I was thinking today about what religions would be the most influential today if Jesus was never born. Would something like Islam still show up and get popular around the same time? Would Europeans still be practicing the pre-Christianity pagan religions they used to, or would Roman influence lead to something else? I personally think Buddhism might have become much more important in the West had Christianity not been there to compete with it, as there was an exchange of ideas between the Roman Empire and east Asia…
Any other thoughts? Does anyone know of any good alternate history stories that tackle this one? I can only think of one, and it had the Roman Empire lasting until modern times, retaining most of it’s old pantheon…I don’t think this is very likely, though.
hmmmm…interesting question. Lots of possibilities there.
IMHO, other prophets/messiahs would appear and perhaps many more splinter religions would arise. What kind of religions is anyone’s guess.
Now what if Religion had been eradicated? Hard to imagine, but an interesting thought - particularly as many a war has been fought in the name of one religion’s superiority over anothers.
Though without Christianity we might have ended up with many many more extreme religions - I mean, what if a prophet preached hatred and destruction. What if, what if…
I think there would undoubtedly have been other religions in place. The question is if they would have been used as a tool to control the masses and wage war to the same extent. Christianity was the first religion to spread across different cultures and countries. This is because European rulers found Christianity to be an excellent tool to control the masses and wage war. Muslims followed suite in their own way. Prior to this, the various religions were created and remained unique to a specific culture or country.
Buddhism never allowed for this sort of manipulation. Although it too spread across countries and cultures, the very nature of Buddhist religion makes it a very personal experience and search for achieving “Nirvana” can only be accomplished through your own internal enlightenment and meditation. This makes Buddhism near impossible to use as a tool to control and manipulate the masses, which also makes this a very peaceful religion.
To conclude, would there have been another religion without Jesus? Yes.
Would rulers have used the alternate religion as a tool? Maybe.
History would have been quite different, of course.
But I’ll worry about the world’s history after my personal history, thanks. The past 31 years of my life would have been totally different in the absence of Christianity - assuming I’d hung in there that long, but that’s another story.
What about this one:
What if 2015 Biff went back in time and gave the sports book to Judas, preventing him from needing to sell out Jesus for 40 pieces of silver? WHAT THEN. HUH?
I’m not sure I’d agree with that. Most, if not all, “religious” wars had a political or economic root after you got past all the religious rationalizations and propaganda.
It’d be harder to convince the peasants to go retake Palestine so that “we can have control over trade routes to Asia”, I’ll give you that much.
Here’s my predictions. Assuming that no other religion takes its place, the Roman Empire would have crumbled sooner and the Eastern Empire would have gone with it. Europe would have remained Pagan and much more tribal, retarding the rise of the nation-state. China or Japan would have taken the new world. The Mongols would have taken Europe, and remained there, in one form or another, to the present day. We’d be living in a world of the East, with Buddhism and Asia as the dominant powers and Europe as the third world.
The problem with counterfactual history is that the broader the question, the more impossible it is to answer with any semblance of authority.
A few things to consider, if one is to think about the world without Christianity:[ul][li]How would this affect the Roman Empire?[]Depending on that, how would Europe develop?[]Would Islam exist? Keep in mind that the cultural environment would be radically different without six centuries of Christianity.[]Without Islam as a buffer, how would the Persian Empire affect Europe?[]How would discovery of the Americas happen, or would Native American civilizations develop unabated for several more centuries without the potential nation-states of Europe?[/ul]And on, and on, and on.[/li]
I sincerely hope this thread has a long life - these armchair discussions are often the best arguments I have.
The Mithran mystery cult thrived in Rome at the same time as Christianity was picking up steam, or slightly earlier.
Many of the tenents of this belief were similar, and early Xtians “borrowed” some ideas straight from the Mithrans, like sitting down to a spiritual “meal” together.
Like Christianity, but unlike traditional Roman beliefs, there was a link between your moral conduct in this world, and the type of afterlife you faced in the next.
If no Christ, then Mithras would have taken up a similar role in Rome.
A few things to consider, if one is to think about the world without Christianity:[ul][li]How would this affect the Roman Empire? **[/li][/QUOTE]
On the one hand various pagan barbarian tribes dismantled the Roman Empire. On the other hand the Romans brought Christianity to Europe.
The Northern Europeans (Vikings) were avid explorers and were pioneers in seafaring until Christianity came and doused that spirit. Had they been allowed to continue, Europe may have dominated the seas and therefore world trade 500 years earlier.
Islam is younger than Christianity. The question is was it born out of Christianity or was it born out of Judaism? Good point about how Islam would have been radically different. Before the Christian crusades, Islam was much more secular and peaceful. Christian fanaticism gave rise to Islamic fanaticism.
For the Persians, I think the Turks would still be a factor as they swept down from the north and probably would have done regardless of religion.
The Vikings as mentioned above would probably have some influence in the Americas.
Some great questions, the answers are, at points, speculative of course.
Jack
I’d argue that the centralized religious influence and social aspect (Roman religion was not congregational) of Christainity helped hold the Empire together a little longer. This is especially true in the East. Without it, the barbarians and Roman factions would have eaten it up a piece at a time long before either piece fell.
I’m going to need a cite for that. IIRC Muslim expansionism began before the crusades.
Also, I’m not sure it’s what you meant, but the kind of Islamic Fanaticism that we’ve recently become all too familiar with is a product of the twentieth century. It’s a reaction to a modern secular/Christian world, not a medieval Catholic world.
Islam, and thus the Islamic empires, would definitely not exist in any form we’d recognize.
Possibly, but they abandoned their interests their due to other factors, not conflicts with Christians. If the centralizing influence of Christianity hadn’t contributed to other powers, they may have become more effective. But so would the Celts, for example.
