would the roman empire have been better or worse off if they

>>1639522
Do you mean if Christianity hadn't become its official state sanctioned religion or if Christianity had stayed small/near non-existent?

>>1639522
Doesn't matter. Empires die because projecting power at a distance is both necessary and ruinously expensive.

>>1639540
pretty much both. maybe there would be other monotheistic cults but they would continue to be a minority compared to the rest of the empire

>>1639522
Christianity-had-0-jew-influence-the-authorities-and-traditions-were-all-native-to-the-jurisdiction

They would've fractured hardcore, it was on the verge of disintegrating again if it hadn't been for Constantine's adoption of Christianity and moving his base to Constantine. A lot of fedora historians like to suggest that because Christianity helped glue back the empire Constantine was actually just using it and didn't really consider himself a Christian at all.

>>1639522
No. Christianity provided another impetus for homogenization and unification.

And more practically it provided another path to social advancement for the Romanized elites that previous generations lacked instead of just focusing on local politics and elections.

Better.

For one, no Iconoclast controversies to wrack the Eastern Roman Empire. Controversies that - one should remember - caused open revolts, internal strife, and confusion in a time when the Arabs were weakened and the Empire could have pressed onwards.

Also, no Fourth Crusade, because Western Europe wouldn't have been infected with the Christian cancer.

>>1639522

according to my special snowflake theory, Christianity was not bad because of how it changed the roman mind, but it was bad because Christology is a very confusing issue, and the different theories on how the relationship between Jesus and God developed, they ended up being attached to different regions of the empire, and ended up creating a kind of religious separatism-nationalism.
You had the monophysites in Egypt, many Nestorians in Syria, Arrians in the European nations conquered by Barbarians, and donatists in north africa.

Because of that, many of the people of those regions prefered the muslims conquerors, to the roman empire that supported christian orthodoxy, an Egyptian could think "I prefer the arabs, they let me practice my religion as long as I pay my tax", and Arrians in north africa and Spain, who already didnt believe Jesus was literally God, didnt have a hard time converting to Islam, a religion that keeps Jesus in a high place, but not as God.

The theological divisions of christianity became attached to ethnicities and allowed the destruction of the united mediterranean world when Islam appeared.

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>>1640649
This is actually a good post.

Even if it didn't become Christian it would have become monotheist. See the cult of Sol Invictus.

>>1640649
>but it was bad because Christology is a very confusing issue, and the different theories on how the relationship between Jesus and God developed, they ended up being attached to different regions of the empire, and ended up creating a kind of religious separatism-nationalism.

But that happens to almost every religion, doesn't it? I mean just look at the Sunni vs Shia divide (or Salafism), the various competing strands of Judaism, etc.

>>1640677
Explain

>>1639522
Sexual degeneracy would have brought them down eventually.