It was all originated in the convents where demented nuns learned to threaten small children with eternal damnation for the horrible offense of talking in class.
True. It’s an interesting paradox: the negative side of an institution that was simultaneously doing positive work, which eventually outlived its usefulness.
Strict, guilt-driven discipline certainly left a lasting mark on generations of students. Yet, at the same time, religious orders were often among the few groups running schools, hospitals, and social services for poor communities long before public systems existed.
What those nuns did was also an extension of how older generations thought children should be raised: through corporal punishment and fear. If there’s one thing newer generations are doing significantly better, it’s parenting, especially fathers, who no longer view showing love and affection to their kids as weak or unmanly.
There are certainly nuns who acted and continue to act with love and kindness. The problem was that the out of control whackos were free to be evil and no one spoke out against them. Then we had the situations where if a nun or lay teacher hit you and your parents found out, the parents hit you too!
At the end of the day, what you're describing is child abuse, and whatever good those institutions did elsewhere doesn't offset it. Setting the two side by side is false balance, and rereading my first comment, I can see how it might have come across that way, which wasn't my intent. You were gracious in how you replied and I appreciate that, but my earlier message didn't reflect what I believe, and I regret writing it. I'm sorry you had to live through that.
Electricity needs a positive and negative pole. The potential difference between them, known as voltage, drives current through the circuit.
Religion acts in the same manner. Having an eternal afterlife, either in a wonderful paradise or a place of unbearable torment, creates the same effect. The difference between eternal bliss and eternal damnation is the force that drives the faithful. This is what leads such people to follow a belief system which is not rational, and to devote themselves to a leader who demands regular donations.
The problem with heaven and hell is what they assume: that we're here to be judged. Believe that long enough and you get a society that judges everyone, in the name of a God who does the same.
It seems like the rich merchants, priests, rulers, etc., figured out the best way to achieve a compliant population was to throw the fear of God at them. Follow my instructions, or you might experience some really bad times after you're gone. I find it amusing how easily people believe things. Most would give up free will to get a good night sleep.
I'm confused why these same people also cry about syncretism because of all of this. I mean if syncretism helps and Christianity has syncretic 'pagan' foundations (despite claiming otherwise), why not use it to actually have TRUE Interfaith Dialogue??
The History of the World is far more interesting when realizing and understanding how modern-day religions are ALL connected to each other, more than you may think!
I completely respect everyone’s right to their own beliefs, and who am I to judge them or tell them that believing or disbelieving is better for them? That said, true intellectual honesty means facing facts that don't easily fit into our worldview, not ignoring them just to preserve a belief. We’re capable of so much better than pretending such uncomfortable truths don't exist.
Christianity spent millennia on doing everything possible to hide its pagan roots. Without those roots, Christianity would not have succeeded. It needed the familiar rituals, beliefs , and practices in order to draw in the pagan believers. And it worked! There is almost nothing in Christianity that cannot be found in the original pagan god-myths.
The Church felt compelled to destroy the connection between the two, and initiated their thousands of years of persecution and death to insure their success. Don’t expect any dialogue or discussion to bring that knowledge to the Christian faithful to come to the forefront any time soon.
Christianity is often the oddball among Abrahamic traditions precisely because of how deeply it integrated—and was shaped by—European paganism throughout its expansion.
The religions that Christianity supposedly “syncreted” into itself are either long-dead or have so few adherents as to be irrelevant. So I’m not sure how this would be a basis for ecumenism.
I'm not talking about the past for its own sake. I'm talking about how we relate to one another today. My point is that recognizing the historical development of religious ideas should encourage greater intellectual humility and more genuine dialogue with people of other faiths—not just among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but also with Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, and others.
From my perspective, many Christians are willing to discuss Christianity's interactions with Judaism or Greco-Roman philosophy, yet become defensive when historical influences from non-Christian traditions are raised. Whether one agrees on every historical claim or not, acknowledging that religions develop within historical and cultural contexts shouldn't be threatening.
What many non-Abrahamic believers object to isn't ancient history itself. It's the present-day attitude that their traditions have nothing meaningful to contribute while Christianity is presented as something to be accepted regardless of whether it's wanted. That can make dialogue feel one-sided rather than mutual.
In a world where people are increasingly divided by ideology and prejudice, I'd rather see greater historical honesty, intellectual humility, and mutual respect. Genuine interfaith dialogue shouldn't begin with trying to win converts—it should begin with trying to understand one another. I'd sooner let my own assumptions be challenged than treat another person with contempt.
The problem is that once you start dismantling things for not being 'truly' or originally Christian, where do you draw the line? After all, modern Christianity would be unrecognizable to the original disciples.
For many, the safest route is simply not allowing any of it, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. Similar tactics are used in Islam and Judaism as well. So, I'm not singling out Christianity.
