduism (everywhere in Vedanta, Kashmir Shaivism), Buddhism, Islamism, Taoism and gnostic sects teach. What do you think self-denial implies?

>All of that Theology [...] who venerated Greek philosophy.
First: theology implements nothing new. Everything is already in the Scriptures. I know you have never opened a single book on christian theology by any Father (and I doubt you open books in general for being so ignorant like this), Scripture is the basis of every theological work, this is not a particularity of Christianity.
Second: ''venerated'' Greek philsoophy, what a brutish way to even conceive such a falsity; Christianity had a direct influence of jewish mysticism like Merkabah, the Essenes. Even though you have Fathers who rightly understand Platonism to be spot-on about many issues, this is no unanimity.

>Buddhism does not preach that suffering is good or that it is noble
Does Christianity? This amounts to saying that it preaches that what is bad is good. It is not suffering in itself that MAY be good, but what it acomplishes. Punishment is not evil, but the fact of deserving to be punished.

>nor does it demand that Buddhists force their ideology on unwilling participants.
Nor does Christianity. Buddhism has buddhist missionaries in case you don't know (yes, you don't because you listen to what teachers told you in american schools).

>preach blind submission to authority.
They do preach submission to Buddha, to the Dalai-Lamas, their spiritual leaders. And this is not restricted to Buddhism and Christianity, there is the same with sannyasin in advaita and other hindu schools. But this ''submission'' is not a submission to a person, but to the doctrines, the leaders are self-denied, they dedicate selflessly to the doctrine.
Anyway I know this is a waste of time to talk to someone like you, don't spend your time replying to me because I'm not wasting time with you anymore. I recommend you to start reading books.

>>16263748
>take the Christ out of Christianity
yes, how did you know that taking out Christ of Christianity there would not be Christianity anymore?

>The marxists are messianic because they come from a christian episteme
So the messianic Judaism come from a ''christian episteme'' even though they precede it? Not even coherent with your own fallacies.

>arian Christ
ok now I know you're not dumb and is just baiting.

>>16264147
>So the messianic Judaism come from a ''christian episteme'' even though they precede it?
Talmud was written down after the books of the
Bible, Talmudic Judaism did not originate from Christianity, but it did develop in opposition to it....

>>16264077
I think the next step in analysis is about what technological thinking requires. Imagine if everyone where a die-hard stoic or else a nature-loving “pagan”. Would technological exploitation be possible in those cases? I don’t think so, at least not to the extent we see today. Yes, Rome had advanced technologies and may have continued on that route had things turned out differently. Still, I want to tease out that there is another power at play here, not just human will. Already with Rome features were being selected that would benefit technological progress. Universalism is one of them, hence why Christianity won out. Technological thinking requires some input for a desired output. The input’s qualities do not matter so long as the output is reached. As technological society desires its own furthering, it desires any input that will yield that result. If you section off a part of humanity, you potentially risk missing a desired input.
Now, how is it that genetics determines the quality of a people yet the system demand universality? We agree that Europeans provided the best fuel to technological fire, but the question is how Christianity played a role in liberating that fuel. Well, it’s basic idea that everyone is de facto equal means justifying hierarchy is impossible. Once hierarchy is abolished, you liberate everyone previously locked into lower classes, where there were definitely some very intelligent people relegated to non-progressive work. The universality across peoples is secondary to the universality within a people. Once everyone is considered equally expendable, those valuable fuel sources (ie intelligent people) are now free to contribute to technology. At the same time, they would not contribute if they had a true sense of self. Hence why Christianity is important in 1) introducing universality and 2) destroying the native sense of self.
I think Europe would have eventually had a technological breakthrough without Christianity, but I think at the same time similar events to Christianity would have unfolded to make that a real possibility

>>16264147
>So the messianic Judaism come from a ''christian episteme'' even though they precede it? Not even coherent with your own fallacies.
yes, it is christianity taken one step back, if christianity is not one continuous spirit from the israelite religion then orthodox christians wouldn't believe themselves to be Israel, albeit expanded. If Christ can no longer serve as the annointed Son of God then all that happens is that you take a step back. And yeah you are right it is not arian Jesus, it is Jesus as "a very fine teacher but not the son of God and certainly not God", I don't remember anymore what heresy that is

>>16264147
>The life of a monk is not imposed on every christian, there is something called vocation.

There is a great big book in the Bible filled with laws that even the laity must obey, these rules are usually applied inconstantly, because they are so numerous and burdensome that any attempt to apply all of them results in a Totalitarian state. People are told that these laws are there for their own good. The theological "why and wherefore" of these laws was conjured up after the fact to legitimise the power structure, it is of no consequence.
>What do you think self-denial implies?
In this context? Deliberately inculcating inside a person a neurotic fear of participating in perfectly harmless activities (like playing sport on Sunday or listening to "Decadent, Western" Rock music.)
> Everything is already in the Scriptures.
Yes, that is what Christians have to believe, but nobody else has to.
> Punishment is not evil, but the fact of deserving to be punished.
It's very useful for Christians, that they are qualified to dispense justice as they please and all others are totally unfit for the task. The government authorities in Communist countries are similarly enlightened.
>Christianity does not seek converts.
Some Christians disagree, but that's not real Christianity. I learned this in American school, it was quite a challenge swimming across the Atlantic every morning to get to class, but that's the price you pay for a world-class education.
>this ''submission'' is not a submission to a person, but to the doctrines
How fortunate for the pope that this distinction means nothing in reality.
>don't spend your time replying to me
Right you are, Sarge.

