What Would A World Without Christianity Look Like?

Imagine a world where Christianity remains one of many cults in Roman society. Jesus dies claiming to be the son of God like many people did at the time. His small band of followers die without spreading anything. In this scenario the religion is probably even lost to history. Why would it be remembered? Rome would probably still have collapsed but in the aftermath all that remains is the old Pagan religions of Europe. There is never a Catholic Church AKA the ultimate king of Europe for many centuries following Rome. So there is never a force that destroys Paganism and no destruction of old world knowladge.

There is so much Christianity erased. For example Romans understood how to make concrete something we did not relearn until the 18th century. But any text be it scientific or religious that is not the New Testament is evil so it no longer exists. Another great example would be the Library of Alexandria. We are not even 100% sure what was lost there but enough that this Library was known all through the ancient world.

Would there have even been a Dark Age period without this destruction? Not considering religion Rome was the glue that held that part of the world together. I think it's fair to say that there would still have been many of the same conflicts that saw Europe divided into small kingdoms but without the religious component I think much of the Roman knowladge and belief system would have been upheld.

The Crusades would have still probably happened but for purely strategic reasons since the Muslims encroached into Europe. But we could still argue that without the religious motivations of believing one was "taking back the Holy land" the conflict would be entirely different. There is no need to go to the Middle East to fight them only to get them out of Spain.

There is no Renaissance because there was no force putting down those kind of ideas. Today we would probably not even have many of the debates we do. For example who cares about being gay or abortion if there is no religion saying it is wrong? Funny thing the Catholic Church was OK with it until the middle 1500's. They said the same thing science says now it's not really a "person" for a while and their belief was that there was no soul during that time in the women's body but her own. But that is beside the point.

Do you think society as a whole would be better or worse without this religion or do you believe we have been corrupted by men claiming to speak on behalf of god? I think even many Catholics would admit there rules have changed a lot over the years and it's usualy the Pope a man who claims this change is now OK.

 

how would jesus cure with cannabis if he did not exist?

 

Probably the same. Religion or the idea of it, has been around long before Christianity, so there'd be another religion in its place plus all the others that already exist. I don't think religion will ever go away, and I think it's good to have the freedom to choose. Just so long as the person doesn't push their beliefs on others, or in the government, it's not a problem. I'm a former Christian, and I still find value in some of the teachings, just not all of them.

 

There's so much to nuance in the OP. Lets just start with one example: is christianity/are early christians really to blame for the loss of the roman invention of concrete?

 

So the romans conquered half of Europe and enslaved countless people and then we lost the concrete.

If it hadn't been christianity it would have been some other monstrous cluster fuck.

 

The world would be completely different, and yet very similar.

Evidence seems to point to religion being a necessary/inevitable part of human social and cultural development, so just getting rid of one of them wouldn't really do a great deal. It'd just be replaced by something else, most likely.

If the question was: what if Christianity was replaced with something more humanistic, then the answer would be yes of course that would be better. Most likely though, they'd have been replaced with another typical religion: sexist, homophobic, repressive, aggressive, expansionist etc.

European history would be completely unrecognizable, because the major power players would not exist in the same form (most notably the catholic church).

 

one that didn't hate logic?
where people learned that consideration wasn't just because some book said so?
the burning of alexandria would not have terrorized europe against scientific thought for a thosand years.
and without that, the age of steam would likely have started at least 500 years sooner, if not a thousand.
and the age of electiricity not much after, if not even before.
a world much advanced, without the downsides of too rapid change.
not saying christianity has only done harm.
christianity itself, without the pauline herrisy, would have been very different and truer to its origeonal intent belief for that matter.

 

Man, i feel like Pressed Rat in a holocaust thread reading all these unnuanced cliches and rigid statements assumed as fact. Cringing! And I'm not even christian

 

Maybe it played a small part. But the empire had got too big to defend against incursions of migratoty tribal peoples. Goths, Huns and the rest are probably the real reason the empire in the west collapsed.The Romans were also getting soft because of the wealth and so on they got from the empire.Many Roman armies of the later empire period consisted mainly of non-Romans. Byzantium as we know endured for much longer, but eventually fell to the Turks.

