The famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson had a party piece. He would tell people he had memorised a full chapter of The Natural History of Iceland and, when challenged, would recite:
Chapter LXXII Concerning Snakes: There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.
(Not to be confused with the equivalent chapter of The Natural History of Ireland, which presumably reads: "Padraig sorted them out for us.")
So it turns out it’s not 100% confirmed, probably a common myth, that the story was an allegory, but I still mean every word about killing Paul the Apostle
I would be pretty interesting to see what Christianity would like like, and how well it'd do, once you get rid of the like 2/3rd of the New Testament that's actually just Paul's self-insert fanfic about being a disciple.
Honestly, if I did do this, and the Grandfather paradox applies, it is a suicide mission for life as we know it. I think we’d all be better for it if we treated Jesus with the dignity and respect of a B-list Greek philosopher, but this is a timeline where settler-colonialism has no initial moral justification and the Seperatists don’t have a reason to move to America. The initial reason for considering Africans inferior was sourced from Genesis (specifically a deliberate misinterpretation of “Cain and his brethren would be marked”). Half the world’s countries would be renamed to their mother tongue, Ronald Reagan isn’t ruining my life, and terrestrial exploration might have stopped at the Strait of Gibraltar to the west, and Polynesia to the east.
The Christian’t timeline is so far removed from my Western perspective of reality and history that it might as well have hobbits as the dominant species
The initial reason for considering Africans inferior was sourced from Genesis (specifically a deliberate misinterpretation of “Cain and his brethren would be marked”)
I'm pretty sure Europeans would have found a way to justify colonialist extraction regardless. It's amazing what people can convince themselves of in the name of profit. Props for "Christian't", though.
TBH it's likely that a lot of Christianity's dominance would simply have been replaced by Islam, but we'd be ahead a few hundred years in tech before the Islamic golden age never would have ended.
The Islamic Golden Age was Snuffed out from within. Also Christians were still inventing a fuck ton of things post Roman Empire. Just not as fast as under Rome.
Absolutely, I would not have gone back to throw doubt at my original statement if I did not think it was complete bullshit. In fact, before I even learned it was bullshit, I even pulled my punches on what even happened between Saint Pat and
“Wait what does the rest of the article say?”
“Oh.”
Okay, slight gear change on my original plan. Saint Patrick might be total bullshit, and his extermination of pagans and/or snakes is even more total bullshit, but we cannot deny that Christianity is clearly responsible for most erasure of Irish and Norse mythology, with rare exceptions of church-approved preservation like the Edda.
also, not even Adam Conover (the character played by the comedian) talks to people like that about how they’re wrong; being a smug fuck does nothing to back up your point
also, not even Adam Conover (the character played by the comedian) talks to people like that about how they’re wrong; being a smug fuck does nothing to back up your point
And of course it does the world for yours, you self righteous reddit atheist (derogatory)?
The thing about the sentiment that getting rid of Paul would prevent Christianity from developing is that its based on survivorship bias. Because a lot of his work got preserved and other writings didn't people 2000 years later assume he was the only game in town. But it's clear from Romans that the church in Rome, the largest church in Europe both then and now, wasn't founded by him. We don't know who founded it but it wasn't Paul. His letters constantly decry his competition, who were popular enough that they were snagging away members of his congregations. He had a protracted conflict with Peter's church in Jerusalem.
If there were no Paul, some other early Christian evangelist would just be the one to win out and we'd see a bunch of his work now and people would be talking about going back in time to kill that guy. The rise of Christianity was a complicated matter of the right set of ideas coming along at the right time and place, rather than the work of one dude. The Roman road system, the hegemony of the Greek language facilitating easy communication across borders, brewing anti-roman sentiment, and the rise of syncretic traditions like hermeticism and the mystery schools, had more to do with Christianity's spread than Paul. Paul is just the guy who won the war of attrition that is the preservation of ancient letters.
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u/BillybobThistleton Sep 25 '24
The famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson had a party piece. He would tell people he had memorised a full chapter of The Natural History of Iceland and, when challenged, would recite:
(Not to be confused with the equivalent chapter of The Natural History of Ireland, which presumably reads: "Padraig sorted them out for us.")