It’s surprising that pagan religions of Europe have disappeared, but polytheistic religions of Asia (especially India) survived and are still widely followed there. Why?
It’s surprising that pagan religions of Europe have disappeared, but polytheistic religions of Asia (especially India) survived and are still widely followed there. Why?
Because christians literally forcibly converted everyone they could, and killed anyone who refused. Also it didnt die completely. Most people just worshipped in secret, and in some more rural areas it survived. Aswell as mixing with the christians culture and influencing them. Like Santa Claus is just Odin. A lot of Jesus’s associations came from Apollo because Apollo was super popular in the roman empire and had lots of temples and when the romans converted them to churches a lot of the preists were like ok well im a preist of apollo thats what i know how to do so ill just keep doing what i always did but say jesus now instead. Laurel wreath on head, frankincense, etc. All Apollo things.
Most holidays trace their roots back pre-christian too. Christmas, Halloween, Easter, all can be traced back to old pagan traditions.
A big part of like christianity in general is converting others. Not all religions are like that most arent actually not even all christian sects are. Its why it spread so far cuz people who follow it actively try to spread it. Even today religious christian groups travel around the world trying to convert people. In areas they colonized they did the same, convert, or die tactics.
Pagan remnants are attested in Poland as late as in XVI century for example. Also compare to christian persecution in Japan, even after over 200 years some secret pockets of christianity still remained and emerged when the antichristian edicts were liquidated during Meiji era. European pagans lasted 600+ but it wasn’t enough.
The Sami people still exist and are pagan today in scandinavia.
Most Sami are either lutheran or orthodox. Their paganism still do exist in minority but it’s because they live on absolute periphery of Europe and while they were never christianised by force by organised state action, even the private effort of Norwegian evangelists almost wiped it out in XVIII century.
Ya theyve been persecuted a lot as an ethnic minority too im just pointing out there are still pagan Samis around today