If the teachings of Jesus Christ (love, peace, charity, forgiveness, the golden rule, mercy...

well, all I know is that 2.2 billion people disagree with you in theory.

So then why would Greeks for example, adopt a religion which was (supposedly) preaching the same message as Plato's (and other philosophers) teachings?

Most people don't even know what the fuck they believe in beyond 'muh jesus' and 'muh ten commandments'.

everyone knows the sermon on the mount, literally e v e r y o n e.

do you have a memory problem or did you just block out ideas that conflict with your own?

I swear if I asked most of my nominally Christian family members or acquaintances what the Sermon on the Mount was they would probably give me a blank stare.

*tips fedora*

Unlike us supreme gentlemen who are enlightened by our own intelligence.

still doesn't mean that the guilt won't hit them as hard as any other.

also checked

>hurr hurr fedora hurr

Fuck off.

I don't have anything against Christians but if you think a large chunk of those 2 billion aren't hopeless when it comes to do with theology or Christian history you're mistaken.

they all love jesus, and they know it

>simply points out that many Christians are ignorant about their own religion
>lol fedora meme XD

"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

Constantine. This is a bit of a silly question. Various Christian concepts were anticipated, but they didn't have a Roman conqueror to make them the default of the elite. I mean, Plato was an honorary Christian for how long?

sorry to hurt your aesthetics, desu.

>they were common before Jesus
no they weren't. Everyone was being sinful when he arrived

>hinduism
literally just an ooga booga cow worshiping religion that only survived because Indians breed like rats
>Buddhist
Same thing

Why is all this sociology shit based on thinking that "all religions are equal"? Of course ooga booga pagan shit from the far east is not equal to Christianity.

>taking the quote out of context
Good job

>burgerclap studies history in his bible class.

So why did Constantine adopt the beliefs of a semitic desert cult based around a storm/war god and his son?
What about Greek philosophy which talked about platonic love?

2 Kings 2:23-25

>Elisha Is Jeered
>23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. 25 And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.

What did he mean by this?

It means he's so calm

tfw Israelites used to kill philistines without shrugging.

Because Platonism was actually a radical philosophy at odds with paganism, despite what the Neoplatonists would have us believe. No practicing pagan lived according to the philosophy of Plato, but then it came this new religion where asceticism, contemplation, etc., played an important role and philosophically-minded people such as Justin, Origen and Augustine saw it as a chance to LARP their Platonic ideals IRR.

Right now? Masses of inbred plebs vote for their own guys and put them in the office.

t. The Grauniad

So instead of practicing a philosophy openly which had been around hundreds of years and accepted as being traditionally Greek, these people decided they would attach themselves to a completely foreign belief system just so they can practice certain Platonic teachings which this new religion has vague similarities to?

I guess crazier things have happened.

All belief systems were created by man, there has never been any holy book created without someone to attempt to translate spirit into words.

don't be a bully
>sticks and stones can break my bones but words can literally kill you

for you

I think so, yes. People need validation from ancient opinion or official sources. It is never just enough to have or to practice a philosophy.

Other platonic elements that are found in Christianity but not found in paganism as practiced by the common people (not the philosophers):

Immortality of the soul (only philosophers believed that; it was not a given in paganism)
Virtue (not even the gods practiced virtue; in Christianity if you're not good you go to Hades)
One God (Platonists were henotheists that conceived the principle of everything as one and a demiurge or creator; Christians had a similar story)

that's why deep ecology is the best

>these people decided they would attach themselves to a completely foreign belief system just so they can practice certain Platonic teachings which this new religion has vague similarities to?
>I guess crazier things have happened.
For some reason I'm reminded of Buddhism in China. Though I can't elaborate on the parallels right now.

There was a Platonic-Aristotelian cultural élite, because everybody who could read, did read them, but without a clear way to reshape society according to such ideas. Yes, I am aware that Plato and Aristotle disagree on a number of issues.

Enter the Church, and a religion that teaches things they agree with.

Now they have the opportunity to get the masses to dance to their tune.

All they need is a Christian emperor.

>why did Constantine adopt the beliefs of a semitic desert cult based around a storm/war god and his son?
That's not the message the pre-Constantine Church Fathers obtained from their exegesis of the Septuagint and the New Testament.

Or Paul of Tarsus with the Septuagint, for that matter.

Monotheism was attractive to fully pagan emperors too, like the cult of the Deus Sol Invictus. Aurelian made it an official cult.

"One god for one empire" sounds attractive enough, "one church for one empire", too.

>why is it Christianity took the ancient world by storm and became the dominant religion of Europe and much of Asia/middle east within 500 years?
Because it agreed with them and told them what they wanted to hear.

You're acting as if Vulgata + Corpus Platonicum + Corpus Aristotelicum aren't the trinity of literature, theology and thought around the Latin-speaking world.

What if there was no need for an empire?

>took world by storm
>31.4% population
>soon to be outnumbered by islam

Honestly, it took off because Christianity is EASY.

Other religions require study. Christianity requires you to say you love something.

Lutheran scum detected.

The point is, the Church WAS the Empire.

Well, the Western empire did go out of the picture, but the Platonic-Aristotelian cultural élite did survive it, and indeed they became only stronger.

Pope Gregory the Great even managed to converte to orthodox, Nicene, Catholic Christianity the barbarians in/from Iberia, France and Germany.

In fact the Church in the West established its monopoly over education beyond year 476, and used Plato and Aristotle not only to interpret one another, but the Scriptures as well, a process that may have started even back to the earliest New Testament writings, the Corpus of Pauline Epistles, and the latest, the Gospel of John. The NT was a collection of Greek writings, after all, let's not forget what I said about cultured Greek speakers and their Platonic-Aristotelian foundation.

The Holy Roman Empire was supposed to be a project universal for the whole world, as much as the Catholic Church, but for political power in this world rather than a mission for the next.

And what about the Eastern Empire?

I wouldn't know how to answer your question, because between popes and kings, between the attempts at reinstating or reconstructing the Empire in the West, and its survival in the East, I really can't see why would anyone even think outside of giving Caesar his due.

All I'm saying is that Christianity won because there were some of the most brilliant minds around being very interested and invested in it.

>the Church WAS the Empire.

But it's meant to be global, and encompass all people right, not to mention to stewardship to maintain nature (noah's ark, also the rainbow promising it will never be repeated)?

Druid, actually.

In a word, Paul.

A brilliant PR man, Paul also reshaped Jesus-ism into something designed to appeal to a broad customer base.

Yeah, in all honest, all of Christianity as we know it s Paul's interpretation on it subsuming anything it could have otherwise been by him really pushing "you don't have to be a Jew to be saved guys! oh also your gods suck and mine's better."