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Mad_Jester

Fundie revisionist history episode #40207. Nuthin' to see here, folks. Keep walkin' and don't make eye contact.

LAchlan

Christianity IS the Roman Empire, you fool!

Robespierre

I think they should be free to advertise their bogus gay cures- provided they add a health notice informing consumers that they are pushing unscientific nonsense. But then again, I think that of a lot of things.

Tatsukun

Wait, why do you hate gays again? Are you a Christian or a Jew? Jesus said nothing at all about gays. Hmm, I think you're just a pissed off little boy.

Amadaun

@checkmate--What you said to TheLastCenturion. (Hi Rory!)

No, Constantine was not the first important Christian convert. However, he did in fact pretty single-handedly make Christianity into one of the major religions of the Mediterranean. Before his successful bid for the purple: illegal. By the time he died: Powerful. Two emperors later, Julian 'The Apostate' actively strove to revive the old religion, and failed due to lack of public interest. Christianity was an incredibly rabid meme, and once Constantine gave it open ground, grew like kudzu.

Constantinople, the city he created on the site of old Byzantium, had state-funded churches. His mother Helena went to Israel and brought back what is traditionally understood to have been the True Cross.

The history is unclear on many points, like what he personally believed, but that he was the great champion of the religion there can be no doubt.

The man designed the basilica in Constantinople with thirteen pillars, twelve of them containing relics of the faithful apostles and the last being designated as his own tomb. He was basically talking up Christianity as a replacement cult-center for the Empire, given the one they'd been using didn't seem to be inspiring much passion anymore, and Rome was incidentally falling apart, which was why he was fighting another claimant with actual armies in the first place.

And you know what? It worked. Sure, the West declined into semi-barbarism, for the same incredibly complicated systemic reasons it'd already been declining and a series of weak emperors. But the Church became a cornerstone of the Eastern Empire for another thousand years, over five hundred of them powerful and prosperous, if never quite the juggernaut of the golden age, since they had the Persian empires to deal with.

All that said, charlsby's history also sucks, for reasons I've partially enumerated, and he's a moron. But all the people falsely linking the fall of the empire to its conversion, here on this site: that is wrong. That is sloppily researched correlation used to assume causation, and it's every bit as lame as claiming the Romans fell because they were morally dissolute and had orgies, and undermines the argument that atheists are more rational than theists, and would you all please stop?

Bad historiography makes me very sad. Heh, we all have something that's sacred to us, I guess.

Extraintrovert

As much as charlesby deserves lots of shit thrown at them, that doesn't mean we should use blatant inaccuracies.

1. The Western Roman Empire didn't fall because of Christianity, but a combination of horrible levels of corruption, an endless series of civil wars, and waves of invasions from central and eastern Europe.

2. The Eastern Roman Empire continued as THE major power of the region for centuries after the collapse of the Western one, at least until the Muslim Caliphate arose, and its collapse was also slow and due to numerous complicated reasons.

3. The very concept of "Dark Ages" was an invention of people living in the Renaissance period, and indeed it was CALLED the Renaissance in the first place because the "classical" teachings of the Romans became widespread again. The "Dark Ages" weren't exactly pleasant, but they weren't COMPLETELY backwards and ultimately only occurred in a relatively small area. Indeed, during the time Christian monasteries and such were basically the only ones to keep knowledge from previous periods safe (of course, then they horded that knowledge and kept it from anyone who wasn't a part of their organisation, but that's to be expected).

Christianity and its religious institutions are responsible for a lot of suffering and misery; there is no need to attribute things to it for which it ISN'T responsible.

Mihangel apYrs

@Extraintrovert

the burning of the library at Alexandria is emblematic of the views of "many" Xians to empirical knowledge (c.f. Taliban and the Buddhas)

cynical

Society was a cesspit of sin, when suddenly a strapping band of Christians stepped onto the scene. "We must stop them! They are trying to rid us of our sinning!" the Romans cried, but try as they might they couldn't beat the Christians. Soon the Romans had lost, and then a golden age for Christians followed, until the rise of the evil science...

Seriously, how exactly does this person think that portion of history went?

Panz

I'll take history fail for $500, Alex

Brendan Rizzo

@ cynical:

That is EXACTLY how fundies (especially traditionalist Catholics, who are Catholic fundies) think that period went.

Mister Spak

"Christians are used to being in competition with antichrist-communities that hate them. "

Or at least used to imagining there are there are anti-christ communities that are persecuting them.

@Extraintrovert:

"As much as charlesby deserves lots of shit thrown at them, that doesn't mean we should use blatant inaccuracies."

But it's so appropriate to use their own tactics on them!

The actual cause of the fall of the Roman Empire is long and boring and full of facts. When was the last time you saw a fundie sit still for an hour worth of facts? If it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker it's too complicated for a fundie to understand.

So, I say "Constantine made christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and 100 years later it was disintegrating."

Which, unlike the "homos destroyed Rome" meme, is at least factual. Watching them try to decide if they want to dispute Constantine part or the disintegrating 100 years later part is always entertaining.

Mayhem

"Christians competed with and conquered the Roman Empire, that was run, amongst others, by the bi-sexual antichrists Nero, Commodus and Elagabalus."

Not to mention the ruthless Biggus Dickus.

Ludd

"Christians competed with and conquered the Roman Empire"

Yes, thanks to the psychopath Constantine I, who murdered his way to the top (including members of his own family). By the way, Constantine was pretty vague about what he considered Christianity and what he considered Paganism. Sol Invictus and Jesus were sort of merged together. He also believed that he was a demigod second only to your magical Jesus. (And that was a very close second.)

Also, Extraintrovert and Amadaun's posts are both dead on. +1 for the fellow history nerds.

Jessica

This 'post-gay' bus ad campaign is being banned not because the anti-Christ runs London public transport but because any ad has to be 'legal, decent, honest and truthful', which is why the 'there is probably no god' ad had to include the word 'probably'. It would never have been accepted if the word had not been included because that would be false advertising.

aaa

And how is this even relevant to anything?

Tempus

Oh, you poor, poor persecuted hegemon, you.

LadyJafaria

You left out Caligula? I am not impressed.

Brendan Rizzo

@ JohnTheAtheist:

And then the christians promptly destroyed the greatest civilization that mankind had ever known.

Boy, those slave-owning, imperialist Romans were so great, huh?

farpadokly

Did you conquer the Roman empire or did the Roman empire conquer you?

When Christianity "conquered" the Roman Empire (what's all that bitching about lions) it immediately turned on itself, burned to the ground, obliterated it's own history via book and tablet burning, and even regressed in scientific understanding.

So, how does buttsex factor into this again?

Ebon

Um, you forgot a few emperors. Like, ALL of them (except Claudius, if Gibbon is to be believed).

Crimson Lizard

brendan Rizzo: Better than the genocidal, imperialist Christians. Sometimes you have to choose between two evils.