Why Did Christianity Take Over?

True ... Christianity was pretty much forced onto the people by the nobility. Other than Moslems and Christians, however, I really don't know of too many other religions who did things this way. Lots of cultures simply wiped out the opposition or enslaved them, but not too many decided to take just take over using religion.

Yeah ... I know about Asatru. When Christians try to tell me why I should worship their God, I like to sing:

Gimmie that Old Time Religion!!
It was good enough for
great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great
grampa and it's good enough for me!

(probably didn't get enough "great"'s in there, but you get the idea)

... however ...

This idea that there has to be some kind of supreme being involved seems nutty to me no matter who the supreme being is ... Asatru supreme beings included.

3 votes

#2 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 1:43 PM EST

ngp256

there really have not been many, nor any religions like the abrahamic ones who go through civilizations and wipe them out, or force convert them to their religion by sword point/gun point, etc. It's really quite sad to think how many of my ancestors may have been brutally murdered by the xtians. Makes me glad Im not one anymore.

2 votes

#2.1 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:22 PM EST

Hey! I'll go you one better. I'm glad I never have been one.

... however ...

Surely you're not suggesting that our common ancestors, the Vikings, were kind and gentle forest beings. Vikings struck terror into the whole of Europe as far east as Constantinople. But they didn't care (and didn't bother to ask) if you worshipped Christ or an oak tree before they split your skull with an axe. (Druids worshipped oak trees, by the way.)

So ... I don't think we can look down on Christians because they were so cruel and barbaric. I think our folks gave them pretty fair competition in that area.

2 votes

#2.2 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:17 PM EST

ngp256

um, actually that is not true. Now while they were great warriors, and had the best iron of the age. They were not barbaric, brutal on the battle field yes, but not murderous. They didnt war for religion, nor murdered women, and children. They didnt torture people. Vikings btw were explorers. Now yes they did war with the xtians of that time, but they were not beatable via the battlefield. So xtians infiltrated via politics(bribes, sweet words, and lies mostly). Viking refers mainly to the explorers of new lands, and exploration expeditions. The correct term for the germanic people's of old, are Norse, Norsemen, and Norsewomen. Vikings as we know of them today are pretty much white wash, hollywood fakery.

1 vote

#2.3 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:33 PM EST

Well ... you're right about the Hollywood fakery. (Horns, for example.) But ... Ja! They were brutal bloodthirsty folk. (Along with pretty much everybody else at the time.) They didn't say, "Please" and "Thank you" when they raided pretty much every settlement on the coast. The Roman Emperors at Constantinople hired the Viking mercenary Varangian Guard because they were generally meaner than the junkyard dog. Read the Edda.

But, Hey! Think what you want to think.

1 vote

#2.4 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 5:57 PM EST

This is how the Church took over. Consider it Christianity 101....

Let's go for a little history tour shall we? And you'll see just how much of a bigot the Church is.

It's the beginning of the 4th century AD, the Roman Empire is on the verge of falling. Constantine, the last Caesar (Roman Emperor) has to carry the shame of such a thing happening during his reign. But wait!! Hope perhaps? There is a way to preserve the Roman Empire!!

A little interruption here... A little known fact that Christians suppress is that Christianity was NOT in fact a major religion at this point. As a matter of fact, they were not called Christians at ALL. They were called The Way and they were the new kids on the block so to speak compared to Judaism, and the Pagan religions which incidentally Constantine followed.

Back to the story...

So anyway, here sits Constantine with an idea in his head. Now he has to make it come true so he gathers the Council of Nicaea to assist him. Think of them as an advertising firm. Since The Way is young and relatively malleable, Constantine picks it to shape and bend to his will and with the Council at his service they begin to figure out the best way to turn the Roman Empire into what became the Roman Catholic Church. The answer is in the publicity campaign.

So, what's the first thing you need in any good advertisement? You need a symbol. Easy enough, there is Jesus. However, Jesus as he was known back then wasn't a powerful enough symbol. Sure, many did believe he was the son of God and that he performed miracles and such but for the most part, 300 yrs later, he was just treated as another prophet the way Abraham or Isaac or Moses were. Writings about him even said he was married and had kids.

