What if Jesus had been aborted?

Comments  18

• Christianistan4U 23 Dec

  Wow. That's ridiculous. Do you really believe all the achievements of the last 2000 years depended on christianity? Yet you conveniently left out the Inquisitions, the witch hunts, and assorted genocides committed against the Jews, Native Americans, and others. Also, what about the wars  between catholics and protestants that raged all over Europe for centuries? Had jesus been aborted, the world would have been spared christianity. 

• Virgin Bertha 23 Dec

  How do you know things would not have been better.  There is a good chance it would have.

• bethez 24 Dec

  dont worry he'd still have risen three days later. . .

• hardindr 25 Dec

  While Jesus of Nazareth is perhaps the most important figure in Western Civilization (maybe Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar is more important), this post is just silly.  If Jesus had never been born, then I guess history would be different.  There's no way to know if things would be better or worse, you just can't argue reasonably about counterfactual history.

• David Barnes 25 Dec

  If Jesus was aborted, we'd be living in the futuristic world because we would have avoided the Dark Age of the medieval period.

• Nox 28 Dec

  Famous Buildings:

  Like for example the Library of Alexandria.Which contained the world's largest collection of art and literature. Until a christian decided to murder the librarian and burn countless books which are now lost to history.

  Art:

  Artists for the last two thousand years would have been free to pursue their own artistic interests instead of having to cater to a forcibly christian market that thinks the entire possible range of art is a painting of a guy nailed to a cross. Also there would be no Vatican, so we can all agree some of the effects would be positive (since this site is so concerned with children surely you'd like a hypothetical world where fewer children are raped by christian priests).

• Nox 28 Dec

  Classical Music:
  This should be in the art category. European composers lived in an environment drenched in christianity. And they wrote about christianity. Do the even older (hence more classical) hindu hymns counteract this or could we all agree that most cultures have produced music and without christianity they still would have.

  Discovery of America:

  Uh, America was there. Someone was going to discover it eventually. That the first reaction to this new world was to send catholic missionaries to forcibly convert the natives (eventually resorting to kidnapping indian children, baptizing them without consent and then smashing their skulls with rocks) doesn't say anything good about christianity.

• Nox 28 Dec

  United States of America:

  Why were the christians in Europe fleeing religious persecution? Who was persecuting them? Muslims? Atheists? Oh wait, it was the christian church they were trying to escape from. Leaving the theocracy of the European christian church was apparently the only way they could find religious freedom. There's a lesson in that somewhere.

  Israel:
  Without the classical christian obsession with owning landmarks from the bible, maybe we could have skipped that whole Crusades thing. Without the current christian obsession with rebuilding the temple, maybe we could skip giving $30 billion a year in weapons and cash to a country with such an abyssmal human rights record.

• Nox 28 Dec

  Wine:

  People just would have given up on wine without communion?

  Holidays:

  I'm actually surprised you didn't include the holidays you stole from pagans (ie christmas and easter). But are you actually saying that if America wasn't founded by christians escaping religious persecution (by other christians), then we wouldn't have holidays commemorating american independence or the memory of fallen soldiers?

  So the bottom line appears to be, if Jesus didn't come to Earth, you'd just make him up again.

• Reginald Selkirk 28 Dec

  ""Also, the practice of grafting in resistant American wine grape rootstock to guard against phylloxera has been used globally. Had American rootstock not been available and used, there would be no wine industry in Europe or most places because of the devastating Phylloxera louse of the 1870s.""
  
  Introduction of American root stock was made available by the discovery and colonization of the New World, which apparently you credit indirectly to Jesus H. Christ. But the Phylloxera louse is native to eastern North America, so its introduction to Europe and other parts of the globe was also due to the discovery and colonization of the New World.

• Pam 28 Dec

  If I weren't sure you have a serious mental illness, I would say you have to be the stupidest person in the world for believing any of this.

• John 28 Dec

  Then the prophecy of his birth would have been false, making the whole religion unworthy of any further attention. Or, the 'wise men' would have just picked the next kid down the street. Merry Zackimus everyone!

• Tim 28 Dec

  Seriously!  This is the most significant example of how religious belief can distort ones ability to think rationally.  Since there is an amazing lack of confirmation of Jesus in the historical record other than "the book" even the premise is clearly lacking.  There probably was no Jesus and yet look at all the crap he has managed to bring us nevertheless. 

• Artor 31 Dec

  I would love to see all the fantastic Pagan temples that weren't built because the followers of Jesus murdered them. I wish I could see the Pagan art produced during the Dark Ages that weren't dark, because Xtianity didn't suppress all knowledge not consistent with the bible. 2000 yrs of music is wonderful to listen to, regardless if it's in honor of Jesus, or Apollo, or Odin.
  
  Don't you realize that the Pagan Vikings discovered Vinland long before Columbus stumbled across it? Are you that ignorant of history? Oh, right. You are. BTW, the Vikings loved wine too, not just mead.
  
  I would like to imagine that without thousands of years of ignorance enforced by Church doctrine, that humanity would have moved beyond institutionalized stupidity like this article, but I think that's something inherent in human nature. If I lived in this alternate universe, I'd probably be just as disgusted reading an article proposing "what if a monotheistic death-cult arose in the latter days of the Roman Empire and swept the world?" The conclusions would likely be as absurd as those presented above.

• Green Knight 02 Jan

  Holidays: Formally Holy Days made by the pagans that christianity tried it's hardest to outlaw but adapted  them instead.
  The Wine bit: I laughed. Wine, beer, mead and other alcohol has been around for the longest time and would've kept going on.
  Isreal: Might've happened if the 'Chosen People' got their act together regardless. They made it a self full filling prophesy.
  U.S.: It wouldn't be the U.S. as we know it, true. But it was discovered and rediscovered multiple times over history. Someone else may have settled there and made it a colony for the home country regardless.
  Discover of the America's: See above.
  Classical Music: It would simply be a different music. Attuned to a different culture.
  Art: Same as above.
  Famous Buildings: Same as above.
  
  I could write an alternate history to this, and rather then the Abrahamic Religions ruling the west, it would likely be a different pagan one or the Asian ones ruling.

• D.F. Manno 02 Jan

  "If things were different, they wouldn't be the same."
  -- "Scoundrels," <i>Law & Order</i>, 30Nov94

• D.F. Manno 02 Jan

  "If things were different, they wouldn't be the same."
  -- "Scoundrels," <i>Law & Order</i>, 30Nov94

• Karla Porter 03 Jan

  Hardly a day passes that I am not amazed by the level of naivete in someone. Today, you are the winner.