May I offer you some Jesus?

An old story:

An English missionary went to a southern island to teach the pagan natives right from wrong, and give them some god damn Jesus. After a prolonged stay, the language barrier was overcome and a one way exchange of information begun. After a few years, enough of heaven and hell, sins and damnation had been taught so one of the chieftains finally came up to ask:
"This jesus fellow, he really likes to throw people into burning pits for even the smallest things huh?"
"Well, no, Jesus is love."
"Then, why dont he love us as we were?"
"Because you didnt believe in him!"
"So, would we all have been thrown into the burning hole if you hadnt come?"
"Well, no. You didnt know the rules yet."
"So... why did you tell us?"

@Lidonious

It shows the inconsistency of Christian theology although I think pagan's who didn't know about Christianity were still assigned to hell. Just the outermost, least barbaric circle but even so.

Steve

@stevep59
I remember in Dante's Inferno, all the wise men and sages of Greek philosophy were in hell. I also recollect that all the Jewish people in the old testament bible went to hell because they were born before Christ. But that can't be right? What about Moses and Noah? I was never really sure if that was bullshit or not.. I like a lot of Judaeo-Christian moral stories but I never understood the whole monotheism thing. Especially because there was a part of the bible where Jesus straight out said it doesn't matter what name you call it good deeds are good deeds. (obviously paraphrasing here)

@Mojo

I think part of the problem is that as it achieved power it of course started to accumulate the sort of people who seek power. Who can gain advantage from conflict and persecution of groups as well as spreading division and hatred. Its often said that by making Christianity the religion of the empire Constantine 'saved' it by giving it unity but if you actually read up on the history as well as persecution of any non-Christians the empire was riven with internal conflict between just about every sect as they all claimed to be the one true faith and all the others heretics.

Also like Judaism before it and to a degree at least Zoroastrianism, plus of course Islam afterwards, by claiming to be the only true faith its at heart a totalitarian belief system. Such regimes always tend toward intolerance and brutal oppression of any dissent. Note I'm not say that all monotheists feel this way as there are many/most who are good people and seek to live peaceably with others. However I suspect its as much because they have become good people despite rather than because of the power systems in charge of the religions they follow.

@stevep59 @mojo

It is also worth noting that what became Christianity had very little to do with Jesus. It is mostly based on the teachings of Paul (aka Saul of Tarsus).

I agree it became very repressive, but I would ascribe a lot of that to it becoming the Roman state religion. That spread it far and wide, but it became a conservative agent of state power in the process.

@Almonaster

Definitely Paul had a big influence on how Christianity developed, especially since he seems to have been the primary figure to view it as an universal religion for all people rather than as a sect of Judaism and primary for people who were already Jewish. Possibly because he was a Roman citizen himself.

Definitely gaining power in the latter Roman empire didn't help as it was very autocratic by that time but I would suspect the key issue is that power tends to corrupt so once it started becoming the religion of states, Armenian, Roman and then others it became a major power in the state and hence attracted those after power.

@stevep59 Only a few things that you probably already know but I still want to expose my stupid knowledge.

Yes, christianism played a huge role in the maintain of roman Empire, because several religions in the empire created a a big weakness. But originally christianism wasn't very tolerated, and a first way to convert people in order to increase the number of christians, was to accept all gods "Yes, they exist, but look dude, they are olds and weaks. Our monotheistic God is definitely much more badass" and it worked ! it also worked because christianism allowed many things that was forbidden in other religions.

That fact of hunting non-christian people came after. For political reasons christianism have fastly evolved into the roman Empire by syncretism with Sol Invictus which were a ultimate try to give the whole empire the same religion.

Actually this is not specific to monotheistic religions, for example Shintoists in Japan or Buddhists in Korea spent centuries trying to kill and convert all christians, finally Protestantism is the first practiced religion in Korea and it took two nuclear bombs to make catholicism massively reducing its influence on Japan.

Ironically, it isn't conflicts between sects which led to the dislocation of the roman Empire, but a massive financial crisis which led to high level of taxes and a high level of statism.

@MagicRooster

Interesting as most of what I've read suggested that Christianity rejected any other religions right from the start. In fact much of the problem between it and the middle Roman empire was because as the latter became more autocratic you started getting emperors declaring themselves divine and hence insisting that they be worshiped as gods and the Christians refused to do this. Also in at least some cases the more fanatical Christians sought martyrdom by deliberately attacking pagan temples and disrupting their services because they thought it would give them a higher status in heaven.

Fully agree that all religions can be brutal and intolerant, although that seems to have been less prevalent in earlier times. However I think the theological intolerance of the monotheistic faiths make them more likely to do this and to be more extreme in it.

