Um...not to burst your bubble, but in all actuallity Christianity started out like that. It was confined to one area, and well, it spread like a plague of sorts.

Think of it this way. What if instead of Europeons landing on American soil, the native americans would have been the first to become more sophisticated, and went to spread their beliefs among the many other lands? Safe to say if that happened, you might be looking at your corn right now and praying to it.

As you point out, Christianity wasn't confined very long. Probably not even for a year. That hardly fits the definition of confined considering that Christianity is almost 2000 years old.

It's not safe to say that. A person doesn't automatically grow up to become their environment. I wasn't raised as a Christian. I went to public school. Growing up in Los Angeles certainly didn't persuade me to believe in Jesus. Sure, there are a number of people undoubtably who may be 'forced' to adopt a religious view by simple fact of where and to whom they were born. But that's a far cry from being a 'safe' bet. The Romans didn't inflict their mythology onto the Jews, the Egyptians, or even Christians. There are unfortunate times in history where some so called Christians spat in the face of Jesus and tried to convert people by force. But the people who committed those grievous sins were not following the teachings of Jesus.

The United States was founded by Christian deists. You see it in the constitution, our currency, the pledge of allegiance, the justice system, etc. Is it safe to say that every American grows up to be a devout Christian? Not really.

Er no, but it would have been kind of a bit less likely that you would have become a christian if the Native Americans would have conquered and slaughtered most of the european/african christian population.

Bullshit. Christianity was fairly confined until Constantine I effectively made it Rome's state religion in the early 4th century. That's 300 years, not less than a year. It's quite a bit longer than that if you include the Zoroastrian mythology that the Christian mythos seems to have been based on.

You're trying to draw parallels between now and thousands of years ago. It don't work quite like that. Nowadays, we've got tons of choices. We're inundated with different sets of religious beliefs.

Back then, I do not believe that was the case. Your choices tended to be more along the lines of conformity or death. Also, christianity was only confined for a year, before dwhat, it suddenly encompassed the world? Pretty sure Christianity didn't take off until Constantine converted back when. Would have been a few hundred years after inception.

Also, I think historically, the religion did spread through conquest. 100 years' war as a relatively recent example, every time some poor german province got seized by another prince, the official religion of the province changed. You had Catholic mothers with a son raised protestant, who may have then had a catholic daughter. It's not like people had a choice to opt out back then.

One could argue that the prevalence of Christianity today is a result of it being the religion of a bunch of empires, in which case Grail's got a point that if the Hope's had spread out from Arizona to conquer all of North America, and then discovered the new world of Spain, we might think naughty women were impregnated by coyotes or something.

You know what Noah's Ark/the Babylonian Flood story/Ys/Mu/Lemuria/Atlantis/R'yleh says to me?

Somewhere some city/island/"the world" was flooded. It fucking happened. Note that "the world" was in quotes. I don't believe that Noah saved all the animals in the world. I believe that if Noah happened, it was confined to a region. YAY LOGIC.

Possibly nitpicky, but for further edification etc, R'yleh at least is part of an artificial mythos created by Lovecraft and then reinforced by other authors of the time. I don't know that it has the same significance as other mythologies with similar references. Basically an oshit you lost a data point.

I know that. I'm just including it for the morons who really believe in the Great Old Ones.

I personally believe that even though they were completely uptight pricks, the gods of Greek mythology were pretty fucking simple.

I mean seriously, if you were a sailor, you prayed to posiedon and worshiped him, if you were a swinger you prayed to aphrodite, if you enjoyed killing the fuck out of people you worshipped Ares, and if you were an emo prick, you'd worship Hades.

But all in all, in greek and roman religion, it all started with ONE being, I believe it was Chronos for Greek, and his roman name escapes me now.

The one good thing Greek and Roman mythology had going for it was that yes, these gods were all powerful, and demanded your worship, made you sacrifice things you held dear, and all around were used to explain how things happen...and this is why I enjoy Greek and Roman mythology the most...

NO ONE EVER CLAIMED THAT THE GODS LOVED US AND CARED ABOUT US AT ALL.

Unlike a certain diety that hides behind the idea that as long as you do what he says, you'll experience a blissful afterlife...but if you don't you suffer for eternity...but he still loves you.

I don't think that was unique to greek or roman myth. In fact I think it was characteristic of the time that the gods were part of a fickle and uncaring nature. You did what you could to appease them, and otherwise went on with your life and hoped you didn't catch their attention.

In God's defense though, there is some difficulty reconciling free will with bliss for everyone. If you define infinite love as bliss for everyone, things get sticky. I think all that implies is that bliss for everyone and infinite love are not necessarily identical. Assume that heaven and hell are natural consequences, rather than assignations and you see where I'm going.

So you're essentially trying to kiss your god's ass to get into his post-death rave?

You don't really care about his really awesome book, but more how you're going to get past the bouncer and through the pearly gates?

I'm just trying to understand, here.

Thats the way I read it.

