The General Religion, Mythology, and Theology Thread

TMI. This is very off topic.

So, what were we talking about? Witches?

The thing is that Egypt's flirtation with monotheism was brief and ultimately unsuccessful.

And the Roman Empire didn't choose to be Christian as such. They were just one of many religious groups within the Empire and didn't really gain real power until one of the Emperor's chose to back them... but that wasn't really all that unusual either. Various previous Emperors had aligned themselves assorted other mystery cults and religious groups previously. But they had existed within a polytheistic framework and while they gained in power it tended to wax and wane between different groups.

Christianity's strict monotheism was a game changer in that sense that if you were Christian that was it, as opposed to previous models were someone could belong to one or more different mystery cults over your life and you weren't born into them but initiated in early adulthood.

you mean that one pharoah who tried to change the kingdoms religion and was subsequently hated by the priests, who tried to scratch him out of recorded history?

Akenaten, that would be him. As I said, brief and unsuccessful.

As was said attempt to remove him from the records, apparently.

Makes you wonder what the guys they did erase tried to do.

My little brother got into Ancient Aliens recently. That garbage is just awful, I hope he'll lose interest soon.

There's one reason it didn't work. One of his sons was Tutankhamun.

I do have to wonder what would happen if we dug up a dinosaur wearing a spacesuit or even a suit of armour one day.

"They were just one of many religious groups within the Empire and didn't really gain real power until one of the Emperor's chose to back them...

So is the question really "If Constantine hadnt picked Christianity, what would he have picked?"

I'm really skeptical when people recount that story that Constantine saw a cross before a battle in a vision , and put it on his troops shields, and they won. It has all the markings of being made post de facto

So what were his alternatives? Apparently his father was a follower of one of the Syrian deities, "Sol Invictus". Then there were all the mystery cults running around back then, Mithraism and so forth. Maybe the Emporer doesnt pick anyone, opting for the status quo (himself as the head of an imperial cult). Or some other option I havent thought of. Opinions?

You guys are aware that Constantine didn't make Christianity the official religion and there was still an non-christian emperor afterwards, Julianus[1]? Only Theodosius made it the official religion about sixty years later. Christianity's way to a state religion was not that dependant on a single emperor and more on it slowly growing in the empire.

edited 19th Mar '14 10:51:14 AM by Antiteilchen

That wasn't a cross, it was actually a lower-case t.

edited 19th Mar '14 9:44:52 AM by Elfive

@Cassidy the Devil: I used to watch those and other conspiracy programs all the time when I was little. Don't worry, he'll probably start finding them funny after some time

This is true. Constantine did a lot for Christianity, like sending people to Jerusalem, arranging the Nicean Council and so on, but he didn't legitimize it for Rome.

On a side note, a joke I heard when I visited Israel is that Constantine's mother is the greatest archaeologist in history. She went to Jerusalem and apparently managed to find every single important Biblical site in a decade. To celebrate that, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stuck a statue of her in the basement, under what they think is Calvary, behind a bunch of small chapels, where it's really hard to see any details because the lighting down there is frigging awful.

EDIT: I spelled Calvary wrong.

edited 19th Mar '14 10:57:07 AM by Zendervai

That makes no frigging sense

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is just really badly designed period. It's very sooty, there are rooms that randomly have no floor, just sand, there's random crap all over the place that are apparently holy relics and gifts and it's seriously arranged like a theme park in terms of how you go around it. And of course you have dozens of random denominations fighting over it. It's so bad that a Muslim family has to have the keys because if any of the denominations had the keys, they'd lock the others out. Well, except for the Anglicans. They have a really nice garden on the other side of the Old City at the other possible location for Calvary.

That is one thing I noticed in Israel. The Catholic Churches were kind of all over the place in their designs, because most of them were built (originally) by the Crusaders, who didn't seem to have a head for design. The Orthodox Churches, on the other hand, were gorgeous. They had people who knew what they were doing making those. Even the one with almost no light had a good reason for it. It commemorated the crucifixion. You don't want a super shiny church for that.

edited 19th Mar '14 10:56:47 AM by Zendervai

De facto if not de jure.

Though it does raise the interesting question of what might have happened if Julian's reign had lasted longer (he died in battle against the Persians) and he had had more time to enact his policies encouraging religious plurality.

I can hear the fundies now. "Science could not exist today if it weren't for Mithraism!" As if Christianity invented not being a dick, or caring about the downtrodden, or treating other members of society with compassion, or whatever. I do wonder if Christian fundies think people were baby-eating monsters before Jesus came along, and that we would still be living in the 1st century if Christianity didn't become the dominant religion in Europe.

p.s. My ipod is back to normal functioning! Hooray!

edited 20th Mar '14 10:46:29 AM by digaagwariz

Given that the Bible preaches that God flooded the world because people were baby-eating monsters, I would say probably yes.

Jeez, we just cant stay away from our favorite topic, can we?

Lets talk about Greco-Roman Mystery cults instead. How much can we say about what their secret rituals were?

Wouldn't be very secretive if we knew about it...

One of my favorite Greek mystery goddess is She Who Is Not Named.

So Despoina wasn't her real name? Does anyone know what her real name was? Why could only an initiated cult member know her name?

edited 20th Mar '14 1:18:46 PM by Xopher001