This was in fact where the lies and manipulation that the Church continues to perpetrate to this day started. The Council could not have a regular joe as a symbol of their campaign. Jesus had to be larger than life to be followed and they got rid of every single writing they could find that said otherwise. This was where the New Testament we know today was born. The Council only included books that described his supernatural nature.

What else can be done? Aha!! The Council needs to make sure that symbols used in the worship of other religions are taken over by this new state sponsored one. It's a smart decision. Many Christians don't know this or simply ignore it but the reason Church is on Sunday is NOT based on the Bible. Sunday was chosen as the day of worship because of the God Ra. Why? Because Ra was the God of the Sun in Egyptian mythology. Can you make the connection here? Sun? Day? :) It was a way to steal the holiday from the Pagans.

Another holiday stolen from the Pagans was the winter solstice. It falls on December 21st. But wait, isn't December 25th the birth of Jesus? Right you are!! It was set that way so that the celebration of the solstice would be taken over by the celebration of the birth of Jesus instead. IF Jesus was real and IF you pay attention to the Bible writings, he would have really been born around spring or even summer because writings say that when Mary and Joseph were fleeing King Herod and his order to kill first-borns, now known as The Massacre Of Innocents, they would see cattle grazing. No same farmer would let cattle graze in winter.

So now you got the symbol and a set of rules to follow when you join this new religion. The problem is you have no hook to sucker non-hardcore Pagans and Jews in. Hmmmm, what to do, what to do? Eureka!! You make them a promise!! A promise that you know you can't keep and the sheep won't find out if it's real or not until they die anyway. Either way you're covered. What's the promise? Eternal salvation if you follow. The piece of resistance for this was when Constantine made a big show of converting to Christianity himself. It suckered people in big time because he was a big celebrity in his day. Think how many peeps converted to Scientology just to follow Tom Cruise?

That's the beginning of the bigotry that to this day it's felt. Some Christians are genuinely good people, I don't deny that. But even with the nice Christians, their Church has indoctrinated them to believe that they should pity non-believers for not being "saved" by the grace of their God. And in some cases, that Church inspired compulsion to "save" non-believers has turned into fear and hate. As an example I give you what is happening in this country to this day.

5 votes

#3 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 7:59 PM EST

Andrew, you forgot the point about making stuff up to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, such as the BS about him being of the house of David. Descendency followed partriarchical lines back then, so without a human father, he wasn't of the house of David at all. And someone else - I think on ndeep's article about Light and so forth that he wrote in response to our discussions with him about the speed of light - pointed out that Mary was of the house of Ruth, and would have been considered subhuman or something. I need to read that again, it was interesting.

4 votes

#3.1 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:20 PM EST

Andrew, you forgot the point about making stuff up to make it appear that Jesus fulfilled prophecy, such as the BS about him being of the house of David. Descendency followed partriarchical lines back then, so without a human father, he wasn't of the house of David at all.

I didn't forget, I was just too lazy to put it in lol.

The whole making Mary Magdalene into a prostitute instead of Jesus's wife lie makes the patriarchy point just as sharply, maybe even more so considering it's one of many contradictions in doctrine which says marriage is sacred.

You have to wonder why the Church would hide Jesus's marriage. I figure that if they had kept it on the record, they might even have more power. After all, if even the son of God was married, why wouldn't the suckers that follow him be?

4 votes

#3.2 - Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:32 PM EST

Ripley8

katrix

aside from a long list of characteristics that the Messiah is supposed to have met and Jesus does not, foremost of which is that if Jesus is the Son of God, He cannot be a descendent of David, because descent is traced only through the male line. And if Jesus is not a descendent of David, he cannot be the Messiah. In order to get Jesus to be a descendent of David, you MUST trace descent through Mary (Unless you don't believe in that virgin birth stuff and trace descent through Joseph, in which case, Jesus is the son of Joseph, not the Son of God.).

