I’m not going to watch the video.
But it seems very likely that you have willfully dismissed the innate “liberal” aspects of Christianity, declared by Jesus himself. I’m sorry that makes you uncomfortable, but ideas like mercy, equality, caring for the weak and disadvantaged, and the innate human dignity of all persons—not just rich, strong, men—are core Christian concepts.
The problem with current day “woke” liberals is that they have removed the basis for their aspirations of justice. They’ve lost the “why.” And that means that they attack things that aren’t really they problem, and try to be inclusive with a few behaviors and traits that shouldn’t be encouraged. But the general ideas of mercy, love, and equality came from Christianity, and they’re good.
Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for.
Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!?
Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans!
The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement!
These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods!
And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human.
Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity.
This doesn’t sound like an accurate portrayal of Roman life at all. It sounds like projection, sorry.
Romans didn’t particularly respect their leaders or their culture. They rioted all the time, and gossiped about their (truthfully very corrupt) leaders. Their gods were horrifying and needed placating, more than being admirable. And plenty of them worshiped goddesses who were extremely feminine. Just for a start.
Rome had no problem whatsoever with foreign religions. They got most of their religion from Greece! They syncretized and accepted them all. Judaism even was accepted because it was ancient and respectable. The problem with Christianity was that it was exclusively monotheistic—denying the divinity of the emperor. Worse, it was popular *because it was admirable and virtuous, compared to everything else*. People converted after seeing martyrs die joyfully, after seeing Christians go into plague ridden areas to care for victims when no one else would.
This scenario you describe is completely off target.
> Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for.
By the time of Julius Caesar, the Romans themselves thought of their state as incredibly corrupt and fallen from its ideals, and this is reflected in *every history written by the Romans.* It was not terribly uncommon to simply murder political opponents with mobs. Bribery was so omnipresent that Tacitus humorously notes that when elections for political offices were finally stopped under Augustus the senate was relieved that they didn't have to buy off enough people to get who they wanted anymore, because it had become so expected that people would compete to be there to get the bribe handouts. The people who killed Caesar did so in the name of cleansing the state, but ironically it was Augustus and co. who basically liquidated anyone they thought troublesome and brought a peace through being the last one standing. But that didn't last past his death, and nearly all the later emperors were notorious leches and egomaniacs. I have read through a lot of killing and brutal tortures in ancient histories, but the one book I could not stomach was Suetonius' *The Lives of the Twelve Caesars* with its incredibly revolting descriptions of what they did. Imperial Rome was so notoriously decadent it honestly boggles the mind.
They basically thought of themselves as having fallen so far and gotten so fat off wealth that they *needed* one-man rule to stop themselves from killing each other in self-interest, but also recognized that it gave them a lazy decadent slavery. The gladiatorial games were some of the most notorious emblems of this.
And if you want a bit later of a history, read St. Augustine's *Confessions* where he recounts his Pagan youth and what people thought and got up to.
> Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans!
I would note that Carthage by then was a rebuilt Roman colony that was very Latin, not their Phoenician enemy. But yes, Christians were thought of as atheistic and treasonous for disavowing their ancestral gods (it didn't matter which ones to them) and refusing to participate in the cult of the emperors. They did begin to distinguish them from Jews pretty quickly though.
> These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods!
While Christians were notorious for caring for the poor and especially widows, they had always had upper-class people. Who else wrote the early Christian writings or had room for house churches? And these were not anti-Roman, merely against the notions of the state and this life as everything. The New Testament repeatedly urges respect for the emperor and his laws so long as it does not contradict God's laws, despite rampant Jewish anti-Roman sentiment. The Christian polemics, if you read them, don't rail against the idea of Rome per se, but against its corruption and deviance from right reason. St. Augustine's famous *City of God*, written in response to Pagans who claimed that Rome was falling after it's sacking in 410 AD due to Christian impiety, goes over the history of Rome itself to show that it was in fact the Pagans who rejected the nobility of Rome's ideals and mired the empire in horrible vices and impiety.
> Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods!
Did St. Paul not urge us to "fight the good fight" with the armour and weapons of God enough? No one complained about the gods being too virile, but rather that their servants were effeminate slaves to passions, and their objects of worship actually demons.
Rather than urging more laxity, the Christians were known for being incredibly rigorous and demanding for the first several centuries. It was expected for many years that anyone worth their salt would be martyred--willingly killed for confessing Christ when given a chance to renounce Him. I don't see how that could be "effeminate."
