If Rome Had Not Accepted Christianity - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14222323
Political Interest wrote:If Christianity had not spread successfully in the Roman Empire and Constantine had not converted to Christianity in the fourth century is it possible that Islam could have spread in its place? Of course the pagan faiths of Europe would have remained but what is to say that in the absence of Christianity some rulers of Europe would not have accepted Islam as their religion? Rus looked to Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. If there was no Catholicism or Orthodoxy would they have possibly chosen Islam?

Many South East Asian rulers converted their kingdoms to Islam therefore one wonders if something similar could possibly have happened in Europe had Christianity not been present.


No Islam would not have become dominant because Islam is a religion that requires submissive behavior and europeans at the time still had a ton of individual fighting spirit in them, they would not have simply accepted the anti-freedom morals in Islam, they would have invented some other sort of religion instead of christianity, a religion that I am sure would have been very similar to christianity in terms of morals and general outlook on things like government for example.

Like Aristotles said during this era, "the middle eastern people are more submissive and tolerant of tyrants than us greeks", he was clearly thinking about how greeks and romans loved their individual freedom much more than the turks, egyptians, iraqis, Iranians etc etc..

Religions are man made things, they do not flourish in areas where people have a natural genetic hostility towards the behavior that said religion demands of its followers.
#14223626
Like Aristotles said during this era, "the middle eastern people are more submissive and tolerant of tyrants than us greeks", he was clearly thinking about how greeks and romans loved their individual freedom much more than the turks, egyptians, iraqis, Iranians etc etc..


The Romans obviously being famous for their love of individual freedom and not for their love of slavery.
#14223818
Like Aristotles said during this era, "the middle eastern people are more submissive and tolerant of tyrants than us greeks", he was clearly thinking about how greeks and romans loved their individual freedom much more than the turks, egyptians, iraqis, Iranians etc etc..


Turks were somewhere in Asia at the time - he wouldnt have met any. Egyptions may well have hated freedom but they were ethnically entirely different to today (no Arabs there back then).
#14223829
Decky wrote:The Romans obviously being famous for their love of individual freedom and not for their love of slavery.


Just because you have the power and technology to enslave other people does not mean you do not value your own freedom and romans did just that to a large extent durings its republican era atleast.

layman wrote:Turks were somewhere in Asia at the time - he wouldnt have met any. Egyptions may well have hated freedom but they were ethnically entirely different to today (no Arabs there back then).


The precise quote calls them asians iirc and I am sure he didnt call them turks since I dont think that word existed back then, the point however was that as Aristotles saw it the people living in what is now today called the middle east tolerated tyrants far more than the more civilized places of the world like Greece for example.
#14223858
The precise quote calls them asians iirc and I am sure he didnt call them turks since I dont think that word existed back then, the point however was that as Aristotles saw it the people living in what is now today called the middle east tolerated tyrants far more than the more civilized places of the world like Greece for example.


There is another side to that coin though. Rome found it much easier to rule its eastern half than the troublesome northern europeans. The east was actually of course far far more adavanced and rich/developed. The key reason they were easy to rule was that they were used to the whole empire thing. Egypt for example was being ruled by a greek elite when rome came along. Swapping one powerful empire for another was an established practice for the rich cities of the middle east and north Africa.

Somewhere like Gaul or Britiania was a different story. They had no experience of such matters and lived in more primitive, tribal societies. Yes they were probably more individualistic and less accustomed willing to accept some outside power. This isnt really an indication of anyting "civilized" though - quite the opposite.

Greece was an extreme exception in europe.

Aristotles was just a typical greek chauvinist no doubt.
#14236387
layman wrote: Rome found it much easier to rule its eastern half than the troublesome northern europeans. The east was actually of course far far more adavanced and rich/developed. The key reason they were easy to rule was that they were used to the whole empire thing. Egypt for example was being ruled by a greek elite when rome came along. Swapping one powerful empire for another was an established practice for the rich cities of the middle east and north Africa.


