Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Richard Carrier · 08-02-2005, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lpetrich

What could Xianity's competition have done?

I partly discuss this in Chapter 18 where I explain what Mithraism did wrong. One can infer from that what Mithraism could have done right. In Chapter 6 I discuss what normative paganism had going against it, and again one can infer from that what a cult could have done to exploit this fact. I would add to what one can already infer from these two chapters, the following:

Besides those things, a competing cult needed:

(a) the hierarchical, border-crossing, dogma-enforcing model that Christianity developed, which ensured centralized control and, for lack of a better word, "quality control" of the product (this same feature was also a prominent reason Constantine preferred it: the church already had a border-crossing command-and-control system that was remarkably intact despite the chaos of the 3rd century);

(b) real, practical benefits like those Christianity offered (support groups for the ill and distraught, reliable and egalitarian charity aimed at sustaining the poor, and moral order--as I explain in Chapter 5, by taking steps to maintain moral order, Christian society was more trustworthy and comfortable than less consistently moral social groups, and therefore more attractive, in the same way that cities with low crime rates attract immigrants even if those cities have more oppressive laws--Singapore being a classic example);

(c) doctrines that not only appealed to the masses rather than the elite, but that were packaged in a way that was more attractive to the masses (I discuss this point in several chapters, how the lower-class appeal ensured a broader base of support and membership, especially where I discuss why the rational philosophical schools did not succeed); and

(d) a memetically inherent drive to breed missionaries who traveled and preached tirelessly and who targeted outcast and disgruntled individuals and families, and especially aimed their sights at heads of household and groups who already shared ideological affinities with the new message.

That, at any rate, is my theory. Otherwise, you are right: claims to maximal antiquity were available to Egyptian and Persian religion, which is why Romanized versions of Egyptian and Persian religions became so popular (Isidism and Mithraism being the most significant examples).

lpetrich · 08-03-2005, 09:10 PM

Very good points, RC -- early Xianity's cliquishness and anti-intellectualism. I remember once being shocked to discover in one of Paul's letters something like "God has shown that the wisdom of the world is foolishness!"

I'm not sure if this is a good source on Isidism, but I reread the last chapters of Apuleius's The Golden Ass recently, and it includes a beautiful vision of Isis that our transformed hero experiences. She proclaims that she is worshipped under numerous names in many places, but that the Egyptians, with their ancient learning, know her real name and the truest rites for worshipping her.

There isn't anything more on Egypt's long history, no mentions of books like Aegyptiaca, nothing on how those proud Greeks and Romans were rude barbarians while the Egyptians were building their pyramids. I guess it was only in recent centuries that we got a clear idea of that chronology.

The closest thing in the Bible to Isis's speech is Paul's proclaiming in the Areopagus that he knows about the "Unknown God" who has an altar there. He did not go as far as the author of the Letter of Aristeas, who claimed that Zeus is the Biblical God in disguise.

-

Mithraism, however, seems to be mostly a Roman invention, though with the name Mithras borrowed from Persia. RC is quite correct that it has some things going against it as a possible state religion -- it was all-male and its followers were in the military. However, the Egyptian cults seemed to lack those deficiencies, even if they weren't exclusivist and aggressive about trying to convert people.

Johnny Skeptic · 08-03-2005, 10:27 PM

The title of this thread is 'Was Christianity too improbable to be false?' I prefer to put it another way. If Christianity had not come along, would the majority of people have continued to follow Judaism and pagan religions? The correct answer is of course yes. Given the poor choices of Judaism and pagan religions, world views other than Christianity would also have been deemed attractive to a lot of people if they had been available. Today, collectively, religions other than Christianity have a much greater number of followers than Christianity does. In addition, atheism, agnosticism and Deism continue to grow in popularity.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution late in the 1800's, advances in science and education have closely paralled a growing lack of interest in religion.

Today, if some people made claims that a man who claimed to be the Son of God was going around healing a lot of people and walking on water, modern media and transportation could immediately confirm or disprove the claims. Such means of investigation were not available back then.

It is no accident that the texts say that signs and wonders will pass away. The book of Acts says that the disciples went about confirming the word with signs and wonders. The need for that is quite strange considering the 500 eyewitnesses, the testimonies of the disciples, the feeding of the 5,000, the feeding of the 4,000, the many healings performed by Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

lpetrich · 08-12-2005, 08:02 AM

Parallel to Johnny Skeptic's discussion about religion going downhill, note how miracle claims have gone downhill also -- big, spectacular miracles do not happen anymore. And the miracles that do happen have a tendency to happen away from high-tech documentation techniques. This is much like the "shyness effect" in psi research, in which the presence of skeptics inhibits psychic powers (BTW, psi-research claims have become similarly scaled down over the decades; the more reputable psi researchers nowadays have little taste for those who contact ghosts, unlike their predecessors of a century or so ago).

