How did Christianity, out of all the Judaic offshoots around that time...

This is what baffles me when Christopher Hitchens questions why God would, in theory, send His Divine Son to the part of the world that he did, instead of, say, China. That is such a fucking brainlet-tier take. If you wanted your religion/ideology to conquer the world around the 1st century AD, why wouldn't you start it in Roman Palestine? It's the perfect place.

Martyrdom is one hell of a propaganda tool.

And what about the "propaganda" which the martyr's themselves were influenced by? Does that not matter?

jesus turned himself into a hyper sigil by being crucified.

What thoughtful analysis and insight. Clearly you have thought a great deal about the subject at hand and doubtless this is the reason you've chosen to grace us with your expertise.

Basically man is a memetic animal. His desires and emotions are constructed by imitation of those of others. Desire of many for the same by definition leads to conflict, and the violence born from it grows further by mimesis. In early humans this became untenable, doubled by the human ease at killing thanks to the use of objects as weapons, crossing the instinctive mental block of killing a member of the same species by claws and teeth. Violence becomes contagious and destructive to the point of anihilating communities. And many surely were destroyed, but some were saved by the process of scapegoating.

When this happens, the violence of a disintegrating community becomes concentrated on a single individual by mimesis. That individual, the scapegoat, is lynched, killed by the whole community. What follows is a sudden calm, the return of peace. Enormously impressed by this, primitive man understood the magic power of the lynching. And so, he learned to apply it. When conflict loomed again, another lynching happened. Until it became preventive, ritual sacrifice. The power of the scapegoat to bring chaos by his presence and restore peace by his death makes him a deity. Every tribe sacrifices its totem. Mythology emerges which recounts the "first time", when the scapegoat is rightfully killed by the community for his misdeeds. And the idea takes hold that a deity is responsible for human conflict and violence, not us. And even that this deity is the one demanding violence from us.

This is the birth of humanity. All human culture, religion, social structure, language, art, theatre, can be traced to this, the invention of sacrifice. The belief in the guilt of the sacrificed.

The first signs of Man understanding the reality of this fundamental lie appear in Greek tragedy, and then in some Jewish stories. But none go too far, held back by the instinctive fear of the enormous danger that lurks behind it. The true revelation comes with Christ. Jesus, using the language of the Jews he was speaking to, talks of a God who is very different from the ones of all religion. The God of Jesus is completely foreign to violence. Desire, conflict, violence, and all the earthly things built on them, those are the creations of Man, not of God. God is boundless love. And only Man himself is responsible for his actions.

But telling doesn't suffice, the true Revelation and proof comes through the crucifiction, and its retellings. For the first time, the sacrifice is told from the perspective of the sacrificed. He is not guilty, but perfectly innocent. It is those who commit the sacrifice, the lynching, who are guilty. The lie is broken, "truth hidden since the dawn of time" is revealed. From then on, Christ and the cross stand before every act of violence or persecution, reminding us that none is to blame but ourselves.

Of course it didn't change the world overnight, as it couldn't, or all convinced would have died as Christ did. So Paul turned it into a Church, and two civilisations. Those are earthly institutions, built on violence like all others. But through them across the centuries, the Revelation made its way. Sacrifice ended, as did slavery, and we've become less tolerant of violence and suffering than ever before. Reason triumphed over myth, in a spectacular way. Everything we value about our world we do thanks to that Revelation.

Of course. But that so many were willing to die for their beliefs was more persuasive than the doctrine itself.

Sounds like some kind of retarded rendering of Moses and Monotheism.

But God (from the New Testament) kills Saphira and Ananias for something very petty. Just outright slaughters them.

It is accomplished

youtube.com/watch?v=wWX1YbTLOyA

But early christians used Greek because that was the language used in Jewish circles. Christianity also spread into Mesopotamia, a land where Greek was not used for religious and administrative purposes.

The spread of christianity had little to do with the fact that the new testament was written in a dialect of Greek. Most people could not speak the language and those that could were usually of the educated class. A group that would for the most part remain pagan well into the fourth and fifth century.

Probably because it all happened

Martyrdom was certainly important for spreading the faith, but my point is that the faith itself leads to the martyrdom.

