A more Polytheistic World

Re cost of churches - I've spent a bit of time in Spain/Italy this last couple of years and one thing that becomes quickly apparent is the huge number of beautifully decorated churches or cathedrals, often in what are or were very small towns or cities. The cost of building or maintaining these many churches must be prohibitive these days and I'd hate to think how the city or church elders afforded to do so back in earlier times.

I can't recall the details, but if I'm remembering correctly a lot of those cathedrals were actually built in order to get people working when otherwise they wouldn't be able to do anything, and keep the economy alive at times.
 
I can't recall the details, but if I'm remembering correctly a lot of those cathedrals were actually built in order to get people working when otherwise they wouldn't be able to do anything, and keep the economy alive at times.

A make work scheme? That is an interesting theory, would certainly explain a couple of points - all that stone, the fine carving, the ornate metalwork etc.
 
A make work scheme? That is an interesting theory, would certainly explain a couple of points - all that stone, the fine carving, the ornate metalwork etc.

Most major construction schemes had that aspect, but medieval cathedrals are poorly suited for it. If you look at a Gothic church especially (and compare it with contemporary houses or city walls), you'll see it is the kind of architecture that requires extremely highly skilled labour. Building a cathedral could take several centuries not because it was so huge (bigger projects were finished in much shorter time) but because it was so ornate and made such great demands on skill and experience. Most people looking for work simply wouldn't make the grade. Of course there are unskilled posts, too, just not that many. So that wasn't the idea, or rather, not the only idea. It's likely that status played a role (if you have the biggest cathedral or a hugely ornate or beautiful one, that's a point of civic pride). So did technophilia ('look what we can do!') and force of habit (how could you be the only city without a cathedral?). The tradition had, after allk, started with episcopal cities before the independence of the commune, so it was inherited from people to whom it made eminent political sense. And finally, we shouldn't forget plain piety. People actually thought that building ornate churches pleased God, and that was important to them. That is why they sacrificed vast sums of money (not time - cathedral builders were skilled worken who got paid from the funds provided for the purpose, not volunteers)
 
Guys

Also I would have presumed that since cathedrals often took decades to build they wouldn't be suitable for make-work schemes. You want something to keep people busy during a relatively short period rather than employing their descendants for a couple of generations.

Steve
 
Guys

Also I would have presumed that since cathedrals often took decades to build they wouldn't be suitable for make-work schemes. You want something to keep people busy during a relatively short period rather than employing their descendants for a couple of generations.

Steve
Would you believe centuries? Chartres is notable for its speed of construction, and that still took 60+ years - which only emphasizes your point, of course.
 
Regardless of whether a religion is polytheism, monotheism or others, I personally believe that it's will better for the human race to have more religions spread more evenly compared to the OTL. :cool:

The domination of major religions has been one the major cause of wars and conflicts around the world. :(
 
Regardless of whether a religion is polytheism, monotheism or others, I personally believe that it's will better for the human race to have more religions spread more evenly compared to the OTL. :cool:

The domination of major religions has been one the major cause of wars and conflicts around the world. :(

Speaking as a writer, I'll be selfish with my own motivations and say that it'd also provide more mythologies to steal shamelessly from, assuming that the prevalence of polytheism resulted in a continual development of new ofshoots or even entirely new polytheistic faiths. :D
 
Have Julian the Apostate live longer and create a formalized classical paganism that borrows a lot from Christianity organizationally and ensure he has a successor who won't immediately exterminate it and you might end up with classical paganism surviving Late Antiquity.
 

Philip

Donor
Have Julian the Apostate live longer and create a formalized classical paganism that borrows a lot from Christianity organizationally and ensure he has a successor who won't immediately exterminate it and you might end up with classical paganism surviving Late Antiquity.

I'm working on something like this were Augustine of Hippo never converts to Christianity, but sides with Julian. Eventually, Julian adopts Augustine's son Adeodatus who succeeds him as emperor.
 
Erm, just a minor nitpick, but Hinduism is actually monotheistic.

No, really. Hear me out:

The way the logic works, the Hindu god is everything: all time, all space, all thought, all matter, all energy - you get the idea.

No it's not- that's one flavour of Hinduism (and in any case that's more monistic than monotheist). What we call "Hinduism" is actually a huge grouping of local religions with related philosophy and folklore ranging all the way from purely tribal religions with some slight tinge of the vedas to the rarefied heights of Buddhism which subjects even the Gods to karma.
 
The domination of major religions has been one the major cause of wars and conflicts around the world. :(

Do you honestly expect us to believe that without any religion or with many religions that don't hold any sway over the people that practice them, the greedy and power-hungry of this world would have any difficulty in finding suitable pretexts to start wars? No really, do you think that anything other than a different human genetic code would be sufficient for the world to be even slightly more peaceful? Wow! Ok no comment in case you believe that. Keep it up, it will make you happy.

No it's not- that's one flavour of Hinduism (and in any case that's more monistic than monotheist). What we call "Hinduism" is actually a huge grouping of local religions with related philosophy and folklore ranging all the way from purely tribal religions with some slight tinge of the vedas to the rarefied heights of Buddhism which subjects even the Gods to karma.

Quite true, with one little factual error. While it kind of started as a Hindu heresy, Buddhism is most definitely NOT Hinduism in any way, just as Christianity is not Judaistic in any way. Of course Christians do claim that Christianity is the true continuation of the Ancient Jewish faith, while Buddhists do not claim that about Hinduism.

The cultural environment in which Buddhism was born is a Vedic/Hindu one. But the end result is very, very different.
 
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