You know what scares me more than religious people, near-death experiencers, especially when the majority of near death experiences point to the existence of a white-light higher power.
They ALL posit a sea of potential activated by an outside source, whether through the image of impregnating, or a spirit hovering over waters, it is an intimate image of the potential being actualized by something outside it. Thatās fairly universal.
Oh geez, missed that!
I donāt see what the big deal is. All you gotta do is love Jesus. And follow tons of contradictory rules that are justified by bullshit nonsense.
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This actually can be refined a bit-
Remember the initial appeal of Christianity to a pagan was the supposed liberation of the community from the stern overbearing influences and caprices of a demonic āgodā who could ruin crops and control the weather. But if you become a Christian, Jesus destroys that all for you and you are liberated from the fear of the demonic gods because he has overthrown them.
UNTIL you begin to question Jesus.
Then we have the threat of judgment, then sentences of heresy, the ideology that spiritual falsehood, since it leads to damnation, deserves capital punishment, etc.
Suddenly the overbearing society threatening conformity on the basis of compliance returns.
Where then is the promised liberty and freedom?
Not so clearly liberal and free.
IMO the abrahamic are not real religions. They were political movements who used religion as an excuse to preserve their culture where the power was hand to the elite. Thats how they survived as religion is to preserve and not to obtain. Its the ancient form of conservatism (which not always are bad). Religion originally served to preserve the tribe and the connection to the spiritual that gave the individual a sense of meaning to life. Religion is not something only homo sapiens have done. Chimpanzees have also be seen to perform religion in just more primitive way. I think all primates have been able to produce religion.
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@Kristian Well thatās certainly not true. I am sure politicians co-opted Christianity, but Martyrs in the first century certainly were not political activists, but peaceful people being put to death for alleged cannibalism and defiling of marriage as well as atheism (by saying the pagan gods were not gods, Christians were branded as atheists).
Just research the persecutions of Diocletian. Although I have issues with the religion, I donāt have the right to historical revisionism.
I think at least judaism and christianity started out as spiritual movements, but like anything that comes into being this physical realm it crystalizes and becomes subject to deterioration.
From what I have understood for southern and western europe the christians were a weird little sect within the roman society at first and grew in popularity until it was fully adopted by the romans. Iām not sure it was adopted as a tool to control the population, but it certainly became designed to do just that over time. And a magnificent tool it is indeed, especially if your empire has gotten too big to logistically be controlled by military means. Iām not aware of any other European non-roman controlled regions or tribes that were converted directly by christians from Judea.
The appeal for pagan tribes was most probably the novelty of it or at least appealing in that way to the tribes that were not in direct conflict with Rome, combined with the fact that it was also a succesful political tool to unite tribes (and perhaps assert more political power). Once christianity became the mainstream it became dangerous as a person and as a tribe to keep honoring the old ways. There are a bunch of myths where the prominent persons of tribes were forced to convert and after that were tortured and/ or killed anyway.
My country became christianized pretty quickly in the first century, but respect for the Scandinavian and Baltic countries that held out for almost (and some over) a 1000 years ^^.
A good example is the history of Redbad.
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Aaah yes, Koning Radboud. ^^
I ashamed to say I donāt know all that much about the history of the frysians or other pagan regions of my countey. I liked the movie, though. But itās probably not that acurate.