And this resulted in a huge revolt

Arians dropped Arianism for diplomatic reason

That's certainly a part of it

It's not that ppl were just convinced. It was a mixture of persuasion and other means

Religious Realpolitik so to speak

But to explain it by purely materialist means falls short, it seems

Sure. There's no reason for say Constantine to convert to christianity in particular is an example

He had other options and christians arguably weren't in a majority at that point

And excludes the facts that even among the earliest church fathers the concept of the *Spermatakos Logos* existed. The idea that pagans held "seeds of the Word" that could bloom into fullness in the Church was baked into Christianity.

Idk about that. Sure religions share themes about morality but the pagan view of virtue and the divine is different to the one in monotheism
Gods are seen as flawed and subordinate to things like fate and in Hinduism basically everything is subordinate to Dharma

There certainly were monotheistic and monolatric analogues though

The cult of Sol Invictus, Mithraism and the way Jupiter/Zeus was elevated above other gods. Zeus was rarely a patron deity of cities but rather somethign to swear an oth on

There's an older example in Egypt with a monotheistic sun cult

Yes, the Aten

Interestingly enough, I learned that the disc and ray of light used to symbolize the Holy Spirit on Orthodox iconography is based off of the disc Atenaten used to symbolize the Aten.

Didn't know that, very interesting

Again, this reflects the fact that the early Church recognized that even unenlightened pagans could grasp glimpses of Christian Truth.

Yeah, I was surprised too, when I heard it

It's very fascinating

Afaik it might've inspired the jews in Egypt

Regardless there's also an interesting thing about Zeus and the like because tracing back the name to the original Indo-European head deity you get Dyeus Phter which just means sky father or god father

Yeah

There's also a very interesting parallel between the Chinese *Tao* and the Greek *Logos*

And, as you mentioned yourself, there was this idea that even pagan gods were "flawed beings...governed by fate."

Fate implies an overall structure and Telos to the Cosmos. Even if not personified as God, it does point the way to Him.

Now this is not to make the Perennialist/New Age claim that somehow all religions are the same and "believe the same things" or some nonsense. A Norse pagans goal in life is very different from a Christians, or a Hindu's or even an Egyptian pagan.
The Christian belief is just that mankind cannot help but notice God and recognize Him when they sincerely seek Truth.

I don't view it as a natural result, though I'll agree there's a tendency or at least was within religions to sometimes develop into monotheism

I don't like inevitabilisms like the idea that dialectics will inevitably usher in communism or whatever

I'm certainly biased because I'm not a christian though and don't share the same view of god

Well it's certainly not inevitable

It's not like some pagan religion will suddenly give up on their beliefs and a adopt Christianity out of nowhere, and certainly the reasons you listed above are part of it.

It's not an inevitable process like Marx claimed was true for Communism or Nick Land's Hyper-racist Gigaccelerationist Techo-dystopian Anarcho-Archist Capitalist Helladise.

It's just that the seeds are there- they just need to be nurtured by the Church to bloom into truly enlightened knowledge.

I frankly want to know why pagans believe what they believe. On an intellectual level, what is so appealing?

it's like Nietzsche++

you get ammorality plus demons to give you power and no eternal punishment for doing it

That or it's vitalism like Fr. Seraphim Rose suggested

That people want something to be apart of that feels alive and that liberal secularism and staid/pozzed Protestantism doesn't provide it.

yeah

The problem is that many pagans don't reason there paganism to its logical conclusions. It's usualy a means to justify an end and not an end in itself as any religion should be.

It also doesn't help that paganism secretly helps perpetuate the Promethean Man meme. Which Nietzsche and Evola helped perpetuate unwittingly.