In any event, without a strong influence from the West, I think some Eastern powers might have had a shot at taking America.
I agree that the Eastern Roman Empire lasted longer. However, I think it was a matter of geography. The Western Roman Empire included many Barbarian territories conquered during the rise of the Roman Empire. The Eastern Roman Empire included mostly “Civilized” territories conquered during the rise.
Which specifically do you require a cite for? It is true that Islam “spread” before the crusades. Arab traders dominated the Indian Ocean. They brought the word of Islam to the remotest islands as far as the edge of the Pacific Ocean not through conquest but by peaceful means. Christian crusades were the first religious holy wars, and it dramatically changed the course of Islam who responded to Christian onslaught by declaring Jihad. (Jihad actually means “To defend”).
True, but the suicidal fanaticism can only be born out of religion. The Christian vs. Islamic conflict has been going on ever since the first crusades. It was easy enough for the twenty-first century Muslim fanatics to identify the traditional enemy.
There has only been one Islamic Empire: The Ottoman Empire. Of course the Ottomans conquered mostly Arab and Persian territory. Their wars only became religious when they tried invading Christian Europe.
Actually the Vikings abandoned their exploratory interests at about the time they became Christians. I agree it was not because of conflicts with Christians. It still addresses part of the OP’s question if there was no Christianity, would the Vikings have abandoned their interests?
Christianity may have been the overwhelming winner, but back around 100 AD it was only one of a number of competing religions. As Bosda wrote, Mithraism was a widespread and growing religion in the same period. In fact, Augustine of Hippo, one of the greatest proselytizers in Christian history, was a Mithraist before converting to Christianity.
There was also the revival of the Cult of Isis; the generally successful attempt by the Emperor Hadrian to form a religion around his deceased lover Antinous; a widespread following of Apollonius of Tyana (whose history has many parallels with that of Jesus). There was knowledge of Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and other faiths that survive to this day. And there were the traditional pagan beliefs not only of the Romans, but also of other cultures like the Celts, Germans, or Egyptians. With the growing internal and external threats to the stability of the Roman Empire (and the Western world) and the apparently immanent collapse of secular society, religion was in the air. Christianity, for a variety of reasons, happened to be the religion that came out on top. And having done so, one of the first actions taken by Christian leaders was to eliminate any rivals to the “True Faith”.
So, to answer the OP, if Christianity hadn’t existed, some other religion would almost certainly have taken its place as the state religion of the Roman Empire. And the leaders of this religion would undoubtedly have acted in the same manner as the Christian counterparts did. Then the ongoing decline of political authority (which prompted the need for a state religion in the first place) would have created a vacuum in the power structure which relgious authority would have filled.
Interesting to posit that if not for Christianity, another centralized hierarchical religion would have effectively filled in the blanks.
Though there was some influence, the Eastern hemisphere was relatively unaffected by Christianity and/or the Western world until somewhat recently. (European expansion and colonialism is the clincher in this, and though missionary work and exploration happened for centuries beforehand, it’s hard to argue that Christianity had a destabilizing influence on China for most of the life of the religion.) If we pull Christianity out of the equation, then it’s a safe bet that the Eastern world would develop as it had - at least, up intil the point of historical Western interference. Unless we suggest some more counterfactual events, I doubt we could support the idea of an Asian conquest of the Americas.
Islam didn’t necessarily spread “peacefully”. It is true that the conversion of conquered peoples was done far more gently than Christian conquerers (relatively speaking), but it was still done via military expansion. We may state that Islam-The-Religion was not the driving force for the rapid expansion and rather attribute that to other causes, but there were extremists prior to the Crusades. I consider it rather simplistic to say that prior to the First Crusade there was no Islamic fanaticism.
On a somewhat relatic topic, I think Harry Turtledove wrote a short story in which Mohammad converted to Christianity and never founded Islam. I wonder if I can still find that.
Islam spread “peacefully” until the crusades at which time they became militant. I don’t think I said there were no Islamic fanatics prior to the crusades. On an individual basis I think this would be impossible to confirm.
Military conquest in the name of Islam occured only after the first crusades.
I was keying off the quote “Christian fanaticism gave rise to Islamic fanaticism”.
Yup, military conquest in the name of Islam may not have occured until the twelfth century, but it is impossible to deny that Islam spread THROUGH military conquest from the seventh century on. (Note the difference.)
NGJ, the whole issue of the nature of the Islamic conquests of the 7th century really doesn’t have anything to do with the OP, but I’m curious as to what you are saying. I can’t see how the Islamic conquests of the 7th century could be defined as anything except a religious war; they were led by leaders who derived their authority from religion and fought by armies of soldiers who were united only by that same religion. And they were wars; the Persian and Roman Empires didn’t go down without a fight.
For some reason, I had the misconception that Muslims didn’t become militant until after the crusades. Perhaps the documentaries and books on the subject hinted at this and I took it as fact when in reality the chronological time line of the history of Islam reads like a book on slaughter. What was I thinking? Of course this religion is no different from others. Like Christianity, Islam too is responsible for its share of death and destruction even before the crusades. I guess I had convinced myself that there couldn’t be anything worse than the trail of blood, death and destruction that Christians left behind in the name of Jesus. I stand corrected.
I’d agree with that. Further, if NO other centralized, hierarchial religion appeared, I’d guess that the development of the Western nation-state would have been retarded by more internal factionalization.
I’d argue that the renaissance and age of exploration would have never occurred, or occurred much later. Giving more time for a middle-eastern or Asian power to develop.
If another religion took Xtianity’s place (why did Mithraism lose out, anyway?), then history would have occured rather similarly.