Greco-Roman vs Christian Mythology

With Christianity the mythology was actively being developed. The saints are basically the equivalent of Greek heroes.

Roman people would literally believe anything that benefited them, and the other stupid cult shit they did proves it. The whole reason why Constantine converts is a completely arbitrary situation where he chose to ask God for victory and because he won he said "fuck it, it works." If he prayed to Amaterasu before the battle then The Empire would have been Shinto.

the Epistle of Hebrews and the gospel of John are riddled with Platonist terminology. I'm sure you're familiar with the famous opening line of John "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." "Word" in the original greek is Logos
also
>transcending the material
do you not see how this is similar to christianity? Paul's "ruler of this world"?

>The saints are basically the equivalent of Greek heroes.
No, more like the Hebrew prophets.

The Word is literally use the masculine term used to refer to the Wisdom of God. You can read the theology behind that in Proverbs 8

Satan is effectively ruler of the world in the OT, see Job

Pretty terrible deal. Christianity sounds like an used-car salesman.

At least it isn't Buddhism where you gotta try and if you fail they just say "sorry thanks for playing kek"

All Christians gotta do is believe, Good works versus Sola Fide isn't a question until after Jesus.

Embracing suffering is more life-affirming desu

Sola Fide wasn't a doctrine taught until the Reformation

Yeah, that's why I said it wasn't a question of either or. Paul certainly discusses it, but Paul is a human interpreter.

>Christianity promised the end of slavery

Implying

Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as to Christ; not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. With good will render service, as to the Lord, and not to men, knowing that whatever good thing each one does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether slave or free. And masters, do the same things to them, and give up threatening, knowing that both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no partiality with Him.
Ephesians 6:5-9

Because the christian religion is a mass killing religion, the book itself is fake as fuck, get out of that place, I'm sure you do.

And be wary of "gods".

t. someone who has never read any serious Christian theology or mysticism

And that's not even getting into the lives of the saints, which naturally grew and had more added to it over time.

Paul is talking about things like circumcision and eating Kosher, though Very different from the works James is talking about. For instance, to prove his point, Paul points out that Abraham was beloved of God before he was circumcised, who it wasn't works that did it. James, when discussing works, uses Rehab the Prostitute as an example, and says she would not have been saved without works.

Philemon

Paul’s Plea for Onesimus

8 Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, 9 yet I prefer to appeal to you on the basis of love. It is as none other than Paul—an old man and now also a prisoner of Christ Jesus— 10 that I appeal to you for my son Onesimus,[b] who became my son while I was in chains. 11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.

12 I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you. 13 I would have liked to keep him with me so that he could take your place in helping me while I am in chains for the gospel. 14 But I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced but would be voluntary. 15 Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back forever— 16 no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a fellow man and as a brother in the Lord.

17 So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. 18 If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me.

Thanks for refreshing me.

euphoric

Christians don't embrace suffering, they wallow in it

Rome at one point figured out that monotheism was good for a strong and uniform society like their Persian rivals. Arabs had already been seeing Jewish, Christian, and Zoroastrian quackery in their vicinity for some time when they eventually got fed up and decided to recreate the beliefs their own way with a strong Arab cultural identity and they flourished for a while before being ravaged by Tengrist Mongols who went on to adopt Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and communism.

Persecution by the state beginning in the late reign of Constantine. Why did they give it up so easily? Is probably a better question. Persecution just made Christians more fanatical and rebellious, eager for martydom. Paganism went quietly into the night, early Christian heresies caused more religious turmoil.

Not really, unless it's part of contrition.

The Christian God is a martyr who loves martyrs.

Pagan gods don't care one way or the other, they just like to rape mortals

>christian mythology
>lame

Ignoring the epic history of different Kings and peoples found in the Hebrew Bible, you still have the gospels all being about how God came down to Earth as a human being, and that everybody killed him anyway. Which at that points presents a grim, almost depressing look on humanity and its relationship to God, but then you learn of course that in dying, God forgave all of humanities sins. I dunno, there's something powerful in that.

sounds like an episode of teletubbies in comparison to the odyssey.

The bible is horribly written.

Half of Christian mythology is just Heebs writing revenge porn on people they hate.

Odyssey and Iliad are great works of literature, but they're anime light novel-tier genre fiction compared to the ideas and themes present in the new testament. The Iliad has some good scenes that elevate the work as a whole, like Priam's plea to Achilles. Generally though there's just heroic battle sand what not going on.

If you want a Christian version of Heroic battles actually, just look at Dream of the Rood. It's like a germanic warriors understanding of Christ, super interesting stuff.

Revenge is a central theme in both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Heebs actually get way more flak than anyone else in the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. The only reason the people they hate can manage to kick them around, is because God is pissed at the Heebs and wants them to get kicked around.

