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[PanH]

2 things that are really important about the spread of christianism : monotheism and afterlife (moral).

Read a bunch of Greek myths or Norse mythology, and it's all about Gods.

...Heracles.

Heracles is son of a god, which is important to the story (Hera, the 10-12 works, etc).
Jason is the only hero which is without any doubt only human.

[Loud Whispers]

Read a bunch of Greek myths or Norse mythology, and it's all about Gods.

...Heracles.

Heracles is son of a god, which is important to the story (Hera, the 10-12 works, etc).
Jason is the only hero which is without any doubt only human.

They have links to the Gods yet are clearly not Gods nor are the stories about the Gods. Demigods die. They are clearly, very, very clearly not Gods.
Any more so than Jesus being the son of God making everything he does a story about God.

[scriver]

Germanian culture was a warrior culture. Roman was a military culture. Roman economy was built upon war. Romans were fond of of killing off people by such nice, week-long executions as crucifixion, or even their own kinsmen by decimation, just to scare the other soldiers. Romans committed several genocides. It's pretty clear they weren't a single ounce less barbaric than their northern neighbours, and guess what? Neither was any other culture ever.

[PanH]

They have links to the Gods yet are clearly not Gods nor are the stories about the Gods. Demigods die. They are clearly, very, very clearly not Gods.
Any more so than Jesus being the son of God making everything he does a story about God.

Heracles is not a good example here. He had superhuman strength, thanks to him being a demigod. He wasn't a god, but he definitively wasn't a simple human either. Take Jason, Odysseus, but not Heracles.

[Loud Whispers]

Heracles is not a good example here. He had superhuman strength, thanks to him being a demigod. He wasn't a god, but he definitively wasn't a simple human either. Take Jason, Odysseus, but not Heracles.

I just picked him because he had a cult formed around him ^_^

[GlyphGryph]

Beyond that, all the stories about Christian dudes serve to effectively promote their religion and living the religious life. A lot of greek stories are about basically getting dicked over by the gods.

Or about being a hero or otherwise far more than any normal person could be. They often aren't relatable. Even if they aren't gods, they tend to be superheroes, while Christian mythology is more like a supernatural soap opera.

I think I may be losing my metaphor here, hah.

Ultimately, I think the Christian mythos is simply better at propagating itself for a lot of reasons. It's more personal, more relatable, more proselytizing. Even ignoring the benefit granted to adherents by the sort of behaviour it encouraged between them, it's got a lot of appeal.

How many greek myths actually encourage people to be like those in the myths? To relate with and emulate them? (Honest question) From my knowledge, most of them seem to cast even their humans as some mythological beings that a normal person wouldn't even WANT to be like. While a constant refrain in the bible seems to be "here's a bunch of people, and how they relate to this religion and this god. Be more like these certain people, and less like these others".

[MonkeyHead]

The fact that the myths present in Chrisitanity can easily be arranged into some kind of narrative and formed into a coherent book probably helped. Yes, all religions prior to Chrisitanity which it displaced had stores, but these sotries were in general stand alone events rather than one more continous narrative.

[chaoticag]

Well, Greek myths propagated Greek Values, while Christian Myths propagated Christian Values. When Socrates choose to drink hemlock, he chose it for the glory of death, as he could have gotten away from it all, they asked him for how he wanted to be punished, and he could have just have easily asked for banishment (For the record, he didn't ask for hemlock, after being found guilty, he asked to be punished by meals and a stipend to continue teaching). And if Plato is to be believed Crito offered to help him escape.

But yeah, comparing Greek Myths and holding them up to a Christian standard is going to lead to some pretty badly reasoned conclusion that Greek Myths didn't try to spread values to society.

[Ghazkull]

2 things that are really important about the spread of christianism : monotheism and afterlife (moral).

And i refuse to accept that afterlife was a reason for conversion.

Norse Religion had several ends one could take after one died:

If you died as a good warrior you went to Valhall, that is most commonly known.
If you drowned you went to some Seagod/Giants Hall (i forgot his name) and feated with him. That is if your friends threw some coins into the sea for you.
If you died as a freeman, however not as a warrior but as a worker (of old Age or Illness) you went to Thor's Hall.
If you were a woman you went to Friggs Hall if im not wrong.( could have been some other Goddess) Depending on different sources a woman either ended up serving the men in Thor's Hall or feasting together with them.
If you were an Oathbreaker, A Traitor or a Coward you went to Hel, awaiting the end of times to join with Surtrs Fire Giants on Ragnarök to kill the Einherjars.
If you were a Slave you served either in Valhall or in Thor's Hall (again depending on the source)

All in all outlook wasn't that bleak if you were a woman or a normal peasant in the field.

Besides what has Monotheism have to do with it? By that logic Asian and Indian Beliefs should have died out...

The fact that the myths present in Chrisitanity can easily be arranged into some kind of narrative and formed into a coherent book probably helped. Yes, all religions prior to Chrisitanity which it displaced had stores, but these sotries were in general stand alone events rather than one more continous narrative.