There’s a remarkable difference though. Christianity is almost entirely a ‘copy’ of earlier pagan religions. I don’t know enough about Islam to comment fairly, but while all religions carry beliefs from previously shared cultures, Judaism offers new perspectives here and there, along with an entirely new understanding of the entire God concept.
So too, The Old Testament (sic) doesn’t try to hide its early and primitive connections to the pagan mythology preceding it. On the contrary, much of it is clearly spelled-out in chapter and verse of their Biblical recorded history.
Long dead and / or irrelevant as a result of the Church destroying the history of those religions, not to mention destroying all those so-called ‘heretics’ who refused to accept the new, but thoroughly copied, and unoriginal version called Christianity.
Excellent concise summary of an extremely complex topic. I just finished reading Ehrman’s academic monograph, “Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in Early Christian Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022). Through this I was introduced to “The Apocalypse of Peter” which contains images from which Dante produced his impactful portrayal of hell’s eternal conscious torment.
I've read enough Near death experiences over the past 3.5 decades, well over 1000, to see that God doesn't judge anybody, we judge ourselves. Also, anybody that has had a negative NDE always comes out of it after a short while, it's never about being in a place of eternal damnation.
I find NDEs fascinating. While I remain neutral on what causes them, I firmly believe they don't get nearly enough attention. Prevailing medical hypotheses simply don't explain everything.
The great trick was convincing Christians that hell arrived fully furnished, with Satan already holding the keys. In reality, the doctrine looks less like divine revelation and more like a theological Airbnb assembled across centuries from Persian cosmology, Greek mythology, mistranslated poetry, and Augustine’s anxiety. Then Christians turned around and accused everyone else of borrowing. Religion has always had a remarkable talent for forgetting where it bought the furniture.
I don’t think Judaism completely tried to hide where it bought some of the furniture. Throughout the entire Hebrew Scriptures, there you find God constantly reprimanding the people to toss out that old well-worn furniture and replace it with the new. Judaism wasn’t afraid to cite what came before, nor did it try to erase it. Judaism confronted it.
It was all originated in the convents where demented nuns learned to threaten small children with eternal damnation for the horrible offense of talking in class.
True. It’s an interesting paradox: the negative side of an institution that was simultaneously doing positive work, which eventually outlived its usefulness.
Strict, guilt-driven discipline certainly left a lasting mark on generations of students. Yet, at the same time, religious orders were often among the few groups running schools, hospitals, and social services for poor communities long before public systems existed.
What those nuns did was also an extension of how older generations thought children should be raised: through corporal punishment and fear. If there’s one thing newer generations are doing significantly better, it’s parenting, especially fathers, who no longer view showing love and affection to their kids as weak or unmanly.
There are certainly nuns who acted and continue to act with love and kindness. The problem was that the out of control whackos were free to be evil and no one spoke out against them. Then we had the situations where if a nun or lay teacher hit you and your parents found out, the parents hit you too!
At the end of the day, what you're describing is child abuse, and whatever good those institutions did elsewhere doesn't offset it. Setting the two side by side is false balance, and rereading my first comment, I can see how it might have come across that way, which wasn't my intent. You were gracious in how you replied and I appreciate that, but my earlier message didn't reflect what I believe, and I regret writing it. I'm sorry you had to live through that.
Electricity needs a positive and negative pole. The potential difference between them, known as voltage, drives current through the circuit.
Religion acts in the same manner. Having an eternal afterlife, either in a wonderful paradise or a place of unbearable torment, creates the same effect. The difference between eternal bliss and eternal damnation is the force that drives the faithful. This is what leads such people to follow a belief system which is not rational, and to devote themselves to a leader who demands regular donations.
The problem with heaven and hell is what they assume: that we're here to be judged. Believe that long enough and you get a society that judges everyone, in the name of a God who does the same.
This is dualism, which is Zoroastrian, not Jewish, even if the Jews borrowed some of its trappings.
True. It was the Christian churches who adopted the concepts of heaven and hell. That was a major factor in their success. Judaism is different.
I would wager that very few Christians know that universalism, in one form or another, was a common belief in early Christianity.
You'd win that bet. The position has a name, apokatastasis, and the people holding it weren't few.
It seems like the rich merchants, priests, rulers, etc., figured out the best way to achieve a compliant population was to throw the fear of God at them. Follow my instructions, or you might experience some really bad times after you're gone. I find it amusing how easily people believe things. Most would give up free will to get a good night sleep.
More often than not, religions and ideologies survive because they're useful to whoever holds power, one way or another.
I'm confused why these same people also cry about syncretism because of all of this. I mean if syncretism helps and Christianity has syncretic 'pagan' foundations (despite claiming otherwise), why not use it to actually have TRUE Interfaith Dialogue??
The History of the World is far more interesting when realizing and understanding how modern-day religions are ALL connected to each other, more than you may think!
I completely respect everyone’s right to their own beliefs, and who am I to judge them or tell them that believing or disbelieving is better for them? That said, true intellectual honesty means facing facts that don't easily fit into our worldview, not ignoring them just to preserve a belief. We’re capable of so much better than pretending such uncomfortable truths don't exist.