I think you are inaccurate on the point about Catholism in Japan, unless that's a typo? It did have influence in the Nagasaki area especially due to that being the contact point with Portuguese traders and gained a lot of influence but this lead to its brutal oppression in the early years of the Shogunate. There was secret worship in the region until it became open again after 1945 but it was brutally repressed. Actually the Dutch traders helped in the suppression of open Catholicism in Japan.

There were numerous problems with the latter empire and finance and growing autocracy were both serious problems but Christianity by increasing intolerance definitely had a role, both then and in the later fall of much of Byzantine Levant and Egypt to 1st the Persians and then the Arabs. Also much of the conflict with the assorted German tribes fleeing the Huns, most noticeably the Goths as the latter had been converted by Arian and hence were seen as heretics by the Roman ruling elite. Also since Christian religious institutions gained exemption from taxation after it gained power and those expanded dramatically it also hindered the empire financially.

@stevep59 First, sorry for my possible mistakes, my english is always bad when I don't have a coffee before

You obviously know the case more than me, so I will not try to fully correct you on any point. Actually keep in mind that religions before Christianism were actually pretty violent, the celtic "wicker man" is not a legend, taxes and discriminations based on religion was to a point that even people who had problems with the establishment had interest into convertion to christianism and early christianism was definitely much more convenient than any other established religions.

I didn't choose Buddhism and Shinto for nothing as both religion are polytheist and had a very brutal and very systematic intolerance to other religions in Japan and Korea for an extented period of time. A number of gods doesn't really play a role about tolerance. It's more linked to humans and how they value their norms and values, yes originally dicted by religion.

But it's true, later, as Christianism tried to be the only religion in Europe, nicean-christians struggled against both non-christians and arian christians and had a much more proselyth way of working. I've often heared that Ukraine became Christians because Islam was more powerful and more aggressive but Ukrainian would have never accepted a religion forbidding eating pork and drinking alcohol. Definitely Christians would have not accepted an islamic country.

About the Catholism in Japan I think we didn't understand each other.
As you already know it, it's hard to explain but let's show it like that, please let me skip the names, I'm sure I'll switch them :

Japanese shogun -> doesn't like Christians
Japanese shogun -> likes money
Catholics -> get money from trade with the japanese shogun
Japanese shogun -> get money from trade with portuguese Catholics
Japanese shogun -> tolerates Catholics
Protestants -> want money from Japan
Protestants -> convince the japanese shogun to fight against Catholism
Second Japanese shogun -> finally forbids Christianism and starts a religious cleansing
Third japanese shogun -> Two centuries later is forced by the American Matthew Perry to open the borders and is forced to let missions enter into Japan

From this time the number of Catholics in Japan will increase, specially in Nagasaki, for the bombs it was a half-joke as it even led to a conspiracy (that I do not share) but it's a fact that Catholic community have been particularly touched by the explosion of the nuclear bomb at Nagasaki.

All that to say that back in 476, the christianism only started to become a problem the for the Western Roman Empire but that was definitely the missing of a strong army due to massive economic problems.

For the Eastern Roman Empire... Ok lost crusades, and regular attacks from muslims led to the fall of Constantinople.

@MagicRooster Just want to point out that the "collapse of the roman empire" is a very complicated process. It is more a decline than a collapse and lasted for more than a century. Some people even say this decline started with the civil wars of the roman republic.
What is complicated you ask ? Well first, the empire didn't collapse completely, the eastern roman empire survived as the Byzantine empire and is the roman empire as much as its western counterpart (at some point it even took back italy part of spain and west of north africa). Second, as i said it's more of a decline than a collapse and was more due to internal conflicts than external invasion.
Last but not least : the barbarian invaders weren't really barbarians nor invaders. The romans had started to accept several germanic tribes as "foedus" that held a border of the empire in the name of the emperor since as early as 350 AC. Some of their "kings" were roman citizen and generals. So really some "invasions" were more internal struggle for power than anything. The date of 476 for example, is not a really clear cut, Romulus Augustulus was considered an usurper by its eastern counterpart and Odoacer deposed him in accordance to the wishes of the eastern roman emperor. Odoacer himself was a patrician and a client of the eastern roman emperor. I'm not saying the guy had not a power equivalent to a king, but he still acted (in name at least) as a subject of the roman empire. Augustulus's father in turn had served Attila and the hunnic court. Who's the barbarian and who's the roman ? They are probably both a little bit of both...
So basically the dislocation of the western roman empire was more of a progressive loss of control from the central authority over local lords that happened over a very long period of time rather than military losses and external invasions that ended it abruptly.

@Isdaril True, I've made some very fast shortcuts, maybe too fast, thank you for the details.

@MagicRooster
I'm fairly sure Japanese were intolerant of Buddhism during the time era your talking about. Shinto was made the state religion because it was a native belief and it was a period of isolationist rhetoric where anything foreign was strictly regulated. "Protestants -> convince the japanese shogun to fight against Catholism " This was under the logic that Catholics would obey the Pope and Catholic laws first over local leaders or laws. Also, America has a similar paranoia about Catholic leaders, I remember people talking about it when JFK was elected, and the man was assassinated. He was the first and LAST USA Catholic president.

