Comment

Comment by El Solo Lobo on September 21, 2010 at 5:04pm

Am I the "asshole" refernced below by Richard!?

Comment by Richard Goscicki on March 11, 2010 at 12:26pm

Thanks for posting this asshole below. I'm the creater of the "endmeme" so you can imagine how I feel about this paracite. He should be driving a cab or delivering pizza for a living. His beliefs are a danger to all life on the planet.

Search on "endmeme" for more on this.

Comment by El Solo Lobo on January 27, 2010 at 2:25am

Surely people don't really think that humans will ever or can ever stop doing this... do you? All of what we collectively do, both "good" and "bad" come from our genetic programming... sure, the various expressions of it and degrees of it fluctuates to some extent, but why would our animal actions ever be significantly different as long as we have the same animal programming?

Comment by Richard Goscicki on December 24, 2009 at 11:28am

Thanks for the history, Hugh. I love this stuff.

There's nothing wrong with the statement that Christianity helped tame the Vikings. Many settled in conquered communities and “assimilated” as you say. There were many other factors.

the best that can be said is that it redirected it a little bit and provided new justifications for what people were going to do to each other anyway.

I’m currently reading about the Inquisition and I’m absolutely dismayed and shocked by it. “What people were going to do to each other” is spot on. The author I mentioned says the Inquisition tortured and killed eight million, the vast majority being female witches and many of those under 12 years old. One village in Germany burned at the stake as many as one witch per week for several years. It was like going to a ballgame every Sunday.

So I stand corrected. It’s very difficult to find any redeeming values in light of the suffering and suppression of human progress that Christianity has brought upon humanity. I wonder if Constantine before he died had any inkling of the damage he wrought upon the Earth. I doubt it.

Comment by Hugh Kramer on December 23, 2009 at 9:45pm

I don't think Christianity ever domesticated anybody. What tamed the Vikings was their increasing inability to make headway against their victims. Viking raids forced their targets to organize better and create more effective armed forces. The later you get in the Viking period, the larger the armies you see facing each other. Viking armies started losing battles almost as often as winning them. Since they were thinner on the ground to start with, this quite often proved fatal.

Of course, that's something of an over-simplification. In places like Ireland, which remained disorganized, they ruled longer, but eventually assimilated. The same was true for the Danelaw areas of England. None rose to join Norwegian king Harold Hardreda and his vikings when they invaded in 1066. In France, they assimilated (sort of) and became the Normans. In Russia they were still assimilating when they were overwhelmed by a Mongol invasion.

Christianity may not be all bad, but as far as taming violence goes, the best that can be said is that it redirected it a little bit and provided new justifications for what people were going to do to each other anyway.
;)

Comment by Richard Goscicki on December 23, 2009 at 8:24pm

Dave, before Constantine most of the Roman Empire was pagan. This is mostly nature worship and many of the Roman gods had individual sects.

Much of Gaul was Druid, an ancient cult that was into tree worship. But love of nature was redirected toward an imaginary Sky God. I think we might have taken better care of the planet if the Emperor never foisted the new religion on Europe.

James can probably throw more light on this.

It was Christianity that domesticated and tamed the Vikings 500 years later. We can’t say it was all bad.

Comment by David Miller on December 23, 2009 at 4:48pm

@ Nate:
Dude that is so odd that you would mention that. My brother-in-law has used that same point to indicate the truth of the end times. Never mind of course that the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian extremists all believe in Revelations- they all just think that their side will "win."

Still, I'm glad you strategy worked on your flock.

Comment by Jason Spicer on December 23, 2009 at 4:10pm

If only Marco Polo had been around a thousand years earlier, we could have had Pastafarianism. Arrrgh.

Comment by James M. Martin on December 23, 2009 at 2:41pm

Perhaps there is a parallel to the shenanigans of the health-care reform legislators. An emperor is worthless without his armies and the Mithraic Mysteries, so intimately connected with blood, were the chosen faith of Connie's armies. He set an example for the Conquistadors who built their cathedrals on top of Aztec pyramids, and to this day some Indians of Chiapas worship John the Baptist alongside Jesus: perhaps some of the Spaniards were secret Johannites. Connie made concessions. An alternate interpretation would have a ready-made myth fully exploitable as legend, leading to apotheosis. In which case, it would appear that all of the earlier resurrection deities coalesced into one: the time was ripe and, like one of New York's early mayors, Plunkett, Connie "saw my chances and I took 'em."

Comment by Dave Rogers on December 23, 2009 at 2:24pm

To all... So when Constantine picked Christianity, does anyone know which religion came in second? If he had chosen that one instead, could we be celebrating something like Mithramas this Friday?

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