The argument that Christianity led to the dark ages could be stood on its head. At least it allowed something of the Roman order to survive, and formed the basis for the reconstruction of European culture. It's doubtful that the pagan tribes would have had enough organization or discipline to do the same. Without Christianity, the world might be in an even worse state than it ended up in.

 

Interesting question.

Makes me wonder about Spanish missionaries in what would become the American West and English Puritans in the East.

Despite no official religion and a separation of church and state, the US is very Christian. Without Christianity, how does this country develop? What is our culture? Do we live in harmony with the people who were already here?

 

the 'roman order' was the problem that made much of christianity dark.
rome rome so wonderful. not.
before greece and rome, no one thought aggressiveness a wonderful or positive thing.
and anyway, christianity destroying rome was a good thing,
but the fear and hatred of logic that came out of both rome AND its fall, there wouldn't have been the lost time the industrial revolution did so much harm making up for.

its hard not to paint something with a broad brush, when that thing itself, paints everything else with one.
yes i know its not entirely fair to do so,
but a statistic is a statistic and we live in a world of them.

different isn't better or worse,
just different.
reality being diverse,
is what makes it wonderful and good.

 

i think there is an example of an answer to that. when buddhism came to shinto japan.
there may have been small individual personal conflicts, though i have no specific knowledge of any,
but there weren't the massive and horrendous genocides we see with the euro-christian invasion of the western hemisphere.
and if there hadn't been a roman empire, christianity could have been like that.

 

this earth is diverse now, and there are many places where christianity plays no major role.
places good and bad, with people good and bad.

i believe there would be less hatred of logic, and more love of diversity.

there wouldn't have been the middle ages as we know them,
which was not a happy time for the majority of people living then.

the question wasn't to judge christianity, and that's not what i'm doing.

i love the idea of a world where people didn't tell each other our species is incapable of getting its act together.
and that's one of the things, that without it, and i'm not saying without beliefs, we could and i believe would have.

i believe we would be much more technologically advanced, but having gotten there at a slower, steadier, and less traumatic pace.

i believe there would be much less stress induced mental illness.
but i don't believe any one outcome would be inevitable.

if anything is that, it is diversity, which is the nature of reality and the universe.

many gods might exist, or one or none, but no religious belief, christianity included, is really about them.

they're more about how humans think about each other,
but that does influence culture,
and that in tern, influences the course of development.

 

The Saxons go on to conquer the world with their Wiking brethren.

 

axially i think the minoens would have gotten there furst. longboats vs steam powered trebuchettes.

 

The library at Alexandria wouldn't have been destroyed.

 

People would know what I'm talking about when I say "Happy Yule".

 

no. humans do NOT all act the same. and its not that 'things' wouldn't have happened. its that THE SAME things wouldn't have happened. completely other things, would have of course.
maybe not better, (but forgive my suspecions many might have been), maybe not worse, but certainly OTHER.

you've fallen for the lie of "human nature". sorry there is no "human nature". there is only the influence of the cultures we are born into, and not so very long ago, there was a far greater diversity of these. there still is some. and cultures are steered by what people find entertaining or inspiring. thus writers and creators in all media steer culture, often without intending to or realizing they do. this is why story tellers were held sacred in many indiginous communities, who unlike our own, that seldom looks beyond the next dollar, were very much aware of this.

this loss of cultural diversity is also why conquest is an evil, not a right.

you're right about one part of that, WE do make 'civilizations' fall as well as rise.
there are a number of reasons for this. as a statistical consensus we quickly tire of the familiar. sometimes for good reasons. sometimes for ridiculous ones.

so why haven't people as quickly tired of chirstianity (and islam, and several other major belief systems as well)? because it appeals to the collective human ego,
by telling us yet another lie, that our species is the reason the rest of the universe exists.
and another one, that wishing to be feared is natural and good, that one is why its possible to get people to go along with the whole conquest and ideology thing to begin with.