@Mojo Haha honestly I don't know how Buddhism have been considered in Japan on the beginning. China was a very influencial country (still is) and imported its writing system in Japan but as for any other religion, I suppose there have been conflicts between Shintoist and Buddhist.
What I wanted to say is, no matter the religion, there is no initial tolerance between religions, as religions are bound with identity, culture, norms, values, education, roots, and when a religion fail to express those elements it disappears and is replaced by another more proselytizing religion.
That's why to continue to live as people, members of a religion will constantly fight, no matter the religion.
Fun fact : it works with atheists or agnostics people too as they tend to replace religion by other elements.

@Mojo One thing that's important to remember about the Divine Comedy is that it's basically Dante's fanfiction about how the afterlife worked that kind of became canon because people liked the imagery he used. Before that, Christianity's ideas about Hell were vaguer and mostly plagiarized from Greek mythology's Tartarus.

'@Lidonious' It raises the question, "how did they ever manage to convert anyone in the first place?" There were a lot of reasons, of course, but pretty much all of those reasons were terrible.

@boring7

It's because you are thinking in context of 21 century. In reality christianity was very attractive religion to many (not all!) people and in many aspects very unusual (.e.g the idea that God KNOWS your heart and can't be just fooled by some magic gestures; that people are equal, and it's not like after live slaves would still have to serve the aristocrats; etc etc etc).

'@szopen' Not really. For one thing early-era christianity didn't have a lot of those things you're listing. For another most of those other religions had it too. ESPECIALLY since by the time Brits were wandering around converting folks Christianity was King Religion not Rebel Freedom.

@boring7
Yes, really. Modzelewski in his book enumerates the "barbarians" beliefs (Slavs, Prussian, Germanics including Scandinavians), and amongst them was the conviction that obviously, if you are slave now, you will be slave in afterlife, and if you belong to aristocrats, you obviously will have special place in afterlife. Think about Vikings: Valhalla was for warriors, not for women or slaves. Similarly, compare beliefs such as in early Slavs, when you just cover statues of some god in order for him not being able to see or listen the quarrels.

The thing is that obviously after conversion those habits often stayed in place is another thing, but the point is that Christian ideal was very, very different from the pagan beliefs.

@boring7 well, one example was the northern crusade, where swedish crusaders went into finland to christen the pagans.. imagine waking up to see men in armour drag you and your family down to a lake, pull your head under water, let you up and then do some weird hand gestures with his hands. Odd fellows from the west I must say.

@Lidonious Yup. You read my mind pagan chief.

@Lidonious ...good point...! ;-)

In ye olde days there lived some badass vikings on Estonian island of Saaremaa known as oeselians who's main god was Thor. The Danish king came at the start of 13th century to conquer the island and convert everyone to Christianity, however he failed. Decade later, german crusaders tried the same, but the oeselians kicked thwir butts so they also failed. Then some years later the danish tried again but were foiled yet again!

It wasn't until 20 years after the first invasion that the danish and germans united forces and successfully conquered the island and converted the vikings to christianity.

Ten years later, the oeselians rebelled, renounced christianity and killed absolutely every outsider on the island, including the priests, to go back their old ways.

Five years after that crusaders managed to sign a treaty and convert oeselians back to christianity.

Two decades later... oeselians got pissed off again, renounced christianity once more and... killed every german and danish AGAIN. This time it took two years and combined armies of the danish, the german crusaders, the army of the bishop of the Holy Roman Empire and latvians to retake the island and convert oeselians once more.

80 years passed, into the 14th century. Oeselians felt a bit cheeky, rebelled, renounced christianity, killed every german, danish and whatnot on the island, same old same old, and back to the old ways they were, unbroken even after eight decades! This rebellion didn't last long though, two years later the crusaders broke the oeselians and this time for good. The vikings of Saaremaa never went back to the old ways again.

@Star-ling #9833310

So far. . . .

Arrival of Jesus for the Sami took some time though. Up until 17th century, pagan practices and worshipping of indigenous deities was very common in Swedish Lappmarks. In Kola peninsula, it continued until the 19th century. Even today there probably are some Sami who make sacrifices for seita (nature shrines).
Laestadius (who was part Sami himself) made many Sami hardcore Christian, however.

Of course England would use "Jesus" as an ice breaker/a reason to flirt with a pretty girl

If she's interested, you got her talking. If she's not, you know she might be more open for pre-marital activities. Win-win.