Basically, if I had a really good pitch, I could say "Give me $500 and you go to heaven when you die" and I'll be just as legit as his current bullshit theological idealism.

Natural consequences is perfectly fine, and I gladly accept that. If I'm a deadbeat asshole that only seeks to cause harm to others somewhere down the line in an extreme way, I'd accept the fact I'm going to burn.

But I think if I'm a generally nice guy, who makes people laugh, has a good time without it being at others expenses (not all the time >.>) and all around doesn't harm a soul, I don't think I should be damned to an infinate abyss of torture and slavery just because I don't believe in God.

But that's the way it is...most the time if you don't believe in God, you burn, or in some cases, the J-Dawg. That's just messed up in my opinion

I'm pretty sure the Catholic Church already tried that one a few decades ago. At least you know it could work! =D

Of course geopolitical situations are going to influence the growth and development of religions, but the opposite statement is true as well. There is no truth to find in between, sincere conversions are as numerous as political ones. Religion is a factor of coherency, and has been used as such since the dawn of times.

Now, as to say the fact the ones that spread by far the most are all monotheistic and advocate a personal spiritual development is purely the coincidence of geopolitics seems like quite a statement.

If by decades you mean centuries? I thought indulgences was around Chaucer's time.

Gumby, I was thinking more along the lines of natural consequence of not being God's pet is not chilling with God after death. Might get kind of twisted into eternal suffering in comparison maybe. Thing that's fucked up with religion is there's a lot of people who can't do logic mucking around with it. Makes it difficult to discuss internally consistent ideas of God. Kind of like a Where's Waldo book, except with ideas. =(

That's what the corrupted popes tried 500 years ago, and it created protestantism.

Decades? I take it you're not familiar with the fact that Martin Luther abolished it a long time before that...

It only seems like quite a statement until you realize that all of the major monotheistic religions are just variations on a theme. Judaism was built on to form Christianity, which was built on to form Islam. All three of these religions believe basically the same thing about God, they just argue about who wrote it all down best.

In any case, Hinduism is probably the best possible argument for religion as a geopolitical characteristic. I'm not sure there's any other way to look at it.

It's late ... It indeed didn't translate in what I wrote but I was actually including sets of Asian religions in my line of thought (Buddhism, Taoism ...). The advocate a personal spiritual development is what matters in that argument, whom core problematic is to know if wealth creates those religions or if it's the other way around.

I don't know much about Hinduism, honestly. =/

I would argue that by and large, Christianity and Islam don't realistically advocate personal spiritual development. I do not dispute that it is possible to achieve personal spiritual development through those religions, but I think it's a tad idealistic to think that is the actual goal of either of these greater religious organizations.

Yea, I meant to say centuries, I am sorry. I am a dolt. (Protestants and all that stuff, check.)

Standard modern Christian argument.

If the Old Testament is not true, then Christianity loses all validity. You'll have to try better than that.

So was the original Yahweh of the Jews. He was pretty damn human. It wasn't until the Prophets section of the Hebrew Bible that Yahweh God who cast plagues on people he thought might be worshiping other gods became "the Lord" who loves His people.

For the record.

Wow! About the 'confinement' thing. I guess I'm approaching it the wrong way. If someone asks me to describe the spreading of Christianity throughout history I just wouldn't think to use the word 'confined'. I'm the one who brought it up so I apologize for inadequately explaining what I meant by it. I didn't really look at it in small chunks, and when I did I was thinking about Israel, then Asia Minor, Roman provinces, and then Rome which, to me at least, seems like pretty good progress for that time frame.

Gee, that's one way to look at it. I certainly wouldn't word it that way. :) "Kissing ass" implies that I do something even though I don't want to...but that isn't the case with true Christians. And I do care about the bible a great deal because it offers a lot of insight into what is important to God. I don't want to "get past the 'bouncer". I want the bouncer to look at me, my past, and the motives behind all the choices I've made. And hopefully he'll deem me worthy and let me in.

About the Old Testament not being 100% true. I belong to the group of Christians who have trouble interpreting all events of the Old Testament literally. There are biblical principles that explain why this doesn't invalidate Christianity. It goes hand in hand with why Christians don't have to adhere to the Mosaic law the way that the Jews do. But again, if you're not a believer then you'll hardly be satisfied with that. Still, interpreting a few parts figuratively hardly puts me in the position of discrediting the Old Testament. I think it's great, it is necessary to understand the sacrifice Jesus made, it is an essential source of prophecy...but without the new testament it just wouldn't matter to anyone but the Jewish people.

More to address. Post too long already. Sorry for getting on so many people's nerves. :(

That's such a complex question. If we talk about dogmas, which Christianity ? Which Islam ? At what point in time ? In which context ? =/

Western Christianity alone can be so different whether you look at it at a certain point in time or another. I personally think the purpose and true spirit of the western Christian church was lost some time around 1200 when the society it had been designed for evolved to something else.

Jesus' sayings very clearly invalidate numerous things from the Old Testament, though. There again, it's more complex than that in both ways.