/atheism/ - Atheism

>>13173

I thinks it's about power. Polytheism has more gods and therefore more legit opinions. Monotheism has one god, one opinion and usually one leader who speaks for the god. Is is pretty handy when you are the king.

>>13181

I hear that sentiment batted around quite a bit, but I don't see any real evidence for it outside the context of Catholicism

The "divine right of kings" argument for the spread monotheism could be combated with the argument that a ruler is descended from gods in a polytheistic pantheon. Augustus for example claimed the Julio Claudians were descended from Aeneas son of Venus.

Similarly the Chinese Mandate of Heavan didn't require monotheism either. I think the claim of monotheism=power is due to over reliance on accounts of Danish and Norwegian kings converting to Christianity for more power. Bear in mind that Catholicism had certain geopolitical ramifications, namely a papacy that could offer support to rulers.

>>13182

I think it's harder to be fanatic about polytheism.

Fanatism can be useful to keep people in line.

Monotheistics gods are also more powerful. Even your mind isn't save from them.You can trick Zeus but not the abrahamic god.

Also monotheism tends to be more anti-other religions. If you have a pantheon then it's easy to believe that there are other existing gods that just don't belong to your canon. Monotheism says all other gods are heathen bs. It's more intolerant and doesn't allow opposition.

Of course it doesn't work perfect but it's more stable than most other religions.

>>13184

It really reflects poorly on humans (neurotypicals) that they would succumb to that sort of a belief system. I really don't get why they don't stop and rethink their emotional gut reactions and play devil's advocate with themselves to examine their own emotional biases

>>13173

I don't know why polytheism isn't more popular. More gods less waiting. Somebody has got of answer my prayers if I throw enough of them out there.

Jesus, sure as shit ain't helping me.

Maybe Loki is available.

>>13188

I like how unlike with monotheism polytheism has built in excuses for why your God didn't answer you: you were praying to the wrong God. You're supposes ro pray to Poseidon when you want protection on the sea, not Athena. Maybe Ares let your wife die because you forgot to give him to either last year, and if he won't forgive you then pray to the the another God.

>>13191

Yes.. and if you made the correct offerings and that god didn't deliver it was socially acceptable to express anger about it.

You could storm into a Roman temple scream about how you sacrificed goats and that rat bastard of a god Posiedion didn't protect your ships at sea.

Nowadays.. even through the repeatedly Bible promises that Jesus will deliver..

John 14:13

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13"Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14"If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.

despite all this sort of shit.. when your prayers fail. (which they will) you aren't allowed to be disappointed.. You have to say "It's God's will" and be happy your child died a long painful death of bone cancer.

The polytheists were so much more honest. They feared their gods and didn't try to pretend their were perfect.

Read the Bible. There is no way a sane person could love that vicious jealous sadist prick of deity, but there are plenty of reasons to fear him.

I guess they fear that monster in sky so much they pretend to love him. Just like the spontaneous demonstrations of gratitude and joy for Big Brother in 1984.

Most of Christianity's spread can be attributed to Constantine adopting it as the official religion of Rome; that alone gives it access to most of the known world. So it's probably more about political capital than organic mass appeal.

>>13206

and men with swords willing to gut you like a fish…

Having official permission to use violence against it's critics always helps create "acceptance" of your ideas.

>>13258

>Constantine made it legal, Theodosius made it the State religion

All true. My mistake.

>>13258

Lmao this looks like a Hindu temple except the figurines aren't fucking and making me horny.

The Graeco-Roman world was moving from its ancient polytheism into a more monotheistic worldview at the time of Christianity's ascendance. The many natural and man-made catastrophes of the third century had profoundly shaken Romans' faith in their traditional theology.

The sun god Apollo was evolving toward becoming the main deity in the imperial belief system, and was often depicted with Mars and Hercules. The Sol Invictus (unconquered sun) religion was very popular among soldiers. The supposedly first Christian emperor Constantine issued tens of millions of coins honoring Sol and Mars as "comrade" and "protector" of the emperor. Many of the attributes of Apollo would be applied to the Christian deity.

It is not hard to see the initial appeal of Christianity. It possesses a magical book of instructions of how to control the supreme Alpha male in the sky, how you can get presents from him by certain behaviors and avoid his anger by others.

This was a bombshell when it hit the Classical world. No one had ever thought up such a thing before. The catch of course is you don't get your presents until after you're dead. No one can come back and say, you know, fellas, I think we've been had.

But now, unlike the era of paganism, the holistic understanding of the world and the human place in it is gone, and every aspect of your most personal behavior is regulated by the complex code of silly laws in the magical book - a pretty lousy trade-off, if you ask me.

The early Christians were not a sect of proto-hippie socialist pacifists: they were members of a militant millennial cult who like the Jews before them arrogantly considered themselves the only righteous folk in a world filled with wickedness. Pious Romans were appalled by their rejection of the gods - "atheist" was a common term for them - to worship a mere man, and a crucified criminal at that. Followers of "The Way", as they called themselves, refused to honor their duties to their country and mocked the morals and traditional values of the larger culture. They daily anticipated, as Paul promised, the return of their Savior who would slaughter all the evil people and make them masters of the earth. From the beginning, Christianity was marked by intolerance, self-righteousness, and deceit that it inherited from Judaism. We now know that the great persecutions of Christians so lovingly detailed in 4th and 5th century chronicles never took place. When Christians finally seized state power in 381 CE they passed the first laws in Roman history banning all religious observation but their own.

Educated Romans living during the ascendancy of Christianity thought themselves witnesses to the end of civilization. Indeed when this absurd little sect took over the empire, its priesthood embarked on a two-centuries long orgy of violence, destroying ancient temples and universities, pillaging centuries of artworks, burning libraries, from Antioch to Pergamon to the great library of Alexandria, condemning women and gay people as demons, projecting their morbid sexual obsessions onto a people now barely more than slaves to an authoritarian unforgiving church, and in the process sending the west into a thousand years of intellectual, cultural, and technological stagnation.

Let their experience stand as a reminder and a warning to us all today - never again!

>>13261

EXACTLY.

I was going to paste it alongside a Hindu temple and make it a "spot the differences" tongue-in-cheek game