The Norse Myths were also arranged in several books. Good they were less important to the Faith itself but yeah.

[Loud Whispers]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Beyond that, all the stories about Christian dudes serve to effectively promote their religion and living the religious life. A lot of greek stories are about basically getting dicked over by the gods.

Or about being a hero or otherwise far more than any normal person could be. They often aren't relatable. Even if they aren't gods, they tend to be superheroes, while Christian mythology is more like a supernatural soap opera.

I think I may be losing my metaphor here, hah.

Ultimately, I think the Christian mythos is simply better at propagating itself for a lot of reasons. It's more personal, more relatable, more proselytizing. Even ignoring the benefit granted to adherents by the sort of behaviour it encouraged between them, it's got a lot of appeal.

How many greek myths actually encourage people to be like those in the myths? To relate with and emulate them? (Honest question) From my knowledge, most of them seem to cast even their humans as some mythological beings that a normal person wouldn't even WANT to be like. While a constant refrain in the bible seems to be "here's a bunch of people, and how they relate to this religion and this god. Be more like these certain people, and less like these others".

The Christian bible has been re-written many, many times and shows to be a synchronization of Judaism and Paganism. You see it take writing effects from Pagan texts and applied to modernized versions of Jewish legends. Things like the Iliad and the Odyssey were meant to have relatable characters, and it is why the Olympic pantheon was anthropomorphic and flawed. Made them more human. The same goes for their legends, there is such a wide array of characters that embody heroic ideals, overcoming personal problems and very human troubles from so many perspectives that you could find a character that you could personally relate to. You see things like Achilles's supposed invulnerability getting added on as extras, despite Achilles not actually ever being depicted as such in the original text (and in fact getting injured once). A lot of the Greek myths and even the Roman ones had key underlying themes like the the triumph over instinct against intellect, the true value of xenia and family, duty to the state versus duty to the family, the heroic code against the soldier's code, the warrior's law against civil law e.t.c.

The Christian ideals didn't invent anything new, they simply took what existed in both Paganism and Judaism and tried to make something better.

[micelus]

2 things that are really important about the spread of christianism : monotheism and afterlife (moral).

And i refuse to accept that afterlife was a reason for conversion.

Norse Religion had several ends one could take after one died:

If you died as a good warrior you went to Valhall, that is most commonly known.
If you drowned you went to some Seagod/Giants Hall (i forgot his name) and feated with him. That is if your friends threw some coins into the sea for you.
If you died as a freeman, however not as a warrior but as a worker (of old Age or Illness) you went to Thor's Hall.
If you were a woman you went to Friggs Hall if im not wrong.( could have been some other Goddess) Depending on different sources a woman either ended up serving the men in Thor's Hall or feasting together with them.
If you were an Oathbreaker, A Traitor or a Coward you went to Hel, awaiting the end of times to join with Surtrs Fire Giants on Ragnarök to kill the Einherjars.
If you were a Slave you served either in Valhall or in Thor's Hall (again depending on the source)

All in all outlook wasn't that bleak if you were a woman or a normal peasant in the field.

Besides what has Monotheism have to do with it? By that logic Asian and Indian Beliefs should have died out...

Well I'm not knowledgeable enough on Norse mythology to fully debate on this, but I can see a clear reason why slaves/women preferred Christianity. Either you be a good little Pagan and spend eternity serving the menfolk or you be a good little Christian and get eternal bliss.

[i2amroy]

One of the big things that I think probably helped spread Christianity in it's early days was the fact that a lot of the disciples (Paul especially) basically marketed it as "Jewish beliefs (such as personal freedom, a desired things when 10% of your empire is slaves and another 10% is former slaves) without all of the Jewish requirements (don't need to observe the sabbath, no circumcision, dietary laws, etc.)". This was based on the fact that a lot of the "newer" christians believed that the new testament basically overwrote the old one, meaning they didn't need to follow all the laws from the old one that the Jews were still following. The ideals of personal freedom also heavily appealed to women, and was the thing that eventually led to the conversion of Constantine through his mother.

Once Constantine became emperor that pretty much solidified the Roman empire as christian, and it has pretty much maintained that hold ever since.

[ChairmanPoo]

Whatever do judaism or christianity have to do with personal freedom in Roman times?

[i2amroy]

Whatever do judaism or christianity have to do with personal freedom in Roman times?

I might have been slightly remiss in the use of the adjective "personal", since it has a slightly different connotation then what I was going for. My intent was to say that some of the ideas present in both judaism and christianity are the ideas of fairness, love, and honesty. Now these might not have been new ideas to early christian converts, but the idea was that it gave them a reason to cling to the new religion in the face of the fact that many of the people practicing the "old" religions were the oppressors in the culture. Time has shown again and again that when people don't like their leaders they often shift away from their beliefs as well, especially when the replacements offer the idea that whatever they don't like about their leaders will be changed.

[mainiac]

Ironically Constantine was the one who wrote serfdom into roman law, sealing the fate of the lower classes for a millennium.