And this is somewhat peripheral, but as I was researching the "peak oil" question, I came across some articles on the collapse of large-scale societies, one of them was Richard Heinberg's Meditations on Collapse, a review of Jared Diamond's recent book. This article has a link to another interesting article: Michael Greer's paper "How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse", in which he says:

Quote:

The collapse of the western Roman Empire, by contrast, was a catabolic collapse driven by a combined maintenance and resource crisis. While the ancient Mediterranean world, like imperial China, was primarily dependent on readily replenished resources, the Empire itself was the product of an anabolic cycle fueled by easily depleted resources and driven by Roman military superiority. Beginning in the third century BCE, Roman expansion transformed the capital of other societies into resources for Rome as country after country was conquered and stripped of movable wealth. Each new conquest increased the Roman resource base and helped pay for further conquests. After the first century CE, though, further expansion failed to pay its own costs. All remaining peoples within the reach of Rome were either barbarian tribes with little wealth, such as the Germans, or rival empires capable of defending themselves, such as the Parthians (Jones 1974). Without income from new conquests, the maintenance costs of empire proved unsustainable, and a catabolic cycle followed rapidly. The first major breakdown in the imperial system came in 166 CE, and further crises followed until the Western empire ceased to exist in 476 CE (Grant 1990, Grant 1999).

The Roman collapse has an instructive feature which offers further support to the model presented here. In 297 the emperor Diocletian divided the empire into western and eastern halves. Coordination between them waned, and by the death of Theodosius I in 395, the two halves of the empire were effectively independent states. Since the western empire produced 1/3 the revenues of the eastern empire, but had more than twice as much northern frontier to defend against barbarian encroachments, this placed most of the original empire’s vulnerabilities in one half and most of its remaining resources in the other. In terms of the catabolic collapse model, the eastern Empire allowed massive quantities of relatively unproductive, high-maintenance capital to be converted to waste, bringing its M(p) below its remaining C(p) and breaking out of the catabolic cycle. The eastern empire’s territory decreased further with the Muslim conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries CE; while this was involuntary the effects were the same. Successfully shifting to a level of organization that could be supported sustainably by trade and agriculture within a more manageable territory, the eastern Empire survived for nearly a millennium longer than its western twin (Bury 1923).

Here, "catabolic collapse" is "a self-reinforcing cycle of contraction converting most capital to waste."

According to this theory and Richard Carrier's, Xianity's takeover was made possible by the Roman Empire's being large but unsustainable. Its growth was sustained by conquest, but when that revenue source ran out, keeping it going became difficult. This enabled Xianity to grow and eventually get the official favor of the Empire's leaders -- and get imposed over a large and wealthy territory.

Johnny Skeptic · 08-12-2005, 09:24 AM

How improbable the growth of Christianity was was directly proportionate to what the competition was, not proportionate to whether or not it was true. Proof of this is that if Christianity hadn't come along when it did, the vast majority of people who became Christians would have followed Judaism and pagan religions, both of which would have been poor choices indeed. Therefore, we must consider how good the judgment of people who became Christians was BEFORE they became Christians. Why should anyone assume that Jews and pagans who became Christians finally got it right after previously exercising poor judgment? Similarly, if Christianity hadn't come along by this time, 2005, people who became Christians would have accepted world views that they now consider to be false, and that would include Judaism.

lpetrich · 08-13-2005, 07:47 AM

I think that Johnny Skeptic has an interesting point -- if Xianity had not come along, what might have? A possibility is another Jewish heresy; there were numerous Jewish sects back in the first-century Roman Empire, and one of them might have done what Xianity eventually did. I mention that because of zeal in seeking converts; back then, some Jews had composed the pseudo-Sibylline books, claiming that their religion was supported by pagan oracles.

WinAce · 08-13-2005, 05:30 PM

While I admire Richard's stamina, about the only thing that needed to be said is that Christianity succeeded the same way it does now, with no more living eyewitnesses for thousands of years. Very skillfully utilizing about every logical fallacy available, in other words.

Johnny Skeptic · 08-13-2005, 05:36 PM

What about the millions of people who died over a number of centuries without ever having heard the Gospel message?

youngalexander · 08-13-2005, 06:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WinAce

While I admire Richard's stamina, about the only thing that needed to be said is that Christianity succeeded the same way it does now, with no more living eyewitnesses for thousands of years. Very skillfully utilizing about every logical fallacy available, in other words.

I think that is far too harsh a judgement. We can see from the ubiquitous nature of religion in both time & location that it serves very real human needs. These needs are not going to go away any time soon.

The simple fact is, that if religions did not exist then humans would have to invent them. Come to think of it, that is just what they did!! :devil3:

WinAce · 08-13-2005, 09:23 PM

How is that a harsh judgement, youngalexander?

Sure, we could gloss over the fact that religions are generally NOT adopted for rational reasons. Call them "meta-rational" as some have, if you prefer. That won't change the fact that, say, converting out of emotional need, or because you were impressed by its antiquity, is accepting something as a truth when your support for it is fallacious.

