This post is written for people who don’t know much about the Bible and want to learn about it. For those who do know a reasonable amount about the Bible, the content here may be rather oversimplified, but they may still want to read it anyway. The Old Testament
“Needless to say, though Christianity is a vital part of post-300 Western civilization, it did not originate it. It’s a sort of kudzu that parasitized already highly developed Roman civilization and helped contribute to the destruction of much of it, with obvious parallels to leftism today.”
I think that Greco-Roman civilization began to decline before Christianity became popular. However, Christianity did contribute to the loss of pagan literature and art.
A huge difference between modern Western leftism and Christianity is that the latter was socially conservative. Christianity ended late Greco-Roman decadence. Gladiatorial fights, obscene poetry, obscene statues and paintings, vomitoriums, etc. If Islam overtakes Europe, there will be a lot of similarities. Simpler, but more wholesome. Modern Western leftism IS decadence.
There’s a cycle: civilizational progress -> urbanization -> decadence -> civilizational collapse -> simplicity and wholesomeness -> back to civilizational development. We’re in the decadence phase now, before collapse.
During the previous such cycle Christianity was a vehicle for the latter portion of collapse and for all of the subsequent wholesomeness. If Christianity didn’t come forward, some other vehicle would have been found. Mithraism or whatever. If the current cycle isn’t broken by extraordinary technological developments, the next destruction and rebirth vehicle will be Islam.
What is the Bible?
Interesting summary.
“Needless to say, though Christianity is a vital part of post-300 Western civilization, it did not originate it. It’s a sort of kudzu that parasitized already highly developed Roman civilization and helped contribute to the destruction of much of it, with obvious parallels to leftism today.”
I think that Greco-Roman civilization began to decline before Christianity became popular. However, Christianity did contribute to the loss of pagan literature and art.
A huge difference between modern Western leftism and Christianity is that the latter was socially conservative. Christianity ended late Greco-Roman decadence. Gladiatorial fights, obscene poetry, obscene statues and paintings, vomitoriums, etc. If Islam overtakes Europe, there will be a lot of similarities. Simpler, but more wholesome. Modern Western leftism IS decadence.
There’s a cycle: civilizational progress -> urbanization -> decadence -> civilizational collapse -> simplicity and wholesomeness -> back to civilizational development. We’re in the decadence phase now, before collapse.
During the previous such cycle Christianity was a vehicle for the latter portion of collapse and for all of the subsequent wholesomeness. If Christianity didn’t come forward, some other vehicle would have been found. Mithraism or whatever. If the current cycle isn’t broken by extraordinary technological developments, the next destruction and rebirth vehicle will be Islam.
So you think Europe would have been better off if it had remained pagan?