this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2025
1184 points (98.6% liked)
A Boring Dystopia
12491 readers
512 users here now
Pictures, Videos, Articles showing just how boring it is to live in a dystopic society, or with signs of a dystopic society.
Rules (Subject to Change)
--Be a Decent Human Being
--Posting news articles: include the source name and exact title from article in your post title
--If a picture is just a screenshot of an article, link the article
--If a video's content isn't clear from title, write a short summary so people know what it's about.
--Posts must have something to do with the topic
--Zero tolerance for Racism/Sexism/Ableism/etc.
--No NSFW content
--Abide by the rules of lemmy.world
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Dude, a guy named Constantine literally started this modern Christiandom train rolling with his “Hey guys, I just met Jesus, and he told me I should be in charge now. So, I’m king, ordained by heaven, and we’ll enforce this new order with lots of violence.”
And he and his successors then proceeded to conquer territory, and then mint coins depicting a soldier holding a cross and smashing the head of his enemy under his boot. In hoc signo vinces.
And thus Christian imperialism, conquest, subjugation, and terror has marched along ever since. Lest ye forget the Crusades and the Inquisistion, for example.
Yes, there’s beauty and kindness in the Christian tradition as well. But let’s not pretend that it was all huggy-bunches-of-love until Calvinism showed up.
Constantine ended the institutional persecution of monotheists within the Roman empire. The apostolic church had been groving along well before that.
The end to formalized persecution gave Christians an opportunity to begin organizing openly - leading to the Ecumenical Councils that would define the church as an institution for the next two millennium. But the foundations were all in place well beforehand.
The Church, as a military power, has always been mediocre at best. Rome itself was gutted during the transfer of the court to Byzantium. And this laid the seeds for the Roman Orthodox split, which divides the church to this day.
The Western empire dissolved into feudal states, with Catholicism and the Church operating as a kind of diplomatic corps and patronage network for European aristocrats.
It wasn't until the emergence of Protestantism, following the failure by the Hapsbirgs to consolidate power during the 30 Years War, that capitalist expansion began to produce imperialism in the modern sense.
The conquest and subjection that followed was in pursuit of economic growth via slavery and plunder. The church existed to help rationalize these economic pursuits, but the priesthood was secondary to the merchant classes in actually executing it.
The Renaissance occurred when Greek scholars in the Ottoman Empire were exiled by Islamic extremists, thus bringing the knowledge of antiquities to Europe.
When Islamic extremism reached India, the Moguls were about to be overthrown when the British turned up.
Wait, what?
It’s sad how many downvotes you have while being correct while the other poster has a bunch if upvotes while being really off the mark.
Well Constantine convened the council of nicea to codify his rule and leave out a lot of the Bible, so there's that.
We'll also note that their supposed god claim never chimes in to distance himself from these people.
Constantinus was the Emperor of Rome before he converted the Empire. He did not create the notion of the Divine Right to Rule. His conversion was entirely politically motivated as it happens near his death.
Calvin is the one that promotes the notion that wealth is a sign of God’s love which is the opposite of what Jesus taught.
Why did you reply authoritatively if your understanding of this subject is so poor?
It wasn't Calvin it was Luther. And he was quoting Saint Augustine.
Calvin said that although the righteous were selected and so charity would not gain brownie points to heaven, the selected would do charitable works because they were the select.
Martin Luther just opposed all charity.