>>16264246
There is no Christianity taken a step back. Christianity does not believe it is from Israelite religion, but that Israelite religion was already christian, why do you think we value so much the prophets, the OT with many hints at Trinity, the coming of Christ?
>If Christ can no longer serve as the annointed Son of God then all that happens is that you take a step back.
There is no step back, you insist on this to make your fallacy that Christianity is what it isn't. Christianity is the fulfillmente of the OT, of the Revelations.

>Arian Jesus
What are you on about with this, honestly? You keep making jumps from one point to another altogether disconnected.

>>16264312
yes that's why I called it "christian episteme" and not "israelite episteme". Your ideology, like many others but also unlike many others, is a linear one, it depends on going from A to B to C. From Covenant to Waiting for the Messiah to Having that Messiah. Unfortunately the people eventually were forced to admit that the way the Messiah was presented - namely, that there used to be no Death in the garden but Adam and Eve fucked up somewhere around 5000 BC and so we need to wait for Jesus to come and Death stops existing - was a pile of crap, and naturally, they strayed away from that Messiah that "fulfilled the Covenant". So if your Covenant can no longer be fulfilled by the Messiah then you tell me, which one of those three episodes aforementioned does the fanatical christcuck goes back to? To millenarianism. So now all you need is a new deranged person to say that them or their party is the Messiah and revolutions happen.

The problem is that the ideology is built upon lies. There is no "covenant", why the fuck would God show any favoritism towards one or another people, why the fuck would he set them up in the garden the whole christian attempt at "History" makes no fucking sense.

Saying that marxism is the same christian spirit is true just like saying that the chinese revolution is the same confucian spirit predicated on the Mandate of Heaven.

>>16263970
Brai-chan no Nichijou

>>16264389
You are truly mentally ill. Nothing you say is coherent.
>Linearity
I guess that is how everything within time works: through succession.
>Adam and Eve fucked up somewhere around 5000 BC and so we need to wait for Jesus to come and Death stops existing
You assume things I have never heard of even, lol. He already came and his second coming is in the Dissolution, there will be no earth anymore.

>favoritism
there is no favoritism, things happened like they should have been and the ones who understood it understand what Christianity is.

>why the fuck would he set them up in the garden the whole christian attempt at "History" makes no fucking sense.
Oh you also think that God is a bearded guy among the clouds, right? And no, this is no ''christian history''.
You make no sense at all, you are just desperate and unstable.

>>16264147
>Nor does Christianity
lol

>>16264544
Based.

>>16262836
:')

>>16263349
>larpagan unironically thinks that christianity destroyed Rome
This is hilarious.

Constantine was already aware of Plotinus and pretty much any other Greek and Roman philosopher. He spent a good chunk of his life as a pagan who studied those people.

>>16264711
>larpagan
delusional dumb fanatic, i was born and raised with christianity, christianity destroying Rome and european culture to adopt a semitic one is a fact

>>16263784
>implying that christianity forced high IQ people to become celibate
lmao

>>16263349
Look at this dumb fuck

>>16263784
oh yeah celibacy is exclusive to christianity! i swear you people can't be this dumb, this is pure hatred for what you don't even know about

>>16264732
>european culture
>semitic
literally everytime. you people don't even have a functioning soul anymore, you are just like the extreme opposite of sjws and other idpols

>>16264732
>Rome was destroyed because it became christian
The exact opposite is the truth you ill-educated retard.
Rome became christian because it was being destroyed.
Christianity would never have found fertile ground in an empire of strong religiosity and common indentity. Christianity became a success exactly because Rome was an empire full of corruption, ethnic tensions, no social cohesion, and a resentment between the masses and the ruling classes.

The empire already had cracks that christianity filled with it's social teachings and charitable function. The reason Rome became christian is because it was falling apart already.

But retarded larpagans like you literally believe that paganism stronk even though christianity defeated you in every regard.

>>16264844
Read Spengler.

>>16264727
Yeah, it really comes down to the actual answer, which was >>16258343. The Pagan religions couldn't give Constantine an organization to staff the ranks of his completion of Diocletian's Oriental Imperium. Christianity could.

>>16258413
Humans are not. Millions of people are striving to peer through the veil of maya and couldn't give less of a fuck about austistic science dweebery.

>>16264867
You think Romans did not have anything from Greek culture? And you think Greeks didn't base their culture on egyptian and other near eastern cultures? Do you know what Platonism is even?

>>16264878
No, India is also doing a lot of astronomical legwork.

The only people who don't care about space are soulless and brainless.

