Why might a religion be said to have failed?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You seem to have forgotten what we were talking about. You claimed that religions tend to survive. I was using the religions in ancient Rome and their lack of survival (except Judaism)  to point out that no, they don't tend to survive.

I think I said religions tend to survive longer than civilisations and certainly nations. Dicky Underpants, correctly examining failure of Mithraism said that part of its failure is it did not appeal universally. He was correct in that he didn’t view it only in terms of Christian political success, Something Christianity did without until Constantine and has done without from the advent of secular states like the US and France.

With Constantine we see the phenomenon of the religion of the King being the religion of their nation
. A kind of national religion. National religion is an easier affair IMV than personal religion since you can let a society believe for you. Whether that is proper religion, I have my doubts.

[jeremyp]

I think I said religions tend to survive longer than civilisations and certainly nations.

You do realise we can read your previous posts and expose the lies?

The general pattern is that empires and civilisations fall but religions survive.

No qualifications there.

And my point still stands. I don't think any of the pagan religions of Rome survived the Roman empire. You still have survivorship bias.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

You do realise we can read your previous posts and expose the lies?

No qualifications there.

And my point still stands. I don't think any of the pagan religions of Rome survived the Roman empire. You still have survivorship bias.

So, you reject Christianity because it survived? I’m afraid that’s just Christianity survives because it survives nonsense. The counterfactual here is Christianity would not exist without Constantine. You need to work harder on establishing that.

[ProfessorDavey]

You do realise we can read your previous posts and expose the lies?

No qualifications there.

And my point still stands. I don't think any of the pagan religions of Rome survived the Roman empire. You still have survivorship bias.

Nor the equivalent Greek religions, nor the Norse religions etc etc.

Whether or not a religion survives tends to depend on a large dollop of good luck - in the case of Christianity that the major powerful empire at the time chose to adopt and promote it. Had that not happened then all bets are off as to whether Christianity would have survived as more than a minor sect by CE400-500.

[jeremyp]

So, you reject Christianity because it survived?

No. I reject Christianity because its ideology is incoherent.

I’m afraid that’s just Christianity survives because it survives nonsense.

No, it's a tautology. But the point is that the argument "Christianity is true because it survived" really is nonsense.

The counterfactual here is Christianity would not exist without Constantine. You need to work harder on establishing that.

Why? I'm not claiming that.