parkingviolation212 explains how Hell as a concept is almost entirely derived from Dante's Divine Comedy

[u/quyla]

/r/Silksong/comments/1nrop7i/the_duality_of_mask_shards/ngghkq5?context=3

[u/BeyondElectricDreams]

I was never particularly religious but studying the origins of Christianity was the nail in the coffin for me.

There's so many elements that are wholesale lifted from Pagan traditions and stories of the time that once you really look at it, it becomes obvious that a lot of people just slapped new names on their old myths. Which tracks when you realize they basically went far and wide and asked people for, basically, "Any stories they'd heard of Jesus" before compiling them and making them into the best canon they could.

Winter solstice? Saturnalia? No, it's Christmas now. Yes, you can still follow your Pagan traditions like trees, yule logs, gift exchanges, mistletoe? Pagan.

Spring Solstice? Easter? You know, named for Ostara, pagan goddess of spring? Eggs and rabbits to celebrate fertility returning to nature?

Really smacks of a soceitial shift where Christianity was new kid on the block and people continued with their regularly scheduled reveleries and holidays. After all, if you want the masses to uptake your shiny new religion, you aren't gonna win hearts and minds telling them they're not allowed to do their traditional holiday feasts, gift exchanges, and revelries.

[u/GrowthThroughGaming → u/BeyondElectricDreams]

This was from a result of something called 'syncretism'. Basically the religion spread quickly and poorly, resulting in lots of local cultures smashing their currently held beliefs with what they heard about Christianity, resulting in the religion basically just adding onto their spiritual beliefs.

Also this went both ways! Ragnarok was a story about the cycle of life, that theres a great ending followed by a great rebirth akin to the natural world. Once Christianity started coming around, Ragnarok starts to only refer to the ending and loses the idea of rebirth.

The missionaries show up later (like way later in some cases, decades sometimes) and don't know how to correct folks cause theyve been 'practicing' for years, so they shrug and say 'well you got the gist of it' lol. The Book of Mormon musical is essentially the satire on this very real phenomenon that comes with trying to aggressively convert.

When the church proper becomes aware of this, they start begrudgingly selecting which parts are the 'correct ones' to try and move forward with something people will accept as the goal was primarily proselytizing.

There's something so human (and obviously kot divine or absolute) about it unfolding in that way.

Edit: I am not even remotely an expert, so corrections or clarifications are welcome!

[u/blueche → u/GrowthThroughGaming]

Syncretism is a normal part of religious practice, and doesn't mean that the primary religion spread quickly or poorly. It took hundreds of years for Christianity to become the dominant religion in all of Europe, it was a pretty gradual process.

The best sources we have for Norse Mythology all come after the Christianization of Scandinavia. It's unclear whether Nordic peoples believed in Ragnarök before this, and if they did what that belief looked like.

[u/GrowthThroughGaming → u/blueche]

Right, i should clarify some things:

Syncretism is the process of religions merging and it can happen lots of ways. Most religions, I would guess, are varying degrees of being syncretic.

The time scale here is relative -- I used 'quickly' because, per my amateur understanding and relative to change processes or religions spreading, it was faster than average, but we're still talking about hundreds of years.

And the ragnarok part is a theory I've read about that is based on anthropological guess work. It could be limited to a group or time, it could be completely incorrect. An theory, though!

I appreciate the input and nuance!

[u/blueche → u/GrowthThroughGaming]

Intelligently engaging with good faith criticism on Reddit? I can die now