At the time Christianity began receiving imperial support, it likely represented only a small minority of the Roman population. So how did it become dominant...
I just watched, well listened to it. Really passionate. I was hoping for more discussion of how Christianity got close enough to power to cozy up in the first place.
My understanding of that process is that Christianity basically found a way to usurp the philosophical legitimacy of platonism, by providing a sort of unifying mythos.
You are talking about millennia of politicians twisting, turning and molding religion and less-educated, more emotional general populaces’ opinions to suit their own ends, for one reason or another, not necessarily all evil and selfish, but probably also short-sighted. Can we ourselves predict how intentionally or unintentionally selfish thoughts and behaviors, and overindulgence in foolish, unproductive emotions might happen, should humanity survive another couple of thousand years? Our best computer models of “more simple” things such as environment and habitat have turned out to be wildly wrong, in an observably relatively short time frame.
I just watched, well listened to it. Really passionate. I was hoping for more discussion of how Christianity got close enough to power to cozy up in the first place.
My understanding of that process is that Christianity basically found a way to usurp the philosophical legitimacy of platonism, by providing a sort of unifying mythos.
Constantine used it to consolidate his power was my takeaway.
Yeah but how did Christianity get to the point that it could be used that way.
You are talking about millennia of politicians twisting, turning and molding religion and less-educated, more emotional general populaces’ opinions to suit their own ends, for one reason or another, not necessarily all evil and selfish, but probably also short-sighted. Can we ourselves predict how intentionally or unintentionally selfish thoughts and behaviors, and overindulgence in foolish, unproductive emotions might happen, should humanity survive another couple of thousand years? Our best computer models of “more simple” things such as environment and habitat have turned out to be wildly wrong, in an observably relatively short time frame.
Corrected for spelling and grammar.