Holding makes the fatal (to his thesis) mistake of assuming that people convert after objectively weighing evidence, acting the veritable James Randi. "No witnesses to the resurrection? Tough cookies, I'm not gonna believe it, then!" As if that's how people convert in the real world...

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08-03-2005, 09:10 PM	#12
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	Very good points, RC -- early Xianity's cliquishness and anti-intellectualism. I remember once being shocked to discover in one of Paul's letters something like "God has shown that the wisdom of the world is foolishness!" I'm not sure if this is a good source on Isidism, but I reread the last chapters of Apuleius's The Golden Ass recently, and it includes a beautiful vision of Isis that our transformed hero experiences. She proclaims that she is worshipped under numerous names in many places, but that the Egyptians, with their ancient learning, know her real name and the truest rites for worshipping her. There isn't anything more on Egypt's long history, no mentions of books like Aegyptiaca, nothing on how those proud Greeks and Romans were rude barbarians while the Egyptians were building their pyramids. I guess it was only in recent centuries that we got a clear idea of that chronology. The closest thing in the Bible to Isis's speech is Paul's proclaiming in the Areopagus that he knows about the "Unknown God" who has an altar there. He did not go as far as the author of the Letter of Aristeas, who claimed that Zeus is the Biblical God in disguise. - Mithraism, however, seems to be mostly a Roman invention, though with the name Mithras borrowed from Persia. RC is quite correct that it has some things going against it as a possible state religion -- it was all-male and its followers were in the military. However, the Egyptian cults seemed to lack those deficiencies, even if they weren't exclusivist and aggressive about trying to convert people.

08-03-2005, 10:27 PM	#13
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	The title of this thread is 'Was Christianity too improbable to be false?' I prefer to put it another way. If Christianity had not come along, would the majority of people have continued to follow Judaism and pagan religions? The correct answer is of course yes. Given the poor choices of Judaism and pagan religions, world views other than Christianity would also have been deemed attractive to a lot of people if they had been available. Today, collectively, religions other than Christianity have a much greater number of followers than Christianity does. In addition, atheism, agnosticism and Deism continue to grow in popularity. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution late in the 1800's, advances in science and education have closely paralled a growing lack of interest in religion. Today, if some people made claims that a man who claimed to be the Son of God was going around healing a lot of people and walking on water, modern media and transportation could immediately confirm or disprove the claims. Such means of investigation were not available back then. It is no accident that the texts say that signs and wonders will pass away. The book of Acts says that the disciples went about confirming the word with signs and wonders. The need for that is quite strange considering the 500 eyewitnesses, the testimonies of the disciples, the feeding of the 5,000, the feeding of the 4,000, the many healings performed by Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

08-12-2005, 09:24 AM	#15
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	How improbable the growth of Christianity was was directly proportionate to what the competition was, not proportionate to whether or not it was true. Proof of this is that if Christianity hadn't come along when it did, the vast majority of people who became Christians would have followed Judaism and pagan religions, both of which would have been poor choices indeed. Therefore, we must consider how good the judgment of people who became Christians was BEFORE they became Christians. Why should anyone assume that Jews and pagans who became Christians finally got it right after previously exercising poor judgment? Similarly, if Christianity hadn't come along by this time, 2005, people who became Christians would have accepted world views that they now consider to be false, and that would include Judaism.

08-13-2005, 07:47 AM	#16
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I think that Johnny Skeptic has an interesting point -- if Xianity had not come along, what might have? A possibility is another Jewish heresy; there were numerous Jewish sects back in the first-century Roman Empire, and one of them might have done what Xianity eventually did. I mention that because of zeal in seeking converts; back then, some Jews had composed the pseudo-Sibylline books, claiming that their religion was supported by pagan oracles.

08-13-2005, 05:30 PM	#17
WinAce Beloved Deceased Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Carrboro, NC Posts: 1,539	While I admire Richard's stamina, about the only thing that needed to be said is that Christianity succeeded the same way it does now, with no more living eyewitnesses for thousands of years. Very skillfully utilizing about every logical fallacy available, in other words.

08-13-2005, 05:36 PM	#18
Johnny Skeptic Banned Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Florida Posts: 19,796	What about the millions of people who died over a number of centuries without ever having heard the Gospel message?

08-13-2005, 09:23 PM	#20
WinAce Beloved Deceased Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Carrboro, NC Posts: 1,539	How is that a harsh judgement, youngalexander? Sure, we could gloss over the fact that religions are generally NOT adopted for rational reasons. Call them "meta-rational" as some have, if you prefer. That won't change the fact that, say, converting out of emotional need, or because you were impressed by its antiquity, is accepting something as a truth when your support for it is fallacious. Holding makes the fatal (to his thesis) mistake of assuming that people convert after objectively weighing evidence, acting the veritable James Randi. "No witnesses to the resurrection? Tough cookies, I'm not gonna believe it, then!" As if that's how people convert in the real world...

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