Christianity never took off?

[CarlManvers2019]

Basically, what if Jesus and his followers never really managed to spread their religion to either the Israelites or outsiders, in any significant numbers and it never took off in-terms of political importance due to a lack of followers

What would a world without Christ's impact be? Can the Romans and other peoples have those Theocratic-Scientific-Philosophical-Studies, when their Gods are in a way more "personable" or closer to "human" and never truly said to be Omnibenevolent or Omnipotent/Omniscient/Omnipresent?

 

[S'task]

Basically, what if Jesus and his followers never really managed to spread their religion to either the Israelites or outsiders, in any significant numbers and it never took off in-terms of political importance due to a lack of followers

What would a world without Christ's impact be? Can the Romans and other peoples have those Theocratic-Scientific-Philosophical-Studies, when their Gods are in a way more "personable" or closer to "human" and never truly said to be Omnibenevolent or Omnipotent/Omniscient/Omnipresent?

Long term: the world is less free and more hierarchical with might makes right remaining the core philosophy of civilization. There's a good chance technology never progresses much beyond the highest levels of China pre-European contact.

You need to understand that both Scientific Empiricism (and thus all the advancement the Scientific method and empiricism brought about) and the very underlying concept of human rights originated from Christianity. Without widespread Christianity those ideas are much less likely to appear.

To understand why you need to go back to some of those underlying ideas of God that dominated Christianity. Not the idea of God being Omniscient, Omnipotent, or Omnipresent, no, rather, a core concept of Christianity is that God is rational and that he ordered the world with reason and thus humans could use reason to understand the world and discover how God designed everything to work. From this idea, scientific empiricism and the scientific method arose.

Likewise, Human Rights are founded on one core idea: all humans are created equal. This is an utterly radical concept that does not arise in any other philosophical system of the ancient world, yet is a core underlying value of Christianity built mainly from two passages of the Bible:

What shall we conclude then? Do we have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. As it is written:

“There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”
“Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is on their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”​

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. Because of what law? The law that requires works? No, because of the law that requires faith. For we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Consider how the logic works out from this. If God sees all humans as the same status regardless of race, sex, or religion, all damned without Christ's Grace and those under Christ's Grace are also seen as all the same; how can one justify humans treating others differently based on those same things? Without this core idea, the idea of human rights likely never develops.

So, in short, the world is a much nastier and brutish place, where social philosophy holds that certain categories of people who are strong are better than those who are not and there is no modern technology...

 

[Doomsought]

To understand why you need to go back to some of those underlying ideas of God that dominated Christianity. Not the idea of God being Omniscient, Omnipotent, or Omnipresent, no, rather, a core concept of Christianity is that God is rational and that he ordered the world with reason and thus humans could use reason to understand the world and discover how God designed everything to work. From this idea, scientific empiricism and the scientific method arose.

The second part is very important, something almost unique to Christianity is the idea that the world is a thing that has been created. All other religions have some aspect of animism, the belief that every object from the public fountain (Crinaeae) to eaves of your houses roof (Lares Grundules) has its own god or spirit that is responsible for its function.

 

[Aaron Fox]

***SNIP FOR BREVITY***

That is less 'Christianity providing the basis' and more 'Christianity keeping it alive'... at least through my run with Rome-era history. You'll get occasional people/groups in non-Christian societies who were humanist-inclined (the father of history, Herodotus, is one of these people for his then-radical approach on history alongside the entirety of the Pythagorean math cult, whom one Euclid wrote down (because secret cults rarely have a paper trail to follow) into the second most reprinted book after the Bible: The Elements) but it is just as likely to be crushed as it is to be nurtured in the various societies of ancient Greece and the entire Polytheistic Rome period. It heavily depends if the cult or person in question is accepted by the local area enough to get enough of a foothold.

