[fsloth]

"Christianity is largely a religion for revolutionary times, more concerned with overturning a corrupt order than administering a just one"

Mostly disagree with this characterization of christianity. Christianity was first a small cultish endeavour amalgamizing judaistic and greek cultures. Then it suddenly replaced roman state religion, with church fathers taking strong political leadership within the religions domain. The roman state religion was always a part of keeping the empire in cohesion. This same political intent was laid onto christianity.

So, where Islam gained prominence as the administrative creed of an arabian trade town, christianity rose to prominence as part of the administrative structure of an empire.

Only after a millenia protestants started to question the papal authority. Martin Luther and his ideas survived because the german princes wanted to undermine catholic churches authority. While definetly NOT toppling their own. Luther was vehemently anti-revolutionary, saying rebelious peasants should be severely punished.

Most flavors of christianity are not about toppling old regimes but supporting them. The rebelious sects like the huguenots were vehemently persecuted.

The more rebellious sects only started thriving in the american colonies.

[loggedinmyphone]

Two problems with this analysis. Christianity was rapidly growing before its adoption by Constantine, specifically among slaves and the underclass as it offered hope to the downtrodden. Resemblance to Hellenistic cults are superficial. Second, Islam was spread by conquest, it had nothing to do with being from a trading town.

[fsloth]

It seems I wrote a fairly long reply.

Religions have two aspects - the literary context, and the context of the religion as it is practiced. When we look at these combined, Christianity at the large is a religion that supports and co-exists with the existing power structure rather than is overtly "rebellious". In the historical, and the modern context both. With the exception of North America and various evangelical sects spread through the globe.

To my understanding, in Islam the literary and the practical context match pretty well, as Quran was written as a sort of mystical field manual of administration and religious practice, in a very specific political situation. While the ideas expressed in the text are partly ancient, the body of work itself is only as old as the religion [0]. I agree up to a point - Islam is more like an administrators device than Christianity.

Christianity, on the other hand, in its' holy book combines a selected collection of ancient Judaistic texts with the content of the new testament. The tradition of religious practice evolved only after the texts were compiled [1] - which was upheld to be critical part of the religion for a millenia. Protestants seemingly denied the importance of tradition but actually just replaced it with their own culture of practice [2].

As for the protestants' "rebellious nature" - that really wasn't. Unless protestantianism existed harmoniously with the existing power structrure it was crushed. One of the culminations of this tension was the 30 years war [3].

Yes, the ideas of protestantianism rose from deep conviction and the moral impetus to overthrow old concepts. But practically it could only succeed when it co-existed and co-operated with the earthly power structure. (Hence, we get the protestant state churches in various countries [4].)

Or it could escape the old society all together ... to the new world.

Christianity in the North-America is quite a different thing than as practiced in the old world. The various sects that were persecuted in europe found home there and could thrive in relative freedom.

The critical part about this is that there was no state church. You could choose your religious community based on your conscience. Hence, I presume the evangelical aspects of Christianity can be more highlighed there. A considerable portion of the progenitors of North American christianity were the rebels, with no deep ties to the political power structure.

In Europe, the Church and the State ruled hand in hand for over a millenia, and only now this co-operation is starting to fragment. First the Catholic church with it's blood ties to the aristocracy, and then the protestant state churches herded the masses.

Especially in the first millenia, to large extent the church and state officers came from the same families. First sons of noble houses inherited the land, while the some of the later sons became priests. The main reason for the vows of selibacy was to stop a secondary church-based hereditary power structure from rising next to the feudal aristocracy.

"Resemblance to Hellenistic cults are superficial."

I was mainly referring to the philosophical and literary content of the new testament as it matches fairly well with the ethics of the greek philosophers.

As for the mystical content - I would claim the resemblance to older non-judaistic tradition is far deeper than superficial. For example for the worship of Virgin Mary, the image of the mother goddess was already powerfull and ancient [4]. I know later theologians integrated Mary to the church canon but I presume this was only after she was popular with the masses.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quran#Compilation

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_tradition

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_scriptura

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion#Established_chu...

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele

[loggedinmyphone]

In theory the Christian leadership is supposed to be leading the people out of Egypt, but in practice they're usually playing golf with the Pharaohs.

The aping of Greek mystical forms such as virgin worship I believe is a ploy to make the religion more palatable to the surrounding culture. The deeper principles of total forgiveness and relinquishing of individual claims to righteousness are the core, in my view; if not globally unique, at least a radical departure from classical cultural values and Islam.

[fsloth]

I think politics is as critical part of group of people as breathing. I don't think you can separate the practical tradition from the theological one, as most practicing religion are familiar with only the practical aspects.

The more people respect and believe you, the more political force you can amass. Hence, a popular religion weilds quite a lot of political force. As such it would be totally misguided to pretend this political context would not exist, or worse, use it in catastrophic ways. There's a good reason churches did not approve of heretics when people were uneducated and easy to arouse into a mass hysteria. There's also a good reason to co-operate with the state so that the political interest of the church and the state are aligned - as opposing large political factions have an almost natural tendency to create turmoil and chaos, like hydrogen and oxygen, even if their leaders werent terribly ambitious (there are always easily exitable factions on both sides).

The fact that bible survives, and is at it is, for example, is the result of a political process as much as anything else. Thus the interpretations as well are mostly done within a political context.

I agree from the philosophical point of view - "meek shall inherit the earth" is pretty much as revolutionary concept as it can get - but from practical point of view this has most of the time meant that you must meakly obey your landlord.

If we understand revolution as a practical political concept - I don't think there has been much revolutionary about christianity en masse, as I wrote in my previous reply.

I think for the most parts the historical inheritance of christianity is net positive, especially when we get to the literary tradition spurred by protestantianism.

"The deeper principles of total forgiveness and relinquishing of individual claims to righteousness are the core, in my view; if not globally unique"

I might be totally off base, but I understood one could claim those principles to be at the core buddhism as well.

[loggedinmyphone]

Regarding the subject at hand, then, why did Christians invent science rather than pagans, Muslims, or Buddhists? We don't know for sure but we could argue that pagans did not have a notion of progress; Muslims were obsessed with their in-group versus various out-groups and believed violence was the solution; and Buddhists, while perhaps spiritually closest to the mark, decided the way to end suffering was to renounce desire altogether, rather than, like the Christians, transmute their desire into an aspiration for a God's-eye view of the universe.

[fsloth]

"why did Christians invent science rather than pagans, Muslims, or Buddhists? "

Given that the philosophical basis of science had deep roots in both pagan and muslim thought I'm not sure if that's a completely sensible assessment.

I think one needs to take a larger view of the society as a whole, to try to find answers to why science rose, when it did.