Because populist backlash against the ruling Roman culture. Roman elites were the only one still keeping the Greek mytho alive. Once that died, the duty fell the the Christian elites and they had one purpose in life, to grandeurize Christ in all his gloriness. So greek tradition fell afterwards.

Roman elites actually converted faster than anyone else, once the Emperors started actively supporting the religion. Most of the plebs were likewarm about the religion and didn't really care and didn't practice, they just continued to live as before, but worshiping a different god.

>Christian mythology

Im not talking of the material. I'm talking of the writers.
>Hate Egyptians
Lol let's make up some myth about how our god beat theirs and how we totally escaped.
>Hate Philistines and other Canaanite peoples that were probably more civilized than they were.
Lol, let's call these people barbarians.
>Hate Assyrians
Lol God totally destroyed this people.

And so on.

And finally
>Das rite, niggue, we were kings and shit. We had a great empire and Solomon was the richest man in the world.
It's like a nerd writing down all the bad things that will happen to his bullies in his diary and how he used to be good.

Pretty much every civilization back then thought themselves top tier, and everyone else barbarian. Derp

Exodus probably happened, regardless of whether or not it was mythologized more later

I don't see any reason to believe they never had a very wealthy king, especially since Solomon's rule was during a period of peace, which would cause him to accumulate much wealth indeed, since war was by far the major expense then

>Pretty much every civilization back then thought themselves top tier
Except many of those deserved it.

Jews meanwhile had to invent some empire that a lot of contemporary sources never corroborated. Ask the likes of Egypt or Assyrians who lived in the area, and they'll just say it was a land filled with petty kings whose kingdoms are so small you cross over intoa new kingdom the moment you climb over any old hill.

Because Christianity is real

Jews a pretty cool civilization, they had groundbreaking laws and theology, and Hebrew prose and verse is really, really good

The Bible says Israel broke down into a bunch of petty kingdoms during certain periods. The war between Judah and Israel was particularly ongoing. It's described as a very brutal and unpleasant time.

its dificult to maintain mystery religions popular for long periods of time, especialy with large populations of poor and enslaved people who dont get allowed into the mistery, so inevitably they start their own shit

thats why catholicism works so well, it has both aspects, as well as integrating pre-christian forms

>Why did the Greco-Romans give up their mythology in favor of the Christian one? It was so much richer, and holy fuck is Christian mythology lame in comparison.

THE HOLY TRIPS OF TRUTH, i hate the >Muh Jews destroyed my great Pagan religion

Paganism was replaced by foreign mystery cults long before Christianity. And tons of Christian holidays and myths are in fact Greco-Roman in origin, in Slavic countries they are Slavic in origin. So mentally deranged people who call themselves "neo-pagans" shoot themselves in the foot

>Herr derr Christianity stole OUR tradition and faith
>herr derr Evil Jewish sect destroyed our religion

If anything it preserved it.

I will add, from a Slavic country, Orthodox Christianity has more authentic slavic holidays and rituals in its practice than slavic neo-paganism which is made up bullshit by pan-slavists.

as someone who wasted a bit of time contemplating how slavic and greco-roman mithology might be read as a metaphisical interpretation of reality still applicable today, i must say i seriously cant wrap my mind around what it is that slavic neo-pagans actualy believe

i dont mean that they get their basics from vitomir belaj and other antropologists then pretend its a authentic ritualised thing, i mean what is it they actualy believe in, other than cute girls in folk dresses frolicking around in meadows, and why is it even important, or what does it even mean

same goes for all other neo-pagan stuff, talked to some of them once, it seems its all about some mystification of nature and some poltard 'going back to rootz', but no actual content

This user is right.

Modern paganism is "reconstructed" bullshit by LARPers.

...

>If anything it preserved it.

Let's not go that far. Christians still destroyed a fucking ton of pagan written material. The motivation to do so in other pagan religions simply wasn't there, they didn't have any concepts of exclusive worship.

paganism didnt realy rely on written material, there was a lot of it but thats cause back then there was a lot of written stuff about anything, and people were trying to develop theological systems that would support current beliefs etc... but that wasnt realy important, pagan religions didnt rely on scripture

>If anything it preserved it.

Christians ravaged the Roman Empire in their extremely aggressive pursuit to destroy anything of the pagan legacy. Temple complexes with their libraries and universities, sacred groves and rural shrines, statues, scrolls and literature...

It was a loss of knowledge. The Christians only preserved that which could be appropriated to fit their notions, i.e. Aristotle. All of Plato's works were destroyed, and would not be introduced back to Europe until the 15th century.

>Christians still destroyed a fucking ton of pagan written material.
Not really. They burned stuff criticizing Christianity, but that's about it.

Christians wrecked a few temples in riots, but for the most part they use appropriated temples for churches. They didn't burn any scroll or literature, except ones that directly attacked Christianity.

Pagans did not write anything down, especially the northern folk.

You gotta understand that paganism is not only your ancestor's religion (assuming you're northern European), but all religions deemed pagan. Read the etymology.

