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Lmao, Christianity emerged as a religion of disempowered Jews, what absolute power? Absolutism did not even exist in antiquity/middle ages.
I think this might be
fucking bullshit made up by
patriarchalassholesRemoved by mod
There is no such thing as invisible sky wizards that grant wishes.
Excuse me?!? I shall no longer grant you wishes!
You were granting wishes? isn’t that, like, tedious and shit?
‘Christianity’ and ‘the Roman Catholic Church’ are two very different things. Christianity had very little traction in the world until a certain Roman Emperor saw his empire in decline, realized that military power alone would not keep it strong. What he needed was a borderless, stateless religious empire, with this mythical God as his power source, so he appropriated the Christian religion, made himself the leader (Pope) of it, and used religion, not military power, to control the people. To this day, the Roman Empire and the power of the Roman Emperor to rule all mankind continues under the guise of the Holly Roman Catholic Church. It has very little to do with Jesus Christ, and everything to do with the perpetuation of the dominance of the Roman Empire and the dictatorial authority of the Roman Emperor.
Jesus, the hardline Orthodox Jew from first century Galilee would not recognize “Christianity” only a few decades after his death, let alone the current iterations, and he would be appalled that gentiles had created an entirely new religion out of the worship of his idol. I would attribute this more to Paul than Constantine. Christianity could rightly be called the religion of Paul, a man who never met Jesus, rather than the religion of Jesus himself.
I am not convinced Paul had much to do with it. Fact is, the congregations Paul wrote to seemed to be very well established. Paul just kept them informed and in line. It was arguably John the Baptist that set up the infrastructure of the religious order that Jesus appropriated. In point of fact, it is contentious as to who died first, Jesus or John the Baptist. History is written by the winning side, and Jesus just happened to be on the winning side. It could just as easily have been ‘Baptistianity’.
Quantity AND quality of its violence
Did Buddhism become a major religion by the quality of its truth? I am doubtful …
Your doubts are well-founded. Buddhist religious violence is very much a real thing.
Right, but my understanding is that historically Buddhism did not spread through violence. My point was more that religion can spread for reasons that aren’t either violence or truth.
And Buddhist violence is mostly a result of British colonialism and the rise of nationalism, rather than something about the religion itself (whereas Christianity more directly encourages violence, especially against heathens, Muslims, etc.).
Your Euro-centric history does not mean nothing happened elsewhere
true, but lack of evidence isn’t evidence for something …
Joseon was at times violently anti-Buddhist
Whether the creation of Joseon was in reaction to Buddhist oppression or the anti-Buddhist movement was to secure legitimacy from Confucians is lost to history (read up to interpretation) but it still occurred
Islam exists because a warlord needed to control his territories, no idea why you would think they got violence from Christianity
Speculation that violence against Buddhists in Korea could imply maybe Buddhists were violent too is not only poor reasoning, but unnecessary when we have actual examples of Buddhist violence we could examine, for example in Sri Lanka or Myanmar. My point about Buddhist violence being a result of colonialism was more about the lack of evidence that Buddhism spread using violence.
I don’t see how Joseon provides an example of Buddhism spreading through violence, and even from your statement it doesn’t even seem like an example of Buddhist violence at all.
And your statement about Islam seems unrelated to my comments, I never suggested Islam “got violence from Christianity”, so overall I’m feeling a lot of confusion from your response.
I disagree with the whole premise of this post as well, but yeah the early history of the spread of Buddhism actually does contain a lot of this. The emperor Ashoka, who ruled most of India at one point, spread Buddhism across his empire by force, which was a major factor early on in its trajectory. Buddhism and Christianity actually have pretty similar early histories, complete with councils to determine doctrine, early spread among lower classes, and eventual adoption as state religions of powerful states. Even today there is still a lot of sectarian violence committed by Buddhists, particularly in the Myanmar/Burma civil war.
A lot of atheists in the west think of Buddhism as being more of a moral philosophy than a religion but that’s not really true. Buddhism has gods and demons and heavens and hells, and rules one has to follow. It is often said that Buddhism doesn’t believe in “God” but this is kind of misleading because there are definitely beings pretty much everyone would agree are gods even if they are technically mortal or are seen differently, such as the Buddhas.
Ashoka converted to Buddhism because of his experiences with war, and only did so after conflicts ended. I’m not sure this would really count as spreading Buddhism with violence, but I get that it’s a bit like violence which resulted in an emperor taking power who later converted to Buddhism, so Buddhism is getting second-hand benefits from the violence that was committed before (though not to spread Buddhism directly, the way colonialism spread Christianity through violence directly).
And yes, I think the contemporary sectarian violence is a good example of Buddhist violence, though I’m not as familiar with historical examples.
