A major religion
A major religion
72 comments
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'Christianity' and 'the Roman Catholic Church' are two very different things. Christianity had very little traction in the world until a certain Roman Emperor saw his empire in decline, realized that military power alone would not keep it strong. What he needed was a borderless, stateless religious empire, with this mythical God as his power source, so he appropriated the Christian religion, made himself the leader (Pope) of it, and used religion, not military power, to control the people. To this day, the Roman Empire and the power of the Roman Emperor to rule all mankind continues under the guise of the Holly Roman Catholic Church. It has very little to do with Jesus Christ, and everything to do with the perpetuation of the dominance of the Roman Empire and the dictatorial authority of the Roman Emperor.
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Jesus, the hardline Orthodox Jew from first century Galilee would not recognize “Christianity” only a few decades after his death, let alone the current iterations, and he would be appalled that gentiles had created an entirely new religion out of the worship of his idol. I would attribute this more to Paul than Constantine. Christianity could rightly be called the religion of Paul, a man who never met Jesus, rather than the religion of Jesus himself.
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I am not convinced Paul had much to do with it. Fact is, the congregations Paul wrote to seemed to be very well established. Paul just kept them informed and in line. It was arguably John the Baptist that set up the infrastructure of the religious order that Jesus appropriated. In point of fact, it is contentious as to who died first, Jesus or John the Baptist. History is written by the winning side, and Jesus just happened to be on the winning side. It could just as easily have been 'Baptistianity'.
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72 comments