Rome experienced trouble in the east, even after Augustus. Besides the big Jewish revolts, including the bloody Kitos war, which affected Cyprus and Cyrenaica besides judaea etc, there was at least one major rebellion in Egypt during the reign of Aurelius.

Somewhere like Gaul or Britiania was a different story. They had no experience of such matters and lived in more primitive, tribal societies. Yes they were probably more individualistic and less accustomed willing to accept some outside power.


I don't think there was much internal trouble in Gaul after Alesia; the revolt of 22 CE wasn't much.

Greece was an extreme exception in europe.


The Greeks were brutally suppressed in 146 BCE and again during Sulla's campaigns in the east c 82 BCE.
#14693467
Political Interest wrote:If Christianity had not spread successfully in the Roman Empire and Constantine had not converted to Christianity in the fourth century is it possible that Islam could have spread in its place? Of course the pagan faiths of Europe would have remained but what is to say that in the absence of Christianity some rulers of Europe would not have accepted Islam as their religion? Rus looked to Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. If there was no Catholicism or Orthodoxy would they have possibly chosen Islam?

Many South East Asian rulers converted their kingdoms to Islam therefore one wonders if something similar could possibly have happened in Europe had Christianity not been present.

Islam was stopped dead in its tracks by Charles Martel in France and by Leo the 3rd in Byzantium.

Christianity had nothing to do with it. They were local feudal warlords and the Arabs were overextended in Europe.

As Napoleon learned the hard way in Russia, you can only take your army so far into enemy territory. And if that enemy burns everything to the ground in front of you in a scorched earth policy, then your soldiers will all starve since they already raped the land on their way forward.
#14693576
Islam did spread through conquests, and those are spears, not bibles, which kept Islam at bay. So did Christianism made us stronger? Maybe, maybe not.

One could argue that Christianism helped solder the Holy Roman Empire to resist the Ottomans (but it also caused divisions), or that it helped the North of modern Spain to revolt against the Muslim attempts to convert everyone by force. Yet the unification of Europe started before Christianism, under the Roman Empire, and vast kingdoms appeared before their monarchs became Christians.
#14742476
the lower classes had already accepted the new faith, due the the Christians had a different Ideal of Family not like the late-romans

Image


The elites simply changed a bit the religion to stay in Power, concile of nicea, where they banned the apokryphs




for example is the Trinity, just in one sentence mentioned in the Bible. and Historians see this as false... this sentence.

According to Islam made the trinity, a new prophet necessary, Mohammed s.a. was recognized by a Christian as Prophet.

Last edited by Bosnjak on 27 Nov 2016 02:54, edited 1 time in total.
#14742490
Just a little comment here.
First, In reality, if anyone looked at numbers, they'd know that most Muslims are in far south and east Asia, litterally less than 15% of all Muslims live in the lands that was actually conquered, while the rest were due to trade.

And second of all, aristotle called them middle eastern people and said they don't love freedom ? really ? doesn't it seem like a little too much bullshit in it ?
Specially when you know that the calling "middle east" was something the british empire made, literally thats when the name started.


And wait, the Greeks were "free" back then ? does anyone actually read about history of Greece before calling it the land of freedom in its ancient times ?
Or the European morals, oh that lovely morality that didn't exist back then, and much of now adays.

The Europeans were specially in the hight of morality when they justified taking slaves because anyone who's not Christian is by default inferior creator and should be enslaved, infact just love to be enslaved.
Atleast with Muslims they admitted its slavery and didn't call for a reason for it.

God some people are just full of shit. Too much shit.
#14742505
Hardly. Infact, the possibility of Christianity dying out in Europe without an islamic "threat" would be more likely than Islam not to exist if Christianity didn't exist.
Christianity is based on entirely different concepts than that of Islam. And Christianity was hardly even in the Arabian peninsula when Islam came along.
Judaism and Zoroastrianism existed there, and their effects on the Islamic civilization and Muslims are a billion to one compared to Christianity.
#14742728
as soon as a religion becomes big and an empire, the religion corrupts.