BUT, if you allow descent through the female line, then you run into Moses' prophesy that the Messiah cannot be a descendant of either a Moabite or an Amorite, and yet Jesus is both.

The insurmountable problem is that David is a descendent of Ruth, thus no descendent of David's can be the Messiah, and yet, the Messiah must be a descendant of David. Those requirements can be met by only one condition: no Messiah is ever coming.

3 votes

#3.3 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:53 AM EST

Fascinating Stuff!!

In my piece, I wrote, "Why Christianity instead of, say, "Paulianity" is another question." This isn't exactly that other question, but it's very close.

You folks are obviously better versed in early Christianity than I am. (As my NewsVine bio states, I'm actually a techie. But this kind of thing has always interested me.)

I'll quibble with only one point Andrew made: "Constantine, the last Caesar (Roman Emperor)". Ummm ... no ... there were lots after that.

The idea that the Roman Empire "fell" in 476 is a latter day invention. They didn't fall, they just moved their capital to Constantinople. The Western Empire certainly more or less disintegrated. But the Eastern Empire lived on. The people who lived in Constantinople thought of themselves as Romans at least up through Heraclius. And, although the language and the structure of the state changed at that time, they still thought of themselves as Romans throughout what is now called the Byzantine Empire (a name invented by German historians which was unknown to them as well).

I'm doing a book that involves Vikings in the Mediterranian. Do you folks know anything about that?

3 votes

#4 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:44 AM EST

I'll quibble with only one point Andrew made: "Constantine, the last Caesar (Roman Emperor)". Ummm ... no ... there were lots after that.

Perhaps I should have qualified that. It is agreed by many that other "Caesars" after him, except maybe for his son were not formally appointed. For example, after Constantine came Maxentius who seized the throne, then Maximinus who was an adopted child therefore not of the line and then Licinius who became Caesar of the west as you said but by that time the Empire had pretty much broken.

2 votes

#4.1 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 12:56 AM EST

Porter, you won't get much argument here if you want to call it Paulinity. There have already been some very interesting discussions about that whole subject, and it's quite interesting.

3 votes

#4.2 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:05 AM EST

I'm doing a book that involves Vikings in the Mediterranian. Do you folks know anything about that?

What exactly do you wanna know? Viking history is expansive. You gotta narrow it down.

I know that Vikings were extremely well traveled. They even set up a colony in Canada centuries before Columbus stumbled into America. They also traveled the Mediterranean all the way to the Middle East.

You folks are obviously better versed in early Christianity than I am.

I was a Christian when I was a kid but after I started questioning Christianity, I never stopped so I have educated myself in lots about it and many other religions. I find the whole subject fascinating.

3 votes

#4.3 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:19 AM EST

I'm doing a book that involves Vikings in the Mediterranian. Do you folks know anything about that?

You probably already know this, but here I go;

I have read that one branch of the Normans (Northmen) conquered Sicily and set up a dynasty there.

On another note, there is Harold Hardrada. He and some 500 of his followers were mercenaries for the Byzantines after he was exiled from Norway for political reasons. He later returned to Norway and reclaimed his crown. He also was a claimant to the throne of England, where his cousin, Harold Godwinson, was king. They had another cousin, William of Normandy, who claimed the crown of England as well.

The rest is English history. See the Battle of Stamford Bridge and the Battle of Hastings.

#4.4 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:27 PM EST

WLGarrison

A great book about the salesmanship of Christianity is Bruce Barton's The Man Nobody Knows (1925),

1 vote

#5 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:19 PM EST

Thanks folks. Got all that about the Vikings. Harold must have been quite a guy to span two cultures and be such a force in both of them.

There's a story ... (probably apocryphal, but if there is any confirmatory evidence, I'd like to know about it) ... that Harold escaped from Constantinople over the great chain protecting the Golden Horn by loading all the weight in the back of his longship, running the front up over the top of the chain, and then transferring the load to the front so the ship would slide down and over the chain.

Anybody hear that story before?

#6 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:04 PM EST

I had never heard that story before, but I do know that he and his men had to sneak out because the Emperor refused them permission to leave.

