With a POD going back 2500 years, make it so the Roman religion has Christianity's place in the world throughout history and into today, with billions of followers. Christianity must still be formed, and it can still exist today, but it can never be more than a tiny and little-known religion.
AHC: Roman paganism survives, thrives to today
- Thread starter Armored Diplomacy
- Start date
What do you mean by Christianity existing? Does it need to be distinct from Judaism, or can religious scholars in this world simply speak of Christianity as a denomination of Judaism?
Messianic Judaism is a thing. You could just have it fully incorporate Christianity somehow, therefore keeping it tied to the Jewish peoples
The story about the sign in sky has long been blown out of proportion, originally, Constantine, many years after the Milvian Bridge battle, related to his secretary, Lacantius, that he saw a sign in a dream.
His decision to ban Christian persecution and to give the religion certain social privileges was most likely due to him having a mother and sister who were practising Christians.
I really don't think this is possible at all. The Roman belief system was not very well suited for missionary work, and without that, it's just not viable. Christianity has served as an axis for societies to revolve around; I really don't see how as diverse and "lenient" set of beliefs as the Roman can do that.
Granted, I may have grossly misunderstood something, but I really do think you need a very, ehm, dominating faith, to have this work.
Granted, I may have grossly misunderstood something, but I really do think you need a very, ehm, dominating faith, to have this work.
Hinduism has a billion followers today and is the third largest religion in the world in spite of any missionary impulse, competition with two major missionary religions (Islam and Buddhism), and a total lack of anything resembling an overarching structure. Roman Paganism already has a leg up on Hinduism in that it has a structure which was set up and controlled by the Roman state (Pontifex Maximus and all subordinate magistracies) complete with explicit imperial support. The redirection of funds from the Roman religion to Christianity under Constantine and its elevation to the sole religion of the empire under Theodosius had a LOT more to do with Christianity's rise from significant cult to dominant religion than its missionary impulse.
Depends what you mean by Roman Paganism, I could definately see something like this happening in a scenario where the Roman religion is reformed in such a way as to make it more viable long term (eg the complete adoption of Neo-Platoist ideals which which is a concept I've always found cool or Sol's growing cult being put in a much more primary position in the religion to give it some kind of central being most people can get behind).
Or the other way around with Christianity being more popular and the majority of Jews converting to it, leading to a situation where Judaism either dies out or is in a similar situation to OTL Mandaeism or Druze, becoming a completely Ethnoreligious group restricted in size and location.
Assuming that the Roman Empire falls sometime around OTL to presumably pagan Germanic invaders, will the new rulers of western Europe eventually adopt some form of the Roman religion (like they adopted various forms of Latin), or will they replace it with their gods?
I don't see why Christianity couldn't just be forever viewed as a denomination within Judaism. I mean Mormonism is generally considered to be a denomination within Christianity despite the fact that they believe in multiple gods and other things which make it completely inconsistent not just with Christianity, but with Abrahamaic monotheism as a whole.
Most Christians don't consider themselves to be Jews. Most Mormons consider themselves to the Christians. That's the difference.
I think it would be a fairer statement to say that Mormons view themselves as just another branch of Christianity, while the majority of Christians would not be sure whether to classify them as heretics or apostates (to use the theological terms)...
As for the POD, you don't need to get rid of Christianity to allow Roman Paganism to survive... if you could keep Justinian from closing the pagan Platonic Academy in 529AD then you would continue to see many upper class Greeks following a Neo-Platonic belief system...
That would hardly net the Roman religion billions of followers.
It would allow it to survive though... Even Julian the Apostate couldn't manage a Indigeous Roman Religion revival... general apathy was the name of the game...
I think to answer your challange that your best bet would be a misplaced stone hits Saul at the stonig of Stephen... that would hurt the Early Church big time...
Question: What sort of Roman Religions do you want large... Paganism is a pretty rubbish term... not to mention none of them would have wanted it since it essentially meant rural hill-billy...
Do you want polytheistic, monothestic, mystical cult... Take your pick and then we can make the challange a little bit more specific...
Faeelin
Banned
I suppose part of this is it lacks the ethnic ties of Judaism. But why paganism lost out is an interesting question; none of hte explanations have ever felt satisfying ot me.