I think one thing to consider is the utility of a religion. Christianity is a pretty clear and useful religion. 10 rules to live by. One god. Everyone’s welcome. Forgiveness is given. I’m simplifying things a lot, but you get the gist. All this makes the whole thing pretty easy and attractive, right?

Obvious utility and usefulness is highly dependent on the situation. A big hammer is a very useful tool, but not so useful when you’re dealing with intricate crystal sculptures.

So I think Christianity just happened, or was designed, to be usefull at the time.

I wanted to say it was an early brand of Apple

Dunno about Hinduism, but Christianity pretty much grew like other mystery religions in Rome, to the extent that 5-10% of the population practiced it by the time Constantine rolled around. It was def not the only mystery religion open to everyone--worship of Isis was also open to women and men, slave and free.

What made Christianity unusual was that post-Constantine, it became the sole religion of the empire, and draconian rules enforced its status. Theodosius in 380 began persecuting pagans, and emperors following him added to the persecution, which included destruction of pagan temples, objects of worship, public celebrations, and holy days. Remaining a pagan turned into social/actual suicide, as non-Christians faced loss of status, loss of property, loss of opportunity, exile, and, finally, death, by 435.

I didn't even realize I never mentioned it was in Kentucky! Just updated it to say Harlan County Kentucky in the first paragraph. Thanks for pointing that out

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In the deep, dark hills of eastern Kentucky.

Don’t all religions have to start with a small handful?

I mean, logically is there a religion that started with a million people?

In the mid-80s, I visited my former roommate and her husband in Harlan. I was wearing a Union windbreaker (my mom was a union organizer). We got out of their truck downtown and her husband finally noticed and pushed me against the truck until he could cover my jacket with another. “Someone will shoot you.” Never forgotten it. He was genuinely terrified

Yes. That doesn't contradict anything I said.

One of the best documentaries ever made. Here it is on full

https://youtu.be/Q2aPy_XVVZ4

Bravo on this fantastic post! I'm from that region and descended from multiple generations of coal miners.

This is a very good post and I agree with what you’re saying but I’m very pedantic and feel the need to point out that Saturnalia is unlikely to be the source of Christmas (at least, directly) because it was celebrated from the 17th to the 23rd. It seems more likely that it comes from the date of the winter solstice since that’s celebrated on the 25th of December on the Julian calendar. Interestingly enough, on the modern calendar the solstice falls on the 21st so we’ve been celebrating it wrong since the adoption of this newer calendar system. Open your presents early, kiddos! That said, I’m sure you’re right inasmuch as the celebration of Saturnalia at around the same time period (if not THE EXACT period) probably led to the easy adoption of Christmas by the public, since you can call it whatever you want as long as we get our gosh darned presents. Maybe it’s splitting hairs, but this is Reddit so that’s what we do

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlan_County,_Kentucky

The Americans were rooted in British culture, but had very much become their own nation, if not their own state, in the roughly 150 years of the first permanent settlements:

1. The Americans had their own view of who was gentry (or who could vote, basically,) and this was massively more broad than what the British would ever accept.

2. The Americans saw fighting in war as a patriotic demonstration, which was not a sentiment shared by British officers.

3. The fighting with the natives was far more personal to the Americans than anyone from Britian.

4. The British saw the American colonies as insignificant compared money sinks compared to the deeply lucrative colonies elsewhere.

5.1 Because gold and silver were so rare, bank notes backed by land and debts were practically the backbone of the American economy. This became a major issue when the British banks allowed borrowers to overleverage, as they passed laws to reduce the quantity of American notes, and bar their use as payment, while also reducing speice sent to America.

5.2 Needless to say, combining deflation with the mercantilist policies led to disaster dominos, since Spanish currency was even more common than British money before this, so increasing the imbalance further would almost certainly benefit those who were already breaking British laws.

6. Americans also had a tradition of getting what they wanted by rioting at this point, so the British decision to give their governors the soldiers they would actually need to prevent this came far too late.

So basically, there were a LOT of cultural differences by the time of the revolution.

> He then became king of Norway (or Sweden..?) o

You were right the first time, Harald was of Norway. The king of Sweden at this time was Stenkil IIRC

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The battle of the Milvian Bridge where Constantine used chi ro happened in 312

I am surprised on the amount of false and half true responses to your question by what are clearly amateur historians or history enthusiasts. If I were you, I would try posting this in r/AskHistorians. They have more stringent requirements for comments that make sure the responses are detailed and cite credible sources.

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Christianity is an ancient religion, and it's also plausible that dating things by equinoxes and moons was just a standard way of fixing a yearly event.

More difficult to explain are the eggs and bunnies, which any anthropologist will tell you are fertility symbols common to the spring festivals of many cultures before and alongside Christianity. The Iranian spring festival, Nowruz, existed long before Islam, is a popular holiday, and isn't going anywhere. Also, subjectively, but as a non-believer who enjoys experiencing different traditions, passover doesn't give me spring festival vibes, but Easter absolutely does.

This only applies to Southern European pagan religions. Many of the sites of worship in North and Western European pagan religion varies widely from region to region and tribe to tribe. Some could be located out in nature and open to all while others could be centered around a single “priest” or group of “priests” who interacted with people based on their own discretion. That being said we really don’t know for sure how most of them operated as almost all did not keep any records whatsoever.

An important thing to realize is that similarity does not establish dependence. You have to show that one tradition is in fact dependant on another. Otherwise, you fall prey to same kind of reasoning that leads people to believe aliens taught us how to build the pyramids because so many independent cultures built them.

One also needs to be critical of sources. Where do we get the information regarding Odin? Often, when supposed pagan Origins to Christimas traditions are stated, they are given without any source. Be sure to locate the sources these traditions supposedly come from. When were they recorded?

As for the Odin claim specifically, I will point you to Jackson Crawford. He is an excellent scholar with a PhD in Old Norse. He is certainly better qualified than I to dig into the specifics: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_o5ih9WuCxQ

As for Easter, Michael Jones at InspiringPhilosophy put together a good video on the topic: https://youtu.be/IffNsK_fdoY

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cco-pCb0klU

Excellent essay, with particular praise on how you explained why socialism never took hold in Harlan. I often wondered why international socialism never made more of a splash in America.