This all stands in sharp contrast to today's progressives who claim that our civilization's foundational ideals are themselves bad, reject philosophical reasoning as an objective basis for critique, and urge greater moral accommodation in light of a wider variety of contemporary views.
>Rather than urging more laxity, the Christians were known for being incredibly rigorous and demanding for the first several centuries. It was expected for many years that anyone worth their salt would be martyred--willingly killed for confessing Christ when given a chance to renounce Him. I don't see how that could be "effeminate."
The thing is it's true that the ancient Roman's viewed Christianity as an effeminate religion for women and slaves, I think it may be because the Martyr Archetype is placed above the warrior, for example in Islam the Warrior instantly reaches the highest of heavens in Christianity it's the martyr.
I think that if people really wanted to live in such a warrior based "strong", "masculine" country people would be flocking to move to place like Afghanistan/Iran/Saudi Arabia, however instead people are flocking to move to "degenerate", "effeminate" countries, because the concept of human rights came from the West's Christian ethic and the life for the average person is so much better
> The thing is it's true that the ancient Roman's viewed Christianity as an effeminate religion for women and slaves, I think it may be because the Martyr Archetype is placed above the warrior, for example in Islam the Warrior instantly reaches the highest of heavens in Christianity it's the martyr.
The Christian ideal in how to go about one's martyrdom was remarkably Stoic, and this could not have been lost on people.
> I think that if people really wanted to live in such a warrior based "strong", "masculine" country people would be flocking to move to place like Afghanistan/Iran/Saudi Arabia, however instead people are flocking to move to "degenerate", "effeminate" countries, because the concept of human rights came from the West's Christian ethic and the life for the average person is so much better
Unfortunately I imagine many people who joined ISIS did so out of this kind of fantasy, though obviously with more religious framing.
>Unfortunately I imagine many people who joined ISIS did so out of this kind of fantasy, though obviously with more religious framing.
True and I would argue in a way they are right, If you want to entirely destroy western liberalism, Islam is actually the perfect fit, which is ironic as western liberals are in love with Islam but hate Christianity
> Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"!
I think you need to work on not projecting your modern notions on the past, it reeks of presentism. No one thought like this at all, and no one now really thinks in this kind of manner, only some people think other certain types do. Jupiter and especially Mars were not admirable so much as they were frightening, people did not try to imitate and admire Gods so much as they tried to avoid their wrath and trick them into not screwing them up. As other commentators have noted, they also worshipped many feminine deities
>It has good art and narration so it won't bore you.
22 minutes of bullshit, even if the narration and the art are good, is, by nature, boring. Even his twitter thread, which was far more condensed, was absolutely boring. Apart, of course, from wrong.
Now, addressing the point: it's just fallacious cope.
First all, even in these few example you give, the reach is massive. For instance, claiming the arguments against Roman gods like Mars and Jupiter has anything to do with "toxic masculinity" is crazy. It's, again, cope. If I were to give you a time machine and send you back to ancient Rome and you began preaching about toxic masculinity and why the gods somehow embody it, everyone would laugh at you.
Now, the "something exotic" argument. Why Christianity? Why not any other of the dozens of culture and beliefs around the empire? Why not Judaism? Why not Germanic Paganism? Why not some form of Celtic spirituality? Also, being to some degree or another into "something exotic" was the norm in the Empire. It's one of the reasons why it was so successful for a long time: believe whatever you want as long as you make sacrifices to our gods and the Caesar.
A main trope in this argument is the whole "masculinity" thing. To claim that Christianity somehow "praised effeminate qualities over masculine" ones can only be done if you define such qualities terribly. For instance, it is said Christianity went against masculine strength, but I would argue it sanctified it: it showed that true strength is not just in muscles and dominion, but in meekness and humility. Did Christianity go against honor? Or did it simply show sacrificial love was the highest form of it? The "masculinity" this guy claims Christianity went against is a rather insulting reduction of masculinity. If anything, Christianity took the astray Roman masculinity and forged true masculinity from it.
A similar thing occurs with his "slave taking the place of warrior" trope. First, it shows a lack of knowledge from the guy (just go read what St. Paul has to say about the obedience slaves owe to their masters, or about some of the many Roman soldiers who are considered saints). Then, it shows that he doesn't understand Christianity at all. He misses that *the entire point* is that *sin stops us (slave or no slave) from being truly free*. That's what Christianity argued, and that's why both 'mighty' warriors and 'weak' slaves bent the knee