What is it about this thing, Christianity, that should cause men to knowingly face death rather than yield to earthly rule?

Were they just a bunch of poor psychological victims beholden to a single lunatic's charismatic authority, like at Jonestown?

Or were there certain coherent convictions? Does Christianity contain ideas which necessarily lead to martyrdom? What are those ideas and what should we make of them?

Roman religion was tied closely to the imperial state. When the empire almost collapsed in the third century it had a negative effect on the Roman empires sanctioned religions. This decline led to a religious vacuum that Christianity filled.

Why Christianity and not Manicheanism?

Sounds more like Bataille to me.

No idea, Emperor Constantine's conversion maybe.

This kind of stuff is interesting to read but there are ten million brands and not one of them has a great deal of evidence.

There's an abundance of theories along these lines that make use of, for example:

>Darwinian origin of the species
>psychoanalysis
>comparatice mythology and religion
>symbol analysis

and construct a grand narrative attempting to account for the true meaning of religious ritual/symbolism and also the reasons, deep in the psyche or unconscious, why such symbolism took hold.

All such theories exploit the vacuum of information we possess regarding events from early history/prehistory. There is so much we would like to know about these episodes, and that is why there is an audience for these theories, but we will probably never know just what the ancients were thinking when they decided to ritually sacrifice an animal, or a human, for the first time.

Because everyone knew Evodius was a bedwetting pleb

Good posts

Did it BLOW YOUR MIND dude?

See

Dude

Because Christianity is true.

Hello Girard

That kind of language is problematic at best.

In the first place "Christianity" does not denote a claim about reality the same way "all men are bachelor's" does, and especially not the same way as "the force of gravity is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between two bodies."

Nor does "Christianity" refer to a set of many claims like these last two examples.

Here's a claim for you: "Jesus Christ rose from the dead."

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Because it was significantly different from other “offshoots” and Judaism, and even declared itself a new Law that rewrites the old one?

Partly due to it's universalism and non-exclusivity

That's a good one to wrestle with, for sure.

Some people seem to think claims like "Jesus rose from the dead" are like saying "George Washington was [or was not] the first American president"

Some will give arguments why "Jesus rose" must be true or false. They will make arguments about the Gospel testimonies, or give a quote from Josephus, or cite modern scholarship that suggests the Josephus quote is apocryphal, or point to modern medicine etc.

I feel that the claim "Jesus rose from the dead" cannot be separated from the entire story of the life of Jesus, which itself cannot be told without reference to a kind of cosmic narrative (In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth... for God so loved the world...)

This cosmic narrative, which spills into secular history, is not scientific or rational. It is a great story about the meaning of human life which cannot be translated into ethical norms or philosophical statements about metaphysics, and definitely not into a series of arguments arguing for an empirically valid set of truth claims.

It is a worldview whose validity is established by the witness of those who call themselves followers of Christ, and it is therefore necessarily distinct from everything else (science, philosophy, archaeology, cultural norms, history etc.).
I never did care for arguments about the stone and the tomb. The best proof of Christianity is the life and teachings of Christ reflected in the lives of his followers, and the best measure of our knowing this truth is the depth of Christ's presence and influence on our actual lives.

This is dumb nonsense. Jesus literally rose from the dead, Jesus is exactly who He says he is, Christianity is true. Praise be to God, Hallelujah.

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What is the content of your life? Whom do you serve? Does the way you spend time or make decisions reflect your professed faith in the reality of Jesus of Nazareth who proclaimed:

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.

Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets."

Would you give up everything, every aspiration and worldly possession, every measure of reputation, every indulgence and earthly pleasure, to follow him?

>Would you give up everything, every aspiration and worldly possession, every measure of reputation, every indulgence and earthly pleasure, to follow him?

I have tried to do so. I have followed the flow of the Gospels that connect the Rich Young Man in the Gospel of Luke to Zaccheus, also in that Gospel. I don't think Christ asks every single person to give up all they have to follow Him. I think, rather, that what Christ asks is total allegiance to, and submission to, Him. For some, this involves giving up possessions. For others, this involves other things.

