TOS - Who Mourns for Adonais?

[Artabax]

And wasn’t the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians because those groups wouldn’t worship Caesar properly? It’s one thing to believe in extra gods, but refusing to believe in the ones the state says are already there is dangerous to one’s health. Good for the arena animals, though.

Exactly and perfectly true. Why would Pagans care? It was Political. Druids and Jews were Nationalists and opposed the Empire. Christians refused to sacrifice to Caesar. It was just a pinch of incense it's just pledging allegiance to the flag. Pagans don't care unless they are politically nationalist, but for One-true-God-ists it is a huge deal

[clearspira]

I know Star Trek has been a little inconsistent on the subject, but does driving the last member of a Space it’s to suicide count as genocide? I mean, it’s not like he was a threat to the Federation - a “no entry” sign was good enough for the Guardian of Forever or the Talosians.

My vague understanding of Mediterranean religions before Christianity (apart from Judaism, perhaps) is that they were based on worshipping the gods “or else”, whereas Christianity was more about worshipping God “to get a better deal” (unless you count eternal damnation as “or else”).

Wrong. The OR ELSE fits monotheism more than Paganism.
Inquisitions, Crusades, Jihads and Genocides are common for One-true-God-ists, because they CARE about the ONE true Faith TM.

When the Roman Empire wanted to conquer a new province, they often started worshipping that provinces Gods more fervently than the locals did.

Why would Pagans care? Our Clan worships Zeus properly, by definition. If the Clan in the next valley also worships Zeus properly. That is nice, but if they do it wrong, so what?

That’s more about the religious organisations than the actual religion, I think. What I meant was that Christianity and Islam offer a benefit to worship - you get the benefit of going to heaven (which unfortunately logically justifies the inquisitions, crusades, jihads and the rest; if you don’t believe what I believe, then I believe you’ll go to hell. Going to hell is worse than anything that could possibly happen to you in life, so whatever I do to you to make you change your mind is for your own good. Aren’t people wonderful? ).

Whereas the Roman, Greek and Egyptian afterlives weren’t really a benefit. The purpose of worship was to ask the gods to do something in this world or to stop them from acting spitefully.

And wasn’t the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians because those groups wouldn’t worship Caesar properly? It’s one thing to believe in extra gods, but refusing to believe in the ones the state says are already there is dangerous to one’s health. Good for the arena animals, though.

As I said, Karl Marx called it. The opium of the masses that allows the ruling class to literally rape, murder and subjugate its own people but ''its all good because in a few years I will have eternity in Heaven.''
There is no greater instrument of control than controlling someone's literal soul. No wonder the Egyptian pantheon died, ''only the rich get to go to Heaven'' was never going to catch on for long.

[GreyICE]

As I said, Karl Marx called it. The opium of the masses that allows the ruling class to literally rape, murder and subjugate its own people but ''its all good because in a few years I will have eternity in Heaven.''
There is no greater instrument of control than controlling someone's literal soul. No wonder the Egyptian pantheon died, ''only the rich get to go to Heaven'' was never going to catch on for long.

Yeah, it only lasted from, *checks dates*, *does some math*, 3100 BCE to 30 BCE, so longer than the time between Caesar seizing power and Trump getting elected.

It's true the Egyptian empire wasn't particularly expansionist, and maybe their gods had something to do with that, but I imagine if we actually went back in a time machine we might debunk some of the things we think we know about their religion. Really the Egyptian empire was a miracle of stability rivaled only by certain Chinese empires. I'm not going to speculate as to why it was so amazingly stable, but it certainly sticks out in history. 3100-30 BCE. No matter how you parse Rome's wacky history (even if you include the bits where there was no Rome in the "Roman Empire") no matter how you parse Chinese history, just nothing compares.

I'm not even sure there's a solid way to make statements about Egyptian beliefs. 3,000 years. Imagine how belief systems must have came, went, evolved, drifted, split, recombined, split again, recombined again, absorbed some tribes, got revolutionized, got the revolution overturned by oral history, and so on and so forth.

[TGLS]

Well, to be fair, with Greek rule beginning around 330 BC, there was probably a large degree of Greco-Roman in the later Egyptian religion. I imagine that if India, Japan, or the Aztecs were closer, or Germans were better conquests, those religions would get syncretically blended too. Only the leveling universal religion of Christianity put an end to that (and the Romans probably blended in their own bit in too).

[GreyICE]

Well, to be fair, with Greek rule beginning around 330 BC, there was probably a large degree of Greco-Roman in the later Egyptian religion. I imagine that if India, Japan, or the Aztecs were closer, or Germans were better conquests, those religions would get syncretically blended too. Only the leveling universal religion of Christianity put an end to that (and the Romans probably blended in their own bit in too).

It's hardly put an end to it. Christianity continued to keep blending in religions over time. They added in the solstice festival (Christmas) and a secondary deity, "the devil", along with developing an entire complex mythology of various lesser "devils" and "demons" which allowed them to continue to adapt existing folklore to the Christian mythology. They also added in the Saints, who often had mythical powers rivaling that of any deity, and serve a similar role in mythology to the demigods of Greek literature. In surrounding areas you often had Christian mythology blending in to Norse mythology and other oral histories.

