Christian Propaganda in the Classical World

In order to compete in an ancient world where everyone was superstitious (religious) and all human thinking swam daily in a vast sea of religions; where good forces (Gods) or evil forces (demons) were seen as either directly or indirectly contributing to all human suffering and death; religion was the science of the both ancient though medieval thought that explained why things happened the way they did.

Since whole cities could be devastated by a plague or just ones neighbor could be signaled out to be afflicted either by sickness or some other natural disaster (birth defect, sickness or a lighting strike causing fire or death), supernatural causations were totally seen as “no brainier” from the general population to many philosophers.

While the ancient Israelite beliefs where limited to “Covenants” and the religions of the Greco-Roman empire were old established main stream “church” like religions (by the way, church / “ekkliesia” is a borrowed pagan term), the new cult of Christianity, just like high yield Junk Bonds, pulled members out of these old stagnated orthodox religions into a belief where the average poor illiterate person had a chance to become a divinity too just like Jesus and the Roman Emperor: Deified in the here and now while working “Signs and Wonders” and, best of all, were said to never died.

Signs and Wonders WERE the only proofs Christianity could promise over and above the other religions that the common person could have right here and now so, who in their right mind would not want to be a god just like Jesus (being a Christian, even today, means being “Christ like” or being a wonder working messiah like figure yourself).

Since about 99.9% of the world that early Christians proselytized from were already religious, Christianity had to offer something totally new and different to gain converts. Now (as advertised or ‘As Seen of TV’), you too could become a God working miracles just like the Jesus, the emperor and the Classical demi-gods / semi-gods (This being the proofs promised by Jesus in the Gospels, but today practiced mostly by Faith Healers).

However, if you did NOT want the “carrot” of being be a wonder working Christian here on earth, then you would get the “stick” of roasting forever (Thus, if you think it’s bad for you now, just you wait and you’ll wish you had of converted)!

As stated above, in a world where all sickness was said to be caused by the Gods (or demons)(often for wrong actions as punishment); where the reality of severe pain of being burnt either in daily cooking or in fires for warmth; where the daily struggle to find clean clear drinking water form wells and stream not cursed by demons or the Gods (remember they had no knowledge of micro-organisms) meant life or death. The claim where one MUST live after death in a place that incorporated all the real fears and realities of this life, was a great tool in evangelizing propaganda that the other competing religions in the Greco=Roman west just did not have.

[Here is a hard fact! Especially note the fierily burning trash dump of the Semitic term and Hebrew place called “Gehenna”. This was a place where the general population could actually see the fires, smoke and smell the rotting and burning flesh of dead animals along with unclaimed human bodies. Palestinian Christianity used this concept to strike fear in the people of that location, but , once the Christian religion moved west into Asia Minor, Gehenna was totally dropped for the Classical Greek religious concept Hades / Hell which itself was reworked to strike fear in the Hellenistic populations.}

In conclusion, the claims and promises of a once powerful Christianity fueled by human fears and superstitions also being re-enforced by the lack of knowledge (modern science) which preached that all natural disasters were from either God or Satan (a modification of the old demons(note here within the last 300 years the Witch trials in Europe and Salem, Mass.)) is a parade which has forever past.

Christianity has conceded so much of its mystical word view that it now appears weak and deflated much like King Triton who lost all his mighty powers to the Sea Witch in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.

Without Christianity’s living proofs of what the Gospels calls “Signs and Wonders” no longer able to compete with our scientific knowledge, all its reality (now known as dogmas / doctrines ) are moved into some vague and mysterious “after life” untouchable by “sinful man’s” science and technology begin relocated in either Heaven (for the righteous) or Hell (for the people who refuse to join in on this superstition in the modern world).

The “Bible Christians” who show up here at DC to argue the “truths” of Christianity, appear like the Cain in Genesis 4: 13; they seem to be forever cursed to wonder in a strange new land where their burden of a past mystical claims now seems almost too much to bear.

With hope fueled by faith, they struggle on just like Pilgrim in John Bunyan’s Pilgrims Progress, but whose faith, like the ancient Gods, are superstitions that die hard.