Top 10 Scenarios If Christianity Never Existed

Since Roman mythology and Germanic paganism would be the religions of Europe, the idea of polytheism would be the main type of religion not just in Europe but mostly across the world (state sponsorship of Christianity by the Romans legitimize monotheism in Europe as an actual religion which held special status on the continent. However, if this never happened then polytheism would be the main idea of the world religions and the idea of monotheism as seen by the Abrahamic religions would be seen as barbaric and strange. So in this world, Europe would be much like India (India has Hindu gods. However Hinduism is not a one religion. It's a collection of many Indian religions). - DarkMatter1997

Whats polytheism?

Polytheism is the belief in the existence of numerous gods & goddesses, all of whom are worthy of our worship. Monotheism is the belief in the Existence of Only One God Who Alone, is Worthy of our worship. - clusium

What I mean by this is that most of Rome dominated Europe would follow the Roman gods such as Jupiter, Neptune, etc. This polytheistic ideal will shape Europe's identity in the way it interacts with other groups and people. The odds are the Roman gods would stay infused in the local population's minds even after the fall of Rome since there would be no Theodosius to make Christianity the official religion of Rome, and no Catholic Church to affect the politics of Europe. - DarkMatter1997

We hear about African, Native American tribes and sometimes Middle Eastern and East Asian tribes but we never hear about European tribes. Why is this? That's because of the Catholic Church. You see after the fall of Rome in the invasion of the new Germanic tribes in Europe, the Catholic Church was a main power holder in the region, so basically the Catholic Church began to teach the modern nuclear family (a husband, wife, kids and a few relatives but nothing more). Basically this new system slowly yet surely stripped power away from the tribes and the tribes fell out of existence due to state building, religious ties and futilitism. - DarkMatter1997

If you ask me, it would've been beneficial for the Middle East. Without sectarian violence, oppressive religious laws, and radicalism and such. I don't mean offense around here. - Bolshoy_Brat

Islam was directly affected by the rise of Christianity and Judaism. It's a monotheistic religion directly tied into Christianity, Judaism and the Holy Lands of all three. Odds are that if those two never rose, Islam would not have risen either. This changes the entire history of the Middle East in Central Asia, as well as the identity of Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Iran and many others. There would be no crusades but that doesn't mean there wouldn't be wars between Europeans and Arabs. - DarkMatter1997

I thought islam would already be a religion at that time - BoyGenius234

Catholicism and Protestantism may have separated Europe and caused different rivalries and wars, however these two sects took different ethnic groups who were not related and united them under religion. If this never existed we would see Europe separated by hundreds of different gods and beliefs, basically isolating even more groups and tribes. - DarkMatter1997

If there was one main power player throughout European history, it was most likely the Roman Catholic Church. The Pope made decisions which affected European leaders and the church dictated actions across the Western world. Actions which transcended borders across Europe. Then once Protestantism grew to resist the church most actions of the wars (Western wars of the later second millennium) were caused in part by religious decisions between Catholics and Protestants. So if the church never existed then it's impossible to know how different European history in world history would be if such a large power player just simply didn't exist. - DarkMatter1997

Of course that Catholic Church would not exist right now if Christianity did not come to be. The Catholic Church is the original Christian Church. - clusium

Uh exactly!

One of the things that united the concept of Europe together was all of Europe being Christian. Without Christianity, Europe would be just as divided as the Roman Empire. This would mean that events like the unification of the Poles and Austrians against the Turks at the Siege of Vienna never would've happened. Thus the Turks would've conquered the Austrians in this timeline. - DarkMatter1997

Maybe Christianity is better sometimes but Paganism isn't sexist and that came before.

Wait...they would?

Let's say that the religion Mithraism took over instead of Christianity (if you don't know what Mithraism is, it was a Persian cult in the Roman Empire that competed with Christianity. It believed in the strength of men and a devine figure named Mithras). If it did then nothing close to feminism would've happened in this timeline, Mithraism is extremely sexist and does not even let women join the religion. Feminism is only started and initiated in the west, and thus if the west was sexist then so would the rest of the world be. - DarkMatter1997

Self-explanatory. - DarkMatter1997

Jesus would have never been born, because his birth is a centerpoint of Christianity - 2storm

Exactly

Yes, but, there would have been other types of religious wars. - clusium

Again, self-explanatory. - DarkMatter1997

Judaism was pretty popular in rome, around 10% of romans were jews around year 30. so we could see a jewish rome in around year 100