If you look at the churches in Norway at the time of the Christian invasion, you'll notice that there are dragon heads at the tops of the spires (stave churches). The locals weren't quite sure about this new-fangled religion and in case it didn't work out, they could just go back to the old religion and not have to make any changes to the iconography on the building.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Borgund_Stave_Church_in_L%C3%A6rdalen%2C_2013_June.jpg/800px-Borgund_Stave_Church_in_L%C3%A6rdalen%2C_2013_June.jpg

Why do you draw us like a Inuit? Sami doesnt look like that, yes the top is sort of right but we dont look like that.

@Likko I googled Sami people out of curisoity. I get either imuit looking people either what you would typically think when you say germanic/nordic people.
So I guess the design choice was really a coin flip? Tho this is just me assuming based on images of course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

@Lostdaydreams, it just doesnt feel Sami. We are often lighter in the skin then a inuit and do a side by side google of Inuit and Sami people and you will see a difference. And off course these days we come in all colours, but for me it feels weird.

@Likko When ever you make a design for a group of people that are very genetical mixed in looks, it can be pretty hard to chose a desin everyone would be happy with. No matter what you chose, the other side won't like it.
Hence why I think, doing someone that looks like a mix of all those looks may be a good idea. Sure, genetically speaking it may not be that realistic. But at the same time, fiction is fiction. Some rule bending is allowed, right?

@Likko
Remember that these characters are NOT supposed to be representations of the people of a given country, but representations of stereotypes other countries have about people in the country.
It can be a subtle difference, but that's been Humon's character design philosophy from day one.

@Likko All the characters are based on their traditional appearances. Even modern Brother England now wears his old-fashioned field argent with cross gules, not the Queen's Jack, having changed to his more traditional look about 10 years ago.

Also, to paraphrase Russell Peters, Norwegians, Swedes, and Finns couldn't possibly live in the same area as the indigenous Sami without eventually having kids with them.... =)

(As for Brother/Sister Canada and Brother/Sister America, well, they never were particularly traditional to begin with. *cough* Now that I think about it, I'm kind of curious what Humon's take on Brother/Sister Metis or Brother/Sister Huron would be like! Brothers Canada and America could do with a reminder now and then, too -- of course, Brother Canada would just say "sorry", since we already have a few times!)

@jtgibson Well then she could just add a duorran, Matjuk , Jorbot or in this case made a ladjo to be more Same. It just doesnt feel like us and yes I know we come in all colours these days. If I had no idea who the people on the pictures where, I would go Oh a Viking, ah Inuit or Nenets and ah English.
And yes I know we interbreed, that is how some Sami's today are not Sami enough to be Sami and not "Swedish" to be Swedes, you can see it on our face. My maternal branch was no longer Sami in 1905 and the languages was declared gone by 1920, all because that side didn't herd reindeer.

@jtgibson I can't get mad about the Brother America because I actually do kinda look like him. Or did in my younger days. (That said, I don't know anyone who looks like Sister America. She's more "Sister California.")

@Likko SATW Sami kinda looks like Hilda Länsman. Hairstyle is bit alien though.

@Likko I wouldn't say that. Sami looks just like my cousin, and we are both Sami.

@Fenrir Yeah, many of my relatives from my Sami side have skin tones exactly like that, and all have raven-black hair. Double braid is somewhat untypical though.

Stop trying to convert everyone bro. Some people are fine as they are.

How I miss good old Viking Scandinavia these days. We could use his approach to many things- perhaps he could even beat som sense into England...

@Andse I mean, seeing a dragon ship approach your shore is a damn fine reason to start social distancing ;)

Now I am considering travelling to England when this pandemic is over, clad in hauberk, with a round shield flung over the shoulder and manly locks flowing in the wind... is there guided tours to Lindisfarne?

@Andse

I have long taken the view there's only once valid currency for paying Danegeld and that's in Daneblood. How many million liters of it do you want?

Or if you really piss us off we can meet Viking barbarism with 'Christian' barbarism and assign Copenhagen to hell. So to use a famous film quote "Do you feel lucky punk?" ;)

@stevep59 Pfff... no offense, dude, but if the British get any more obese, they’ll be honorary Americans. I know which pony I’d back in this race.

@TuxedoCartman

What! I'll let you know during the lockdown I've probably put on a couple of inches of muscle around my waistline.;) All this strenuous exercise at the keyboard. As well as a more up top - be damned glad when the barbers reopen!

Ah but I think your forgetting Hilaire Belloc's famous saying "We have the Maxim [Nukes] and they do not" ;)

This was definitely a long time ago. Nowadays England would be much more associated with Richard Dawkins than Jesus.

'@BGMan' You'd be surprised.

England's religious holdouts and condescending, post-colonial bottled-up-and-labeled newage is pervasive, it just doesn't get a lot of screen time. They have government funding for religion-based medical practices (homeopathy).

They still manage better than us, though.

@BGMan Well I mean the Viking seems to be a givaway that this was during the viking age. The viking age generaly described to be 800-1050 CE.