But I would hope and think that if God asked me to leave everything I had as a show of devotion to Him, I would. I hope my faith would be strong enough for that.

Read a history book you fucking mong, it's well-documented how it happened

Keep trying brother, it is good. It's easy to ask such a demanding series of questions anonymously, my point was that the "evidence" of Christ is to be found in the lives of those who profess to follow him, not in credos or apologetics.

I certainly am a sinner whose life little reflects the truth of the lord. But I have found it helpful to realize Christianity derives its truth from a very different place than, say, modern science or liberal humanism. I strongly believe that Christians will never beat science or liberalism at their own game. Why should they? Christians offer a radical alternative to both of these and more, and it is most convincing when it professes faith in it's own terms. Socialists had great theories about how to make the world more hospitable to the poor, but did they eat with the poor or invite them into their homes? Scientists have their ideas about truth, but do those ideas tell us how to look at the neighbor or how to forgive?

Christ did not make clever arguments in the language of natural science or rationality. He worked miracles so his disciples would believe, but he did not perform miracles in front of all mankind, or become the king of all nations, or turn stone into bread. "Faith", was not intended to be an easy thing. Men were meant to have doubts. It seems like he proved enough so that the early Christians could get up and running, and then left it to the martyrs and the saints, and the observable acts of goodness and peace of Christian communities to convince the ages of his reality.

I agree with this post, for the most part. I believe that those who can't listen to the Gospel are doomed to remain in darkness no matter what signs and wonders are worked. I remember what Father Abraham says at the end of the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man. "If they will not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they listen even if someone should rise from the dead."

But I think I am allowed to feel frustration at how many people shut their ears and close their eyes to the power of God as it is expressed through the Catholic Church, because I myself am Catholic. I truly do believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and that He is God and King of the universe, and that He expresses his power even today, particularly through the intercession of His mother, Mary, Queen of Heaven. I am exasperated by the repeated unwillingness of the enemies of Christ to see that God still does incredible signs and wonders to the present day. This is particularly true because the Church is always the last entity to believe an incredible event when it happens. The Church is extremely skeptical and incredibly thorough in its investigations, because it certainly has to be.

So I am exasperated at anyone who tries to claim Christianity as some sort of metaphor when the demonstrations of the raw power of God exist and are documented. Mary appears to the faithful. People are healed by the dozens. Eucharists bleed. God is not some metaphor, He's real and He demonstrates His power for all to see. If people choose not to believe that Jesus rose from the dead in the face of this, whose fault is that? It's not God's.

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Christianity and those who wrote the gospels strove to synthesize the warring Gods of Syria, Greece, Chaldea, Rome, and Egypt at the time when the growth of the Roman Empire first made travel possible, and the intercommunication of the priests of Mithras, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Dionysus, Isis, Astarte, Venus and many scores of others and it was decided to unite all of these myths under the figure of Christ.

Traces of this recension are still visible in the Mass and in the Calendar of the Saints, all major Gods and Goddesses of universal import receiving the same honour by the same rites as before, while the local Gods were replaced by Saints, virgins, martyrs, or angels, often of the same name, always of the same character of the Christian pantheon.

Thus on the altar the Solar-phallic Crucifix is surrounded by six lights for the planets, to use one example and Christmas is at the winter solstice, the birth of Christ put for the birth of the Sun".

The Crucifixion represents the Caduceus; the two thieves, the two serpents; the cliff in the Vision of the Universal Mercury is Golgotha; Maria is simply Maia with the solar R added to her name.

The controversy about Christ between the Synoptics and John was really a contention between the priests of Bacchus, Sol, and Osiris, also, perhaps, of Adonis and Attis, on the one hand, and those of Hermes on the other, at that period when initiates all over the world found it necessary, owing to the growth of the Roman Empire and the opening up of means of communication, to replace conflicting Polytheisms by a synthetic Faith.

Compare Christ's descent into hell with the function of Hermes as guide of the Dead. Also Hermes leading up Eurydice, and Christ raising up Jairus' daughter. Christ is said to have risen on the third day, because it takes three days for the Planet Mercury to become visible after separating from the orb of the Sun.
In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, who is Mercury; and is therefore to be identified with Christ. Both are messengers; their birth-mysteries are similar; the pranks of their childhood are similar. In the Vision of the Universal Mercury, Hermes is seen descending upon the sea, which refers to Mary.