>>16264844
>literally no argument
>unironically accusing people of fanatism while acting like one
Christianity is rotting your brain
>>16264862
So you're saying christianity took hold of a moment of weakness to spread root into the empire, thanks for confirming chirstianity as a disease

>>16264910
Are you the schizo that deciphered Pythagoreanism from the pyramid texts or whatever? Go read a book on the Greeks before posting again, dumbass.

>>16264911
I never said anything about India. I was talking about genuine hindus.

>>16258343
>there was no set political doctrine
ok you have never even read Plato.

>Plotinus btfo christian doctrines
where? augustine loved plotinus and employed a lot of plotinian platonism into his writings. plotinus wrote a treatise against gnostics but not against christians, in fact, plotinus's teacher - ammonius saccas - advocated for a complete compatibility between paganism and christianity.
in sum: you don't know what you're talking about

>>16264053
you are retarded, it was the scientific advancement of the nazis that gave the ruskies and gringos the ability to go to space

>>16264919
>So you're saying christianity took hold of a moment of weakness to spread root into the empire, thanks for confirming chirstianity as a disease
I will spell this out for you because you are clearly a retard and have this satanic upside down way of seeing the world.

If the Empire was sick and Christianity took root and helped social cohesion and helped build a common identity, then it was a cure for the disease that was the detachment of Rome's government from the masses it ruled.

If muh stronk pagan empire fell for something as weak as christianity that must mean that muh stronk pagan empire wasn't stronk at all.
Paganism died out for a reason.

>>16264921
that is common knowledge, read anything about orphism, eleusinian mysteries and pythagoreanism.

>>16264919
you don't even know where roman culture comes from and keep advocating for a cause solely based on identitarian politics. and you have the nerve to call others fanatics.

>>16264959
>>16264945
I told you to go read a book, dumbfuck. If you're going to keep babbling your gibberish, put on a trip so we don't have to see it.

>>16264958
>this disease took hold of this dying body turned it into a zombie and you he should feel happy about it
I dont know man I'd rather die, pic related is christianity
>pagan pagan pagan pagan
that ancient buzzword

>>16264979
>baseless assumption
>personal attack followed by no arguments
Cultist

>>16265008
can you be sane for one minute, please? i have told you to read plato, diogenes laertius, iamblichus, proclus, plotinus, thomas taylor, uzdavinys, herodotus, books on orphism and eleusinian mysteries, all on which i base everything i say and you simply go insane everytime.

>>16264958
dont worry replying to insane people in this thread, they are driven by a hatred so powerful they can no longer have a glimpse of reasonability.

>>16265069
>they can no longer have a glimpse of reasonability.
ironic for a christian to say this

>>16265069
Exactly.

>>16263784
Catholicism upped European IQs by ending cousin marriage.

>>16264958
Christianity provided social cohesion, but at a great cost to intellectual / philosophical / spiritual prowess. Western Civisilation is in many ways still living in the shadow of it.

Constantine made a deal with the devil. He would get his order, his stability, his cohesion, but he would sacrifice spiritual insight in return.

>>16258475

>>16265260
>Constantine made a deal with the devil by making a fringe religion (amongst other fringe religions) legal.
Daily reminder that Constantine did NOT make christianity into the state religion of Rome.

It's hilarious to see pagans cope with the triumph of Christendom over Rome, a triumph that was caused by the hands of the very pagans who ruled that pagan society.

Please indulge me, what spiritual insight did Rome offer? We talk of an empire that incorporated the gods of it's conquered. With all the insight those wise pagan fags had, how could they not predict that their own deeds will cause the fall of their empire? Why didn't they institute policies that would have forced the people of Rome to shape up spiritually instead of letting their religiosity plummet into superstition and decadence?

Make no mistake, Rome was home to the original cafeteria spirituality. You could pick whatever cult happened to strike your fancy, and the result was pluralism and division. Christianity filled these cracks because it hadd the better theology, the better ideas, the better morality, and the better way of organizing themselves.

Christianity would have never caught on if the pagans weren't incompetent buffoons, and by allowing Christianity to prove itself the better force, Paganism totally lost the plot and exposed it's own inadequacy.

Paganism lost because it literally couldn't compete.
Sorry, but your fantasies are just that. Fantasies.

>>16265315
>Daily reminder that Constantine did NOT make christianity into the state religion of Rome.
This. Lots of plebs and people that ignore the story of Rome here.

>>16265260
>cost to intellectual / philosophical / spiritual prowess.
who is Roger Bacon, Alcuin, Augustine, Thomas Bradwardine, Robert Grossetest, Aquinas, St. Maximus, Fibonacci, Ficino, Peter Abelard. Not to mention the myriad of christian mystics. Why do people love to attack what they have no knowledge of?

>>16265260
Roman ''religion'' was a state religion. Spirituality in rome was null, true intellectuality - metaphysics and theology - was aboslutely null as well. Rome was utter decadence, paganism in Rome was degenerated ready to disappear.

>>16258343

The Chinese, who are using reverse engineered and stolen designs from Western nations. Right, great example.