Really what slowed that was universal literacy and the printing press. And even then, it hardly stopped it. There's often a joke with the amount of devil mythology in places like the American Baptists that the primary Christian document is Paradise Lost, with the Bible a close second.

[CharlesPhipps]

And wasn’t the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians because those groups wouldn’t worship Caesar properly? It’s one thing to believe in extra gods, but refusing to believe in the ones the state says are already there is dangerous to one’s health. Good for the arena animals, though.

Julius Caesar claimed to be the descendant of Venus and his nephew had him deified. Augustus was also deified after his death. Notably, both of them took some serious shit from the rare truly faithful Romans for this as Caesar used the church in the most nakedly political way possible (Julius had himself made Pontifex-i.e. Pope of the Church of Poseidon for example).

But by the time Christianity came around, really religious Romans had already mostly left the state cult aside with the Cults of Mithras and Cults of Christianity being the two most popular ones. Both of which were heavily influenced by Zorastrianism (Heaven, Hell, Good God, Evil God) so they were actually not that unfamiliar to your average Roman. It's just Mithranism didn't have the same level of, "I would rather die than worship you."

Persecutions by Roman Emperors like Nero just solidified that if nothing else, Christians weren't cowards and that helped spread their faith. In the end, Constantine decided to convert to Christianity as Emperor on his deathbed and it was smooth sailing from there. Well, except for the Apostate Emperor Julian who tried to switch things back and found....everyone was righteously pissed at him.

Julian basically being stunned people actually CARED about religion.

[CharlesPhipps]

As I said, Karl Marx called it. The opium of the masses that allows the ruling class to literally rape, murder and subjugate its own people but ''its all good because in a few years I will have eternity in Heaven.''
There is no greater instrument of control than controlling someone's literal soul. No wonder the Egyptian pantheon died, ''only the rich get to go to Heaven'' was never going to catch on for long.

Karl's bullshit regarding religion doesn't deserve to be treated with much other than disdain. The "behave yourself and you'll go to heaven" interpretation of religion is pretty much a Christian and Islamic view and when removed (Russia, secular Europe), the people act the same way. It turned out rich people abuse poor people and most people aren't ready to get murdered for it anyway.

One thing that Che and his friends in Cuba could not fathom and had mental breakdowns over was the Catholic Socialist Revolutionaries as they'd internalized the Church as a tool of control so much they couldn't fathom people actually fighting for the poor while believing.

[JL_Stinger]

Y'know, i'm an atheist, but the Greek gods are by far the most believable gods I have ever read about. You tell me which is more believable: that humans were invented by an all-loving, all-forgiving creature of mercy and peace; or that humans were invented by a bunch of vain serial rapists, paedophiles, murderers, thieves and slavers? I'll give you a hint: turn on the evening news.

The Greek gods are simultaneous the most believable - because they're basically just humans with superpowers - but also the ones least worthy of worship. If we were to discover definite proof that Zeus and crew were real and still existed, our next order of business should be figuring out how to wipe them out because they're a menace to the universe.

How does that old saying go? "Any god you can perceive is not a god. If you meet a god, kill him."

[CrypticMirror]

How does that old saying go? "Any god you can perceive is not a god. If you meet a god, kill him."

And don't give him a starship.

[GreyICE]

And wasn’t the Roman persecution of Jews and Christians because those groups wouldn’t worship Caesar properly? It’s one thing to believe in extra gods, but refusing to believe in the ones the state says are already there is dangerous to one’s health. Good for the arena animals, though.

Julius Caesar claimed to be the descendant of Venus and his nephew had him deified. Augustus was also deified after his death. Notably, both of them took some serious shit from the rare truly faithful Romans for this as Caesar used the church in the most nakedly political way possible (Julius had himself made Pontifex-i.e. Pope of the Church of Poseidon for example).

But by the time Christianity came around, really religious Romans had already mostly left the state cult aside with the Cults of Mithras and Cults of Christianity being the two most popular ones. Both of which were heavily influenced by Zorastrianism (Heaven, Hell, Good God, Evil God) so they were actually not that unfamiliar to your average Roman. It's just Mithranism didn't have the same level of, "I would rather die than worship you."

Persecutions by Roman Emperors like Nero just solidified that if nothing else, Christians weren't cowards and that helped spread their faith. In the end, Constantine decided to convert to Christianity as Emperor on his deathbed and it was smooth sailing from there. Well, except for the Apostate Emperor Julian who tried to switch things back and found....everyone was righteously pissed at him.

Julian basically being stunned people actually CARED about religion.

Well Mithras was a lot more practical than Christ. He just wanted some mortals to bleed, so them getting all killed would be completely against the point. The worship was really just because he’s an egomaniac even by Methuselah standards. I’d say “even by Ventrue Methuselah standards”, but I think he actually made the Ventrue Methuselah standards.