Message from @HotGore
Discord ID: 450372772741513216
also, paganism was on the down turn at the time of early christianity, most upper class people were becoming fedoras essentially
paganism wasnt taken seriously as a religion. it was something you gave lip service to for civic reasons, and the lower classes had their superstitions.
generally the countries enforced the faith and wiped out heretics, but there was never really strong, long term control in africa, asia or south america
yup, even the romans didnt believe it
you just did it because it was the culture
the Spaniards did a really good job stomping out paganism
they went to the new world shortly after removing islam from spain
@HotGore the upper classes especially were very philosophically inclined, the strongest beliefs at the time for very educated people was neoplatonism
nifty
well neoplatonism was 3rd century, probably at the time of christ it was just platonism
neoplatonism was sort of monotheistic
I read a lot of stoicism from the romans, the upper classes don't seem to have a strong faith, except in the idea of logos
gnosticism was a sort of bastardized neoplatonism with jewish and christian stuff mixed in
new age basically
there also seemed to be a lot of atheism in rome as well before christ
augustine was a neoplatonist before he converted to christianity
originally he was manichean
so those ideas had some influence on the church, not necessarily in a bad way
yeah very true
christians identified the Monad as YHVH
so it wasnt too difficult for neoplatonists to convert
because in terms of the actual identity of the One was not really expounded on
then Christians come around and they are the only real monotheists
surprisingly that is a big deal in terms of religions
islam stalled because they never could accept that idea
once you can accept that truth can come outside of faith, then you can respect the humanity of nonbelievers
if you want to shit on unironic Gnostics, which I have had to deal with, quote Plotinus to them
they are the most annoying faggots, worse than Fedoras, super antichristian and think they are woke
Plotinus and Irenus shit on gnostics
yeah and their "lost gospels" are just rewritten pagan legends
Plotinus himself was a neoplatonist and not christian
yeah
seriously, required reading for any christian https://www.amazon.ca/Bearing-False-Witness-Debunking-Anti-Catholic/dp/1599474999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1527447892&sr=8-1&keywords=bearing+false+witness
the only response gnostics ever have is "boo hoo the church suppressed us"
it was the fact that people left them because it was so obviously full of shit
even if the inquisition did kill a bunch of heretics and jews, it was a good thing
modern day love for the gnostics is just to subvert christianity
the dark ages being an era of stagnation because of the church is also total nonsense, just worthless anti-christian bullshit
its like saying the great depression was bc of the church