So, having watched this movie again and been reminded why Christianity

>>50724080
>reminded why Christianity eventually worked out like it did

Why did it?

>>50725557
A brilliant PR team.

>>50725557
It promised people who were used to pic related a god who was caring and kind and not looking for the first opportunity to destroy the world.

>>50725700
Most Christian converts were Romans, not Jews, you moron.

>>50726225
Yeah, and the reason why the Romans didn't convert to Judaism is because it was even more hostile than their current gods. All it had lots of ethnic connotations and entrance rituals.

>>50724080
The conception of heroes in abrahamic mythology is definitely interesting, in that it's almost always made very clear or explicit that all their great achievements are made via blind faith in god, and the moment they lose it, it brings their downfall. Adam and Eve, Moses, Samson, Solomon and such. Catholics in particular love the theme of divine grace, and for instance it's probably the reason Tolkien had Frodo take off all his armaments before entering Mt. Doom, and why Gollum slipped.

You'd probably need a very narrative heavy system to do it on a way that didn't turn out railroaded as fuck.

>>50726334
>Solomon
Never really lost his faith, at least in not in the same sense David did. God declared fairly early on in his life Solomon was his favorite human ever and never seemed to change that mind. Solomon did grow cynical and jaded towards the end of his life (he's presumed to be The Kohelet), but this was a function of his immense wisdom, not moral degeneration. If anything, God approved of it.

Fittingly, Solomon's exploits (at least in the folklore surrounding the bible, especially in Judaism and even MORESO in Islam) is among the most spectacular of all monotheistic myths. Like, yeah, Samson beat up a thousand philistines... SOLOMON COMMANDED THE WINDS AND THE FLAMES AND MADE FOUNTAINS OF MOLTEN BRONZE RISE FROM THE GROUND.

>>50725557

My fingers are freezing so I might be a bit awkward here, but Christianity was a Mystery Cult that offered something no other religion did; salvation and eternal life for everyone.

This is a culture, mind you, that didn't believe everyone got to paradise or even deserved to go there. Paradise, or Elysium, was for heroes. Everyone else kinda just puttered out.

Christianity offered eternal life in a land of milk and honey. No other religion offered this. It expected little but offered a lot, and the very nature of Mystery Cults meant they were not only popular among the commoner, but nobility and philosophers who could chew on the theology for a lifetime.

And then there's Constantine, who declared Christianity the state religion after a monumental battle that was supposedly divinely ordained to be his victory, earning himself the diadem and dominion over a religion that was growing rapidly throughout the Empire.

>>50726408
See, here's the thing: Judaism DIDN'T EVEN OFFER ETERNAL LIFE IN THE FIRST PLACE, to anyone. It's almost impossible to imagine nowadays anyone voluntarily embracing a religion like that. Judaism used to be like the faith of that skull faced god from Oglaf.

"Oh, everything's terrible and god is terrifying, he could kill us all at any moment."
"Why worship it then?"
"We hope he'll kill us *less*."

>>50726408

You want a good read? Check out the letters between nobles who only knew second hand accounts of this mysterious religion.

They called it a den of baby killers who would eat the flesh of infants they drowned barely after birth, Christians committed incest by supposedly fornicating with those they would call "brother" or "sister." In their cups drinking blood, they would proclaim heresy, that the Emperor (his "Genius") is not divine and they recognize him merely as a mortal man, a grave breach of Imperial law as per Apotheosis and the Imperial Cult.

>>50726463
Pfff, right, condemning an entire religion of people you know nothing about, claiming they were drinking blood and killing babies because their presence led to economical instability. Those wacky Romans!

>>50726453

Judaism was also a uniquely regional thing in Judea, but became the religion of diaspora we know it today due to the Judeo-Roman Revolts of the 1st century.

To call these revolts apocalyptic would be an understatement, these are the wars that utterly gutted Jewish populations and cultural centers so hard it wiped out two legions and turned the province into "Syria Palestine" rather than "Judea." They literally got wiped off the map.

