The tie that saved Rome. Do Western nation need a State Religion?

Define "large measure". A Christian mob burned down the Library of Alexandria on the orders of the Coptic Pope.

 

Constantine was actually a kind person. And a warrior. When he won a battle at a river crossing, he saw him winning it in a vision.

But Gibbons for my money is the best of all when it comes to the era or the Romans he examined. I liked his double blind test to ensure accuracy.

 

There are several theories, at least four, as to the burning of the Library of Alexandria. I prefer the one that blames the Muslims.

Gibbon describes the waning of the pagan faith and the rise of the Christian one. The temples were largely ignored and were eventually dismantled for building materials. Gibbon recounts two incidents where Christian mobs attacked pagan temples, the more prominent being the destruction of the Serapeum in Alexandria.

So by "large measure" I mean wide spread attacks by as opposed to isolated incidents.

You might deplore the rise of Christianity for whatever reason, but fair is fair. Christianity became widespread because of its inherent appeal and because of its approval by officialdom. Violence played a very minor role, at least until the era of the Conquistadors.

The contrast with Islam is stark.

 

And he certainly was no apologist for Christianity.

 

You might be onto something.

Not a religion with a singular god of the later empire. A religion with many gods like the early empire. That way folks can pick and choose but everyone will accept the other's god as viable. We can end much of the religious hate and replace it with good ole fashion rivalry. Kinda like what we have with today's sports teams.

Only rule i would make is that all lawyers and politicians must follow the Goddess Laverna.

 

Gibbons got into trouble with the Church of England over his books.

 

Without religion, we get Stalin.

 

I didn't know that. He did have some bad things to say about St. George who is the patron saint of England. Most scholars nowadays think he confused the real St. George with some other George, a bishop of Alexandria, who was a real stinker.

 

The Serapeum WAS the Library of Alexandria at the time.

 

I own his books so I know a bit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_History_of_the_Decline_and_Fall_of_the_Roman_Empire#Criticism

 

Not according to my sources which suggest that it did house an "offshoot" collection, but was not the main library. Perhaps this confusion is the source that Christians and not Muslims destroyed the Library of Alexandria.

In any case, it does not reverse the historic judgement that Christianity became the dominant religion of the Empire peacefully.

 

With regard to the Christian martyrs, that sort of makes Gibbon an early edition holocaust denier.

No matter. It just makes his description of the peaceful spread of Christianity in the Empire all that more unassailable.

 

With religion we get Ted Haggard!

With religion we get witch burning!

With religion we get crusades and murder in the name of god!

With religion we get suicide bombers!

With religion we get priests raping children!

With religion we get Scientists burned at the stake or placed under house arrest!

With religion we get discrimination against those we choose depending on our interpretation of gods word!

With religion we get a reason to believe slavery is gods plan!

With religion we get women's bodies controlled to our liking!

With religion we get justification to persecute those with whom we disagree!

With religion we get our children taught the earth is only 6,000 years old!

With religion we teach our children that the earth was covered in it's entirety clear up to the tops of all the mountains!

please keep in mind this list is not all inclusive and would require another server or two to do so!

 

The new religion should be the law and there must be one law for all.

All citizens have an inherent need to feel that they live in a world that is fair and just and this is why we needed religion and Gods. But now we can create international law that creates a world where the world is fair and just for all citizens of a global society. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights should be considered to be a good first draft but we need a new Universal Declaration and we need the courage and commitment to enforce it. Government that have laws that reflect the barbaric and uncivilized Sharia Law must be removed by force if necessary and these nations must be liberated from Sharia and reformed so that their laws are compatible with new international law.

What we need is a one world government and one world military. The UN and NATO are failures and they need replaced or rethought because we need modern supranational institutions that reflect modern realities.

Freedom belongs to the state, not to the individual. It is not Gods or nature that give people their rights and freedoms - it is the state. You are only born with the rights and freedoms that citizenship the state you were born in or live in affords you - and for the individuals unfortunate enough to have been born in nations that have national laws and courts that are Sharia Law compliant are not being protected by the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We must consider all humans to be citizens of a global society and we need a global government to protect each and every citizen of the global community.

The only way to create a fair and just society for every citizen of the global community is for the global community to have a global government that enforces global law that is fair, just and civilized. The establishment of a true global government and one law for all is the only way humans can achieve one Kingdom for all and the Brotherhood of Man. It is only a global government and global law that can protect all civilized, legal religions and the global citizens that practice them.

 

Mother Teresa > Bill Maher

 

Sounds like making government god in the secular religion of the one world order.
Hillary and most elites agree.

 

Mother Teresa was a cold hearted (*)(*)(*)(*)(*) that insisted her dupes suffer and not get the treatment that would have eased their suffering in their last days.

 

Most of the life of Charlemagne was spent in wars to spread Christianity among the remaining pagans of Europe, particularly the Saxons, but also the Magyars et al. . Islam was probably less violent as the areas it was spreading into often welcomed its lower taxes and less oppressive government.

The closest thing we have to a State Religion in the West today is the way we feel about Democracy. There is practically no Western government that does not recognize it as the Central Guiding Princiiple, though there is a very wide divergence in the specific ways this is manifested, with many being strictly authoritarian dictatorships giving it lip service.only

It's strange how many posters on here seem to feel about Modern Christianity the way the nuns at the Catholic school I went to wanted us to feel about Catholicism. They talked about the Medieveal world like it was the greatest thing that had ever existed, and I never knew the Reformation wasn't called the Protestant Revolt until I went to regular school in the 10th grade. Fortunately that kind of indoctrination can just as easily turn you against as make you a Christian Soldier, and that's what happened to me.

WHY do so many Protestants want to bring back "Christendom" and restart the Crusades?. Believe me, nuns and priests don't want a fun world.

 

Yes, the global elite would become Gods.

 

Thanks for making me laugh.

 

Christians laughing at the truth stopped surprising me years ago.