On Tue, 7 Sep 2010 04:25:26 -0700 (PDT), The Old Man
wrote:
>> That's a monumental understatement - if you butterfly away
>> Constantine, Christianity never becomes dominant which almost
>> certainly butterflies away Islam as well at least in any recognizable
>> form.
>>
>> Even if there are no butterflies for the next 600 years how do you
>> have the Crusades?
>>
>> The butterflies get monstrous long before you get to Henry VIII -
>> probably even before 1066 where William supposedly had papal favor.
>
>Whoa, explain please how "Christianity never becomes dominant which
>almost certainly butterflies away Islam as well at least in any
>recognizable form."
>How does a politically weaker Christianity forestall a cult started by
>someone on the far fringes of the Empire? Mohammed could still have
>his "vision" of the future and turn it into a bid to grab power in
>Meccah and the southern Arabian peninsula.
Well for one thing pretty much from the time of Julian the Apostate
(which is not long after Constantine after all) in OTL the church
becomes dominant. Definitely this is so from the time of Justinian
onwards.
We're making theumption here that no later emperor converts to
Christianity of course since most any such emperor up to the 6th
century moves things back more or less to OTL.
I argue that without Christianity more or less as we know it the
western empire falls well before 476 AD (presumably they would
continue to date from the Roman republic in this scenario) and without
an Emperor to force some form of unity you do indeed get various
Christian sects.
If Islam rises as per OTL, then it is militarily more successful but I
seriously doubt that. Mohammed could crib from pretty much any
Christian sect or Judaism (Mohammed could no doubt say Muslims should
respect Jesus as per OTL but the Muslim Jesus is certainly not
anything a Christian of pretty much any sect could accept)
I do think it more likely that if any faith arises out of the Arabian
peninsula it won't be anything like Islam.
>What I was looking at was more in line with "Roman
>Catholicism" (current OTL form) co-existing with Ayran, Gnostic and
>other forms of Christianity. Hell, in OTL, they can't even play nice
>with the Eastern Orthodoxy....
Well certainly most of the Goths were Arians and without Rome
embracing Christianity to the extent that the emperor enforces
orthodoxy (as opposed to Orthodoxy) things get complicated.
Of course the other outcome of Constantine dying early is the Roman
empire not being divided into eastern and western portions - it's not
as if that was set in stone by the time of Constantine!
I'm highly skeptical that by the 20th century *Christianity would be
seen as being nearly as historically important as OTL. |