>>50726531
For an itsy-bitsy nation of merchant scholars, I'd say wiping out two legions isn't an achievement to scoff at.

>>50726453
Very few ancient religions offered a meaningful afterlife.

Christianity wasn't the first to do so.

>>50726225
Zeus and Jupiter were absolute cunts though. They literally hated mankind. Yahweh at least loved a small amount of it (although he wasn't an ideal lover).

>>50727047
The merchant scholar meme was forged later. The ancient meme for jews was fanatical weird cunts.

>>50727440
>Yahweh at least loved a small amount of it (although he wasn't an ideal lover).
I always thought his main selling point is that he was generally not as bad as most of the other gods in the area.

>>50726408
>Christianity offered eternal life in a land of milk and honey. No other religion offered this.

I can't find a suitably grumpy-looking image of Zarathustra to respond to this falsehood with.

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>>50727440
>implying most Romans worshiped Jupiter by that point

>Asking about history or religion on 4chan

>>50727800
>not even on /his/

Man, that movie was balls. The depiction of God and the angels was probably the creepiest I've ever seen in animation.

>the angel of death is just that giant, whispering vortex of light in the sky

>>50727855
Academic topics most definitely benefit from high moderation and a structured community. Large imageboards that attempt a serious subject are almost always shit for that reason. Even 8ch's /his/ is a step up, and the best place for history discussion that's somewhat accesible is probably reddit's AskHistorians (yes, gb2, reee etc). Anyone can post a question, but unless you source your shit incredibly well only verified historians are allowed to answer.

>>50728827
But when everyone knows what they're talking about, how can you derail every discussion into an antisemitic circlejerk?

>>50724080
Anon, clerics obey the commands of their gods, they don't command their gods. I think you've spent too much time immersed in fantasy and nerd pursuits, and it's muddled your thinking. Go out and experience the real world and consume good culture.

>>50725557
Because a certain Caesar needed something extra to win his war, and so he used that crazy jew cult that seemed really good at making people complacent martyrs.

>>50727734
Nevermind the fact that Christianity did in fact have pretty tough rules on how to get in paradise, with limbo and hell existing.

The only nice God that lets everyone live happily ever after in heaven, is the modern (liberal) Christian version of God.

>>50724080
That's Judaism not Christianity fyi

Look at your life through Heaven's eyes!

>>50730485
>complacent martyrs
>to win a war
It is frankly more likely that the Emperor actually had a vision and converted organically than that he seriously thought that it would be an astute political move.

>>50730712
Is that like beer goggles or something?

>>50730780
It's a song from the movie that gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.

>>50730766
Hahahahahahah. No.

>>50728694
Isn't that the point though?
I thought one of the Angels told a human "do not be afraid" due to the Angels being so ass-shittingly scary. I need to read more Bible.

>>50730857
Really?

I honestly think there are only two good songs in the entire film.

>>50730426
I concur.
It's a scary place, the real world, but that's what we have.

>>50724080
Isn't this just a pathfinder oracle though?

>>50731662
Yes, this is happens nearly every time a human sees an angel in the Bible. Lots of falling on faces and being told not to be afraid. Angels are terrifying. God, too, is regarded as terrifying. When God appeared to the Israelites in the wilderness, the people asked Moses to ask God to stop talking to them, because they were afraid they would all perish if they heard him say anymore.

Essentially, in Judaism and Christianity, love of God and fear of God go hand in hand.

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>>50731662

>>50731662
/tg/ loves the eldritch angel meme a lot, but it's not really the case most of the time.

Angels came in a few flavours, ranged from lads with wings, to searing forms of divine fire with wings. They did get weird, and I think the weirdest they got were Ophanim/Thrones (someone correct me if that's the wrong name) which were essentially interconnected circles covered in eyes and fire with wings, which were also covered in eyes. Eyes pop up a lot and make up the creepier parts, at least to us moderns.

