What people don’t understand is that Paganism wasn’t a religion in the modern sense as it was more of a civic or cultural tradition than a belief system. It was ritual-based, not faith-based as you honored the gods through sacrifices and festivals, not through personal devotion or doctrine. It didn’t have a universal morality as the gods didn’t care how “good” you were, just that you made the right offerings. It was usually ethnic-based and didn’t have a missionary drive to convert others (hence why every ethnicity practically had their own mythology). It also had no “sacred texts” or central authority outside of state cults, which meant no unified resistance to Christianity’s spread or any way to preserve teachings and standardize beliefs.

>>17772543 (OP)
>the gods didn’t care how “good” you were, just that you made the right offerings
Not exactly, they were sensitive to behaviour, most famously IE gods are really anal about hospitality. It was more of a cause-and-effect thing than anything though.

>>17772543 (OP)
>Paganism wasn’t a religion in the modern sense as it was more of a civic or cultural tradition than a belief system.

Correct. Before Christianity, to be "roman" meant that you followed the customs, made the sacrifices, believed in the pantheon and the hierarchies of the gods, believed in the common good as they saw it. From their perspective Christianity was certainly subversive and destructive to core roman values and the status quo.

>>17772543 (OP)
Also, I forgot to mention that they never even called themselves “Pagan” or had a unified religious identity. The term “Pagan” comes from the Latin word “Paganus” meaning “rural” or “country-dweller”. The reason why “Paganus” was used to refer to pre-Christian polytheists was because rural areas remained pagan long after Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire and even in the early Middle Ages, much of rural France, Spain, and Italy remained pagan. The Mani peninsula in Greece remained pagan until at least the 8th century. Even the Baltics remained pagan until at least the 14th century.

Christian cope thread

>>17772635
>From their perspective Christianity was certainly subversive and destructive to core roman values and the status quo.
But what happened after?
Constantine did not need to use force to implement
>>17772564
Not really
They were not moral, and I'm not referring to Christian morality, I mean that you could ask any god to perform acts that would be considered immoral. It was relatively common, especially among women, to use Aphrodite to separate couples or force someone to marry you, for example. It didn't really matter what my ethnicity was.
>>17772543 (OP)
80% correct

>>17772688
ethics*
>>17772673
Fuck off, let us talk, back to xiiter worm

>>17772543 (OP)
Just ignore the genocide against the pagans who wanted to worship and venerate their deities, slaughtered for not wanting to worship YHWH and Jewsus.

>>17772688
True
The Germanic people even condemned the use of love magic and witchcraft because they considered it effeminate and cowardly.

>>17772694
Irrelevant to the statement
And the pagans did the same. Do you forgot how i btfo you in your shitty thread?
>>17772543 (OP)
There were no structured dogmas or articles of faith. Even the rites varied depending on the region, although they did have an ancient oral tradition, but sometimes it was not enough for the gods themselves to change over time. Places like Sweden MAY have undergone a more abrupt change, since sun worship was drastically downgraded in the post-Bronze Age.

>>17772543 (OP)
>It was usually ethnic-based and didn’t have a missionary drive to convert others (hence why every ethnicity practically had their own mythology). It also had no “sacred texts” or central authority outside of state cults, which meant no unified resistance to Christianity’s spread or any way to preserve teachings and standardize beliefs
IE scholars bros?

>>17772707
>>17772645
Whether the various Indo-European offshoots, by the time the Beakers were pushing into Iberia and the CWC into Scandinavia, would have recognised any sort of pan-continental kinship with each, other over and against their farming neighbors, is an interesting question. They certainly would not have regarded themselves as a single people, and would have spoken markedly diverging dialects/languages by then, but there are, as I recall, studies showing substantial mobility of Bell-Beaker individuals between Iberia, Britain and Central Europe, which perhaps suggests some sort of continuing identification within the broader category.

>>17772688
It doesn't matter if they were moral or not, they directly punished various offenses in the pagan worldview regardless, even when they do not directly relate to the worship of the god.

>>17772688
Oh I'm not arguing it. Christianity destroyed the roman warrior ethos. Well it wasn't just that but it was the primary factor. After the republic it was a slow downward slide anyway. Civic virtues in the principate were just for show

>>17772722
you didn't understand what I said or pretended not to understand
the OP is right, what mattered was if you did the rituals and honored the gods, they didn't care about anything else besides that. especially with all the syncretism that existed, there was no restricted spiritual fidelity
>>17772733
>warrior ethos
Totally incorrect. The "warrior ethos", like much of Roman culture, was already doomed to assimilation, independent of Christianity itself. (Yes, saying "killed", extinguished or any synonym is historically incorrect) The Roman ethos had already merged with Germanic aspects, and in fact, it was through this fusion that Christianity created chivalry, it only changed certain concepts considered "barbaric". For example, the medieval "manual of war" itself was Roman. And we have writings by post-Roman militarist authors criticizing their contemporaries for adopting outdated Roman tactics and being reluctant to invoke them. These examples are to show that the "Roman warrior ethos" was not extinguished, much less by Christianity. Assimilation with other cultures and the very fall of "Romanism" were already very present at the end of the decadent empire.

>>17772543 (OP)
>Paganism wasn’t a religion in the modern sense
Yes it was.
>more of a civic or cultural tradition than a belief system
It was absolutely a belief system.
>It was ritual-based, not faith-based
Faith was taken for granted.
>It didn’t have a universal morality
Yes it did. Their laws and norms were shaped by their religion.
>It also had no “sacred texts”
It had a pervasive oral tradition and some hadith tier texts.
>or central authority outside of state cults
So no central authority other than the very obvious central authority. Granted, that was just Rome. Other places were less centralized. But the Roman state religion is what the centralized christian church was built on. To downplay its existence is absurd.
>no unified resistance to Christianity’s spread
The Roman state cracked down on christianity multiple times.
>or any way to preserve teachings and standardize beliefs
Except through their temples and academies where they continued practicing their religion right up until they were shut down.
If anything, it was precisely because the Romans' religion was so centralized that it was able to be overthrown like it was. The Romans weren't accustomed to the decentralized, underground practice of their religion they were forced in to once the state turned on them.

>>17772798
>Yes it did
Show to us some examples

>>17772798
Non unified religious identity

>>17772771
>Assimilation with other cultures and the very fall of "Romanism" were already very present at the end of the decadent empire

So what are you saying, that the fall started in the early republic (say around 300 to 500 BCE)?

>>17772771
>they didn't care about anything else besides that
Obviously untrue since they greatly cared about hospitality to guests, keeping of oaths, etc