610: Mohammed receives his first communique from God.
632: Muslims wage war against Byzantine and Persian empires.
637: Ctesiphon, the Person capital, conquered
638: Jerusalem conquered fter Battle of Yarmouk
641: What is now Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq conquered
656: Caliph Uthman murdered by political rivals
661: His replacement, Ali, murdered by political rivals
662: Egypt conquered
669: Conquest of North Africa completed
710: Spain invaded
711: Afghanistan and Pakistan invaded
717: War with Byzantine empire; ultimately unsuccessful
718: Spain (and Portugal, I think) conquered
732: Invasion of France stopped at Battle of Poitiers
I don’t think Christianity had a similar record of virtually non-stop warfare in its first 122 year of existence. IIRC, during that time Christians mostly just got eaten by lions. (Which makes the appeal a little hard to grasp.)
On the subject of Christianity vs Mithraism, I’ve read that Christianity’s big advantage was that it treated women as second class citizens. Which may not seem like much today, but by the standards of the 2nd century, this was an enlightened stance towards women’s rights. Mithraism, like most other religions of the era, treated women like property. So while the soldiers and businessmen of the Empire were worshiping Mithras or Jupiter, the women were worshiping Jesus (and raising the children). So every generation ended up with more Christians and fewer Mithraists.
In terms of the big picture the question that really intrigues me has less to do with which religion might have taken Christianity’s place and more to do with whether another religion might have survived the fall of Rome. Every other institution in the western empire collapsed during the fifth century.
Since the Renaissance was largely fueled by reviving the remaining classical art and learning in Western Europe, and since Europe’s conquest of other parts of the world (particularly the Americas) was a fairly direct result of the Renaissance, the world today might look like a very different place if a few ancient manuscripts hadn’t survived.
Anyone for a guess as to what Mithraism (or any other ancient cult) might have become as an organizational structure?
Could you imagine what it would be like if all of it survived?
One of the sad aspects of the Renaissance is that so much of the ancient knowledge had to be re-discovered.
It’s possible we could have reached our current state of advancement 200-300 years ago if only we could have started where the ancients left off. Alas we had to backtrack.
Wildest Bill, why would the world be a lot nastier simply because Christianity didn’t exist? Taking this comment with some of the other things you’ve said, it sounds like you think non-Christians are less moral than Christians.