And yes again, Westerners have a poor concept of Buddhism, it’s a religion like any other - it was a sect of Hinduism, and has its own complicated cosmology and beliefs that are broadly incompatible with science. There are Buddhist modernist apologists (see: What the Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula) who argue that the historical Buddha did teach a belief system that is compatible with contemporary Western beliefs, but this relies on cherry-picking and ignoring the majority of what Buddhism actually is in the world, i.e. it fabricates a new kind of Buddhism from a narrow selection of scripture. It’s mostly a response to colonialism and a form of assimilation that tries to take the upper hand, and a rather successful one in that it has played a role in Buddhism being uncritically adopted in the West, especially by psychologists, scientists, and industry (like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, which claims to be secular while promoting Buddhist soteriological goals).
Can you imagine if a “secularized” version of Christian prayer was being promoted to treat insomnia, depression, stress, etc., that is essentially what’s going on currently.
If anyone is interested in learning more:
- The Making of Buddhist Modernism by David McMahan
- Why I Am Not a Buddhist by Evan Thompson
- The Birth of Insight by Erik Braun
to my somewhat limited understanding… didn’t Ashoka stop the conquest of his neighbors more because his empire was getting too big to manage anyways- spending more time putting down the inevitable rebellions rather than invading new places. Remember, few places ever truly forget they were subjugated.
Regardless, his conversion happened after, and Buddhism definitely benefited from his prior conquest as he built shitloads of temples everywhere to “enlighten” the normies. perhaps it is my own bias, but I’m doubting that the people converting didn’t feel at least some coercion to it.
I’m inclined to agree this seems like a clear case where a ruler was forcing Buddhism as a religion on his people, though I do think it’s a bit different than the Crusades in terms of thinking about it as “violence spreading a religion” - it’s more like past violence resulted in a regime that then adopted Buddhism as a religion afterwards (an Ashoka’s case, largely in reaction to the violence of his conquests), so it feels different - but it’s still coercive and built on past violence (and the threat of possible future violence if not compliant), and that’s worth acknowledging.
Uh… Christianity spread a lot nonviolently though? Also a lot violently, but there’s a reason Constantine (it was Constantine right?) converted and it’s not because he was threatened with violence.
Constantine ‘converted’ because his empire was crumbling militarily, and so he switched to using ‘religion’ instead of ‘statehood’ to protect the Roman Empire.
it’s not because he was threatened with violence.
no, it’s because he dreamed of it.
When you roll into the middle east and say believe or die. It’s a pretty easy choice.
Rape your women, enslave your children and kill adult males. All with superior weapons and tech. An easy choice to throw on the cross and say I believe.
Uh… That’s literally not what happened though? Christianity had already spread a lot by the time Constantine declared Rome Christian.
…That’s literally not what happened though…
But you are close. Constantine had been dead for a few decades by the time Theodosius I and his boys put out the Edict of Thessalonica. You may be thinking of the Edict of Milan which made Christianity legal.
For a modern comparison, Edict of Milan in 313 is like a when a state decriminalizes marijuana and Edict of Thessalonica in 380 is like when one makes it legal for recreational use and sale. Don’t think about it too much or it breaks down but one’s a much bigger step.
Was this a misplaced response to my post?
Not really sure how it could have been, your posts in this thread were about 6 or 7 hours after mine. Would be a pretty neat trick though. I also quoted part of the post directly above mine in the response.
I did not look at the time stamp, just that it seemed more appropriate to my post than the one it showed up under.
Why Christianity became the superpower religion it did is quite debatable. But it probably wasn’t through all that much violence. The violence happened later.
Isn’t their secret sauce that you’re obliged to proselytize, otherwise the souls of the filthy heretics will be unsaved and will burn forever in your fantasy fire world?
It’s a religion that aggressively displaces other religions.
Sure, but other religions do this too?
According to the article I linked, it seems to be due, in part, to aggressive proselytizing. But also possibly due to (in no particular order): Christians having more pro-social values than alternative belief systems at the time, those pro-social values resulting in better plague survivability, or their pro-natalist stances. There are all sorts of possibilities, and it is quite interesting. But Christians before the time of Christian Rome were certainly not out conquoring other people - at least not at scale. They weren’t that powerful.
But Christians before the time of Christian Rome were certainly not out conquoring other people
so… all of like, three hundred years of their history? maybe closer to 250. Around the time of Constantine’s conversion, Christians were estimated at about 10% of the roman empire- mostly centered around Antioch and in Egypt. the Edict of Milan made it legal to be a christian in 313, following his conversion in 312.
At that point, Christians were able to find themselves increasingly in government leadership roles, until we bet to 380, when Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica, essentially mandated that all christians be catholic (specifically, adhere to the nicene orthodoxy.) leading to the consolidation of political power to what we would now call the catholic church.
Christianity is as big as it is because it is the truth.
It’s about on par with Islam. So which one is the actual truth?
Why not both?
-Islam.
That’s a crusade’n.