Lets be real here, you're a middle eastern shepherd out looking after your sheep one evening and all of a sudden the sky opens up in a blaze of celestial fire and chanting, it doesn't matter what comes down, even if it's just a guy with wings, he'll tell you to hold on a sec and calm down. Angels in all forms were simply divine, otherworldly creatures that humans are used to seeing, it's not necessarily because they're incomprehensible alien Lovecraftian eldritch horrors.

>>50731933
Don't think any of them where JUST lads with wings.

>>50732078
The bottom tier angels were, the ones just called Angels, even archangels weren't massively bizarre. Once you go up from the bottom tier stuff it gets funky, multi-animal headed humanoids with fireswords and eye-covered wings, but it never goes full alien tentacle mode like most modern artists seem to think.

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>>50732125
Source on these bottom tier angels? The ones in the Bible are either pretty weird covered in eyes on fire or not described at all and presumedly humanoid if I remember

>>50732286
Yeah, there's a reason every speech from an angel opens up with some variant of "Fear not!".

>>50732286
There's that one angel that appears after Jesus' grave is found empty, I suppose. But they aren't lad with wings - they're lads without wings, and with white clothes.

And, depending on how you read things, they may or may not have a face like a lightningbolt. (The other two accounts just describe them as having white clothes or, in one case, being two dudes whose clothes are as bright as lightning.)

And yeah, the first sentence out of their mouth is some variant of "do not be afraid", because of course it fucking is.

>>50731933
>They did get weird, and I think the weirdest they got were Ophanim/Thrones (someone correct me if that's the wrong name) which were essentially interconnected circles covered in eyes and fire with wings, which were also covered in eyes.
The Wheels may or may not actually be angels - they're described as having the spirits of the Cherubim within them, but who the fuck knows what that means. They seem to be some part of the Cherubim, I guess.

And the Cherubim, of course, are ox/lion/eagle/man-faced critters with four wings pointing in the cardinal directions (always - the Cherubim do not turn, and in any case see just fine in four directions thank you very much) and an interesting assortment of bodyparts. Bronzen hoofs, IIRC?

Also, of course, eyes covering the entirety of their backs and wings. Because it ain't proper Abrahamic angel-horror without an excess of eyes.

>>50732286
I'm not a man of scripture, angels are a little differently ordered and such in different religions. There's a ton of various infographics and such out there detailing the orders or choirs of angels, with winged humanoids always near the bottom, although theology tends to mix things up so much that it's hard to really have any concrete list. A quick google search offered up some stuff like this:

Genesis 18:3
And he lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,

Daniel 10:5
Then I lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in colour to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude.

Apparently these 'men' are Ishim, 'man-like beings'. Wondrous and divine, glorious and beautiful, but they are in the form of pretty much regular sized and shaped men. I'm also assuming some slight exaggeration or just getting caught up in the moment on behalf of the authors. There may or may not have been such angels at Sodom and Gomorrah, staying with Lot, can't remember.

>>50732694
>There may or may not have been such angels at Sodom and Gomorrah, staying with Lot

There definitely are.

In fact, most messenger angels that appear in the OT or the NT are radiant humanoids.

They tell niggas not to be afraid because when you're a dirt farmer in the least educated ass end of the Middle East you're afraid of anything that isn't your sister's vagoo.

>>50732954
They aren't described as having wings though.

>>50733105
Yes, because that's something Christians lifted from the Zoroastrians and possibly a few Greek stories later, along with the idea of a benign afterlife.

>>50730485
>>50730766

Except the assurance of martyrdom for soldiers killed in battle was a much later development. The martyrs of the first few centuries of Christianity were those who were passively killed for their faith. Even when those saints were soldiers in life they submit to their death willingly rather than turn away from Christianity (or in some cases refuse to perform their function as soldiers). Origen and Tertulian are explicitly pacifistic in their writings and it is only Augustine writing in the 4th/5th centuries that argues that war can ever be considered legitimate. The actually development of his notions into a concept of holy war where fighting was spiritually meritorious took a lot longer still, we are talking the 10th & 11th centuries.