If anything, Christianity either adopted many of the Pythagorean's humanist and logic philosophies by being taking whatever isn't in the accepted parlance or was the fertile soil that grew into Christianity (and oddly enough, the non-twisted form of Islam because, oddly enough, they ate up The Elements like no one else) we know of today.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

That is less 'Christianity providing the basis' and more 'Christianity keeping it alive'... at least through my run with Rome-era history. You'll get occasional people/groups in non-Christian societies who were humanist-inclined (the father of history, Herodotus, is one of these people for his then-radical approach on history alongside the entirety of the Pythagorean math cult, whom one Euclid wrote down (because secret cults rarely have a paper trail to follow) into the second most reprinted book after the Bible: The Elements) but it is just as likely to be crushed as it is to be nurtured in the various societies of ancient Greece and the entire Polytheistic Rome period. It heavily depends if the cult or person in question is accepted by the local area enough to get enough of a foothold.

If anything, Christianity either adopted many of the Pythagorean's humanist and logic philosophies by being taking whatever isn't in the accepted parlance or was the fertile soil that grew into Christianity (and oddly enough, the non-twisted form of Islam because, oddly enough, they ate up The Elements like no one else) we know of today.

You know, I tend to sort of think that much of the theology. philosophy and sort of science that Europeans did with the Bible were things that, correct me if I'm wrong, the actual Israelites or Jews and their ancestors didn't do or overthink on

I mean, there being ONE God or Monotheism probably wasn't so uncommon

 

[Aaron Fox]

You know, I tend to sort of think that much of the theology. philosophy and sort of science that Europeans did with the Bible were things that, correct me if I'm wrong, the actual Israelites or Jews and their ancestors didn't do or overthink on

I mean, there being ONE God or Monotheism probably wasn't so uncommon

Well, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the only ones that survived. Judaism was something that allowed the sort of thinking but due to a combination of circumstances including geopolitical position (Israel was at the center of several major trade routes), lack of Rome's wide-for-the-time education base (which at this time was only surpassed by China's!), and being conquered for so long (most empires don't want their conquered subjects to get any ideas)...

 

[Lanmandragon]

Well, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are the only ones that survived. Judaism was something that allowed the sort of thinking but due to a combination of circumstances including geopolitical position (Israel was at the center of several major trade routes), lack of Rome's wide-for-the-time education base (which at this time was only surpassed by China's!), and being conquered for so long (most empires don't want their conquered subjects to get any ideas)...

Zorastrianiam is a monotheistic faith that's still around. It's older then Judaism to.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Zorastrianiam is a monotheistic faith that's still around. It's older then Judaism to.

I thought Zoroastrianism was a dualistic religion

 

[Lanmandragon]

I thought Zoroastrianism was a dualistic religion

Not to my knowledge but I'm certainly no expert.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Zorastrianiam is a monotheistic faith that's still around. It's older then Judaism to.

Zorastrianiam is, from what I remember reading, a very dualistic religion, but that was from textbooks from my middle school and high school years...

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Zorastrianiam is, from what I remember reading, a very dualistic religion, but that was from textbooks from my middle school and high school years...

Dualistic, I recall it is involved two Deities, Ormundz and Ahriman

Catholic Theologians would probably have a problem with it, less on the paganism and more on the idea that God would have an “evil” counterpart on the same level

 

[WolfBear]

Maybe Mithraism becomes a much larger thing in this TL:

Mithraism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This could perhaps in the long(er)-run result in the spread of Persian culture and Persian influence into Europe. @Skallagrim, here's a way to make your desired Greco-Persian Europe a reality!

 

[ATP]

Basically, what if Jesus and his followers never really managed to spread their religion to either the Israelites or outsiders, in any significant numbers and it never took off in-terms of political importance due to a lack of followers

What would a world without Christ's impact be? Can the Romans and other peoples have those Theocratic-Scientific-Philosophical-Studies, when their Gods are in a way more "personable" or closer to "human" and never truly said to be Omnibenevolent or Omnipotent/Omniscient/Omnipresent?

No science,it was possible only becouse catholic Church belive in God who created rules,which could be discovered.And slaves ewrywhere.