Christianity spent millennia on doing everything possible to hide its pagan roots. Without those roots, Christianity would not have succeeded. It needed the familiar rituals, beliefs , and practices in order to draw in the pagan believers. And it worked! There is almost nothing in Christianity that cannot be found in the original pagan god-myths.
The Church felt compelled to destroy the connection between the two, and initiated their thousands of years of persecution and death to insure their success. Don’t expect any dialogue or discussion to bring that knowledge to the Christian faithful to come to the forefront any time soon.
Christianity is often the oddball among Abrahamic traditions precisely because of how deeply it integrated—and was shaped by—European paganism throughout its expansion.
Thank you for your messages.
It is interesting to learn more about the Christian mindset, especially those of Fundamentalists.
Have a good day.
The religions that Christianity supposedly “syncreted” into itself are either long-dead or have so few adherents as to be irrelevant. So I’m not sure how this would be a basis for ecumenism.
I'm not talking about the past for its own sake. I'm talking about how we relate to one another today. My point is that recognizing the historical development of religious ideas should encourage greater intellectual humility and more genuine dialogue with people of other faiths—not just among Christians, Jews, and Muslims, but also with Hindus, Buddhists, Pagans, and others.
From my perspective, many Christians are willing to discuss Christianity's interactions with Judaism or Greco-Roman philosophy, yet become defensive when historical influences from non-Christian traditions are raised. Whether one agrees on every historical claim or not, acknowledging that religions develop within historical and cultural contexts shouldn't be threatening.
What many non-Abrahamic believers object to isn't ancient history itself. It's the present-day attitude that their traditions have nothing meaningful to contribute while Christianity is presented as something to be accepted regardless of whether it's wanted. That can make dialogue feel one-sided rather than mutual.
In a world where people are increasingly divided by ideology and prejudice, I'd rather see greater historical honesty, intellectual humility, and mutual respect. Genuine interfaith dialogue shouldn't begin with trying to win converts—it should begin with trying to understand one another. I'd sooner let my own assumptions be challenged than treat another person with contempt.
The problem is that once you start dismantling things for not being 'truly' or originally Christian, where do you draw the line? After all, modern Christianity would be unrecognizable to the original disciples.
For many, the safest route is simply not allowing any of it, even in the face of irrefutable evidence. Similar tactics are used in Islam and Judaism as well. So, I'm not singling out Christianity.
There’s a remarkable difference though. Christianity is almost entirely a ‘copy’ of earlier pagan religions. I don’t know enough about Islam to comment fairly, but while all religions carry beliefs from previously shared cultures, Judaism offers new perspectives here and there, along with an entirely new understanding of the entire God concept.
So too, The Old Testament (sic) doesn’t try to hide its early and primitive connections to the pagan mythology preceding it. On the contrary, much of it is clearly spelled-out in chapter and verse of their Biblical recorded history.
Long dead and / or irrelevant as a result of the Church destroying the history of those religions, not to mention destroying all those so-called ‘heretics’ who refused to accept the new, but thoroughly copied, and unoriginal version called Christianity.
Isn't it fascinating how many Christian traditions that the early Church tried to kill ended up surviving within Islam?
I should read the Koran! I know so little about Islam.
Excellent concise summary of an extremely complex topic. I just finished reading Ehrman’s academic monograph, “Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in Early Christian Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022). Through this I was introduced to “The Apocalypse of Peter” which contains images from which Dante produced his impactful portrayal of hell’s eternal conscious torment.
Thanks, Brian!
Love proving that fiction is fiction.
I've read enough Near death experiences over the past 3.5 decades, well over 1000, to see that God doesn't judge anybody, we judge ourselves. Also, anybody that has had a negative NDE always comes out of it after a short while, it's never about being in a place of eternal damnation.
I find NDEs fascinating. While I remain neutral on what causes them, I firmly believe they don't get nearly enough attention. Prevailing medical hypotheses simply don't explain everything.
This may be of interest to you. 🙏🔥
https://substack.com/@jt913/note/c-305644999?r=19ia12
Thank you Jeff. I'll take a look.
The great trick was convincing Christians that hell arrived fully furnished, with Satan already holding the keys. In reality, the doctrine looks less like divine revelation and more like a theological Airbnb assembled across centuries from Persian cosmology, Greek mythology, mistranslated poetry, and Augustine’s anxiety. Then Christians turned around and accused everyone else of borrowing. Religion has always had a remarkable talent for forgetting where it bought the furniture.
I don’t think Judaism completely tried to hide where it bought some of the furniture. Throughout the entire Hebrew Scriptures, there you find God constantly reprimanding the people to toss out that old well-worn furniture and replace it with the new. Judaism wasn’t afraid to cite what came before, nor did it try to erase it. Judaism confronted it.