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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31880 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 10, 2023

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Even, say, someone who converted to Christianity in the 1st century is in a better position than a modern westerner. He already believed the world was in the hands of the gods, which were real beings of power, and had believed this since he was born. He just had to be told, “hey, this new god, he’s even stronger than Zeus or Ba’al!”

Hmm, not so sure about that, Aristophanes The Clouds was written in 423 BC and portrays a society where old-style paganism was already going out of fashion. Of course, Greece is not Rome or Judea. But there is an argument that Christianity was persuasive to people who were already cynical about the old gods. There is another argument that Christianity was a result of a fusion between old-school pagan-style personal Gods and Platonic/philosophical concepts about the nature of the prime mover of the universe, hence a God that is the Logos made flesh.

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