Note also Christ's relations with the money-changers, his frequent parables, and the fact that his first disciple was a publican.

Note also Mercury as the deliverer of Prometheus.

One half of the fish symbol is also common to Christ and Mercury; fish are sacred to Mercury, (owing presumably to their quality of movement and cold-bloodedness.) Many of Christ's disciples were fishermen and he was always doing miracles in connection with fish.

Because the Roman Empire forced everyone into it and the Christians themselves were retarded stone chuckers set on the total obliteration of all European culture and tradition

after christianity yes

>The masses always seek justification for a new moral fagging.

Because it was a Roman psyop that bit them in the ass. Jews or at least worshippers of ywvh were actively seeking converts at the time around the levant and southeastern Europe. Judaisim at the time was basically the epitome of beta rage and it was catching on with colonial converts doing all kinds of shit to strike at the Roman upper class. The romans not wanting another Masada decided to take the message of the one messianic preachers (there were thousands at the time and they'd all have a massive chimpout on passover) who was pacifist and did not preach celibate asceticism, gave it less rules, and made it more easily syncretized with mystery cults and paganism to pacify all the revolting subjects. Jokes on them they bought their own shit. I'm not saying either one was the bad guy and Christianity has lots of merits as a religion but this is what probably happened. Unless you're gonna go all American fundie, /Pol/ack, or sjw and ignore all facts and evidence.

I asked my wise friend, who is a serious Sufi Muslim, "do you think we can surprise God?"

He said "of course not. Whatever we have that is free will must be measured against the will of God." I think he was right.

I decided to seek out Christ and have Catholic proclivities myself (it seems to me The Church and not A Church). But I respect his comparatively steadfast devotion to God (the Catholic Church affirmed that Christians and Muslims worship the same God in the encyclical Nostra Aetate). So I have gained from his guidance even though he is a Muslim, because he lives more like a Christian than I do.

Anyhow one day we were talking and I said "man it's so awful how many people are so lost in the dark." Both of us come from chaotic backgrounds of drug use and so on. I continued "I have moved just an inch and already everything is so different, and it's painful to think of all those old friends left in the dark."

He said something like, "Oh don't be so worried about them like that. Don't draw so much attention to the inch you've moved and focus on what you still have to do."

It was good advice is all, so I'm sharing it. Let God take care of the ones who won't listen to him. When all is said and done, he will have taken care of them. That's our God, that's what he does. He doesn't elect some to love and some to be indifferent to. He loves us all and we have to have faith in that.

****

I can see why it would be annoying to have someone make a case for stories and narratives like I have been doing. It seems to say "oh sure, Christianity works, but only as a metaphor."

I am not trying to say Christ rose in a metaphorical sense. I am rather saying that the Christ of the Gospel is somehow more true than the Christ of history. I haven't worked much of this out yet, but I find myself plagued by doubts regarding the historical Jesus, the very obvious difference of John compared to Mark/Matthew/Luke, discrepancies in the scripture, non-Scriptural doctrines in the Catholic faith like the perpetual virginity of Mary and her Annunciation etc.

I would think any modern person has doubts like this. For me it helps to refocus on the content of the Biblical narratives. In other words, do not worry so much about historical Jesus, and focus on what Gospel Jesus does.

There, we find a remarkable consistency. Love your neighbor, be they tax collector or leper or Roman soldier. How do we know what that love looks like? We see it in the lives and works of the saints.

The stories matter. God doesn't ask us for a little bit. He asks us for everything. He asks us for our whole lives, and it's a tall order but we can believe it is possible because of the witness of his followers, especially the saints.

I apologize for the rambling and hope I am saying something helpful.

Constantine

>Roman Palestine

Judea*

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Exactly.

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> I know Alexander's conquest of the area aided its spreading, but what else?
Alexander the Great: 4th century BC
Jesus Christ: 1st century AD

The answer is that it actively prosyletised to gentiles and taught that they could become the chosen people, no other Jewish sect did that.