The Catholic Church has preserved and patronized the old Roman religion. Is it our fault your people did not?

Yeah the basic folk beliefs, sure. The intellectual culture that sprouted up around it however regularly served as tinder for Christian book burnings. It's not entirely their fault, sometimes we just lose books to history. They certainly didn't help though and saying they were a positive force for the preservation of paganism is going way too far.

Even if the Roman empire continued on track with worshiping sol invictus and mithras or whatever they probably wouldn't have destroyed what was left of the greek pantheon. Again, pagans just don't have that motivation.

Fuck off, apologist. Christcucks destroyed everything they could get their hands on.

Retarded fuck die in a fire and suffer bitch

>Exodus probably happened, regardless of whether or not it was mythologized more later

0 proof that it did

I don't care about Germanic paganism I'm specifically referring to the Hellenistic. They aren't even 'my people' I'm not greek. I don't like iconoclasm no matter who does it.

They really hated the Christian critical but other texts were destroyed as well. Sometimes as a result of simple fanaticism rather than a concenctrated effort with specific texts in mind ala the library of Alexandria.

>The intellectual culture that sprouted up around it however regularly served as tinder for Christian book burnings.
Heh, yeah, I liked that movie too, but this board is Veeky Forums, not /tv/

>but other texts were destroyed as well
Uh, no.

> ala the library of Alexandria.
That was burned by Caesar, not by Christians. Christians wrecked a temple there, but is not mention that it held any books

Are you really denying the historicity of Christian book burnings. These things actually happened.

mind you romans burned literature all the time, there was probably as much censorship during the roman empire in pagan times as it was in christian times, in fact rome was rather proficient in burning texts on anithing remotely scientific or theologicaly problematic, like for some reason the empire had a big thing against alchemy, whole libraries went up on ocasion

they did, but, just like witch burnings, the reason they happened was basicaly because they were normal practice

The Roman religion was already mostly dead, it was actively being replaced by eastern mystery cults (either Egyptian, Persian or Hebrew in origin). Of those cults Christianity was the most successful one. I read somewhere that the mortal blow to the old Roman religion was dealt by the Crisis of the Third Century.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_Third_ Century
The old religion died because it was closely tied to the state, so when the state failed, people lost faith in their gods.

>They didn't burn any scroll or literature, except ones that directly attacked Christianity.
>What were anti-pagan edicts

No, I'm just denying they were anything more than works attacking Christianity, or works by other Christians deemed heretical. Pagan works were not burned.

"All writings whatever which Porphyry or anyone else has written against the Christian religion, in the possession of whomsoever they shall be found, shall be committed to the fire."

There are many supposed causes of the library of Alexandria. Either way there's other examples like the library of antioch, stocked by Julian the Apostate himself.

Yeah, it was burned on order of the Emperor, despite considerable protest by Christians.

>quote one edict
>assume this applies to every emperor and nothing else happens for all time

That's like saying Diocletian did nothing at all because Constantine issued an edict of tolerance.

Basically, they destroyed the stuff criticizing Christianity such as Against the Galileans and mostly discarded the other pagan stuff. By virtue of not really caring about it, we eventually lost all copies. Sad, but not really villainous, that's just the march of time.

The only stuff they really actively preserved was what was deemed compatible with Christianity, aristotle of course being the famous example.

Ah, like Homer, and Hesiod and Ovid and the Aeneid, and the Greek tragedies and Parmenides and Pseudo-Apollodorus' Bilbiotheca, and the Argonautica, that sort of stuff?

>same goes for all other neo-pagan stuff, talked to some of them once, it seems its all about some mystification of nature and some poltard 'going back to rootz', but no actual content

its pretty much this, i have friends who are neo-pagans and its the cringiest thing ever, fat, bearded, long hair, listening to metal, slavic metal and some trippy shit, with other chubby neet bearded metalheads and a guy that looks liek a horse, literally not a single one of them looks like those Slavs they idolize, they go to the woods and drink mead and shit or what ever. Cringy as fuck, not a single one of them is above 5'7'' and they all look browner than the general population i swear. Pic related is what they think they are.

>Christians ravaged the Roman Empire in their extremely aggressive pursuit to destroy anything of the pagan legacy. Temple complexes with their libraries and universities, sacred groves and rural shrines, statues, scrolls and literature...

Christianity literally saved the Roman Empire from further division and disunity. There is a reason the Roman Empire survived for 1000 years as a Christian empire.

What sources do you have to support the claim that traditional Roman religion was dead by the time it was supplanted by Christianity? What about Greek religion, or Celtic religion? It any other group ruled over or in the sphere of the Romans?

butthurt fedora

>All of Plato's works were destroyed, and would not be introduced back to Europe until the 15th century
Timeaus is a notable and important exception. It's interesting because the Arabs could never get their hands on Aristotle's Politics until relatively recently.