#6.1 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:33 PM EST

When was that dynasty in Sicily supposed to have been established?

#7 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:06 PM EST

From Wikipedia:

By the 11th century mainland southern Italian powers were hiring Norman mercenaries, who were descendants of the Vikings; it was the Normans under Roger I who conquered Sicily, taking it away from the Arab Muslims.^[2] After taking Apulia and Calabria, he occupied Messina with an army of 700 knights. In 1068, Roger Guiscard and his men defeated the Muslims at Misilmeri but the most crucial battle was the siege of Palermo, which led to Sicily being completely under Norman control by 1091.

While I don't think Wikipedia is the definitive source, I often find it to be a good starting place.

#7.1 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:28 PM EST

What would the Vikings have called the Moslems who lived in North Africa? (What name would they have used?)

#8 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 7:11 PM EST

Moors maybe? That's what most Europeans called them in those days, I think.

1 vote

#8.1 - Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:31 PM EST

I believe Moors is correct.

1 vote

#8.2 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:45 PM EST

Moors maybe? That's what most Europeans called them in those days, I think.

It is correct. In fact one of the 9 Crusades involved getting the Moors out of the Iberian peninsula since they had settled in Spain and Portugal for many centuries by then.

1 vote

#8.3 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:50 PM EST

That's what I've been calling them. (Moors) Didn't know if that would have been correct or not. Vikings had their own names for a lot of things and I was wondering if there was a better one. I have two characters - Sayyidi al-Muizz ibn Aqeel - (the leader) and al-Mahdia (the master of one Moorish ship). Do those names sound right?

#9 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 5:12 PM EST

Dang, Porter. NV's motto is "get smarter here" and now I'm going to have to look both of those up, because you got my curiosity up. I'm not sure whether to be glad that you made me curious, or to curse you because I actually had some other stuff I wanted to research ;)

The other stuff I had to research is dry IRS stuff about setting up a charitable org, so I think I'll thank you.

Googling Sayyidi al-Muizz ibn Aqeel only brings up a single link about Islamic Mysticism. Googling al-Mahdia brings up stuff that sounds very messiah-like in some ways. Sounds interesting to explore further.

1 vote

#9.1 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:23 PM EST

Have fun! The variations of Sufism make for interesting reading.

1 vote

#9.2 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:32 PM EST

This is from Answers.com - granted, not an authoritative source. al-Mahdia:

Among Mohammedans, the last imam or leader of the faithful. The Sunni, the largest sect of the Mohammedans, believe that he is yet to appear.

So now I'm going to have to find more credible sources, and then find out what the Shiites and other Muslim sects think about him ... although Walker, maybe you could write an article, since you just made me look up Sufism ;)

1 vote

#9.3 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 9:37 PM EST

I wish I had time to write more.

After 9/11, I asked myself, "do these people represent Islam or are they fringe wackos" so I went to the library and read everything I could find about Islam and Middle Eastern history. (Answer: wackos)

I could have swore I friended you a long time ago. Guess not. FR sent.

#9.4 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:21 PM EST

Accepted! Thank you. Always nice to have friends who like learning.

#9.5 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:13 PM EST

I should have made myself more clear. These are names I made up. The book I'm working on is a novel. I just wanted the names to sound realistic. And since "al-Mahdia" is a bit too grand for the character, I think I'll change it now.

#10 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:22 PM EST

LOL - that is hilarious, Porter! al-Mahdia is actually a real name in Islamic mythology, and now I'm still going to look further into it.

1 vote

#10.1 - Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:24 PM EST

Well ... We name our kids names like Apollo ... sometimes. I'll be interested to see what you come up with. If the Vikings had a more "norse" name for the Moorish ships, I'd be interested in that too.

#10.2 - Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:38 AM EST

Jasper-4764057

Greetings Commenters. I have been following your emails concerning Christianity. I attended college to get an education , I thought. I learned You begin to really learn when you get your first job. But now I'm thinking You never stop learning. Thank you very much . I hope I can read more of your conversations. Jasper

2 votes

#11 - Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:41 PM EST