Just after some decades Islam split in Civil War.
#14800424
Political Interest wrote:If Christianity had not spread successfully in the Roman Empire and Constantine had not converted to Christianity in the fourth century is it possible that Islam could have spread in its place? Of course the pagan faiths of Europe would have remained but what is to say that in the absence of Christianity some rulers of Europe would not have accepted Islam as their religion? Rus looked to Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. If there was no Catholicism or Orthodoxy would they have possibly chosen Islam?

Many South East Asian rulers converted their kingdoms to Islam therefore one wonders if something similar could possibly have happened in Europe had Christianity not been present.


No freaking way, Islam would not even exist without the success of Christianity.
#15161931
yiostheoy wrote:As Napoleon learned the hard way in Russia, you can only take your army so far into enemy territory. And if that enemy burns everything to the ground in front of you in a scorched earth policy, then your soldiers will all starve since they already raped the land on their way forward.


In The Fall of the Roman Empire the Military explanation Prof. Ferrill noted that Napoleonic armies moved quickly and lived off the land whereas Roman armies moved more slowly and relied on a convoy and depot system of supply.
#15161934
Political Interest wrote:If Christianity had not spread successfully in the Roman Empire and Constantine had not converted to Christianity in the fourth century is it possible that Islam could have spread in its place? Of course the pagan faiths of Europe would have remained but what is to say that in the absence of Christianity some rulers of Europe would not have accepted Islam as their religion? Rus looked to Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Judaism and Islam. If there was no Catholicism or Orthodoxy would they have possibly chosen Islam?

Many South East Asian rulers converted their kingdoms to Islam therefore one wonders if something similar could possibly have happened in Europe had Christianity not been present.


Very little chance if no chance at all... the reason Islam even had a chance to begin is the conflict between Partians and the Romans. Who fought a bloody war that disabled both nations to fight the Muslim Arabs. The Arabs were key Allies of both states, and had a lot of relationships with both. For example Muhammed was actually born in Roman lands, and was seriously influenced by the Christian ideas prevalent in the region. So two factors if Rome was not Christian the Muhammed so the chances of him creating Islam would be very low. Second if Rome was not Christian the wars with the Partians might not have been so common or prolonged. The conflict between Zoroastrianism and Christianity drove a lot of the conflict, where as a Pagan Rome would be more pragmatic with its diplomacy and war. If there was not the brutal war between the two states, the Arabs would not have found it so easy to conquer either land. So answer is most likely Islam would never have been born without a Christian Rome.
#15161977
Oxymoron wrote:Very little chance if no chance at all... the reason Islam even had a chance to begin is the conflict between Partians and the Romans. Who fought a bloody war that disabled both nations to fight the Muslim Arabs. The Arabs were key Allies of both states, and had a lot of relationships with both. For example Muhammed was actually born in Roman lands, and was seriously influenced by the Christian ideas prevalent in the region. So two factors if Rome was not Christian the Muhammed so the chances of him creating Islam would be very low. Second if Rome was not Christian the wars with the Partians might not have been so common or prolonged. The conflict between Zoroastrianism and Christianity drove a lot of the conflict, where as a Pagan Rome would be more pragmatic with its diplomacy and war. If there was not the brutal war between the two states, the Arabs would not have found it so easy to conquer either land. So answer is most likely Islam would never have been born without a Christian Rome.

I think that's basically right, but I just have to point out that the Parthian Empire had already fallen centuries before Mohammed was born. The Sassanid Persians are the empire you're thinking of. :)
#15161980
Potemkin wrote:I think that's basically right, but I just have to point out that the Parthian Empire had already fallen centuries before Mohammed was born. The Sassanid Persians are the empire you're thinking of. :)


Yes oops you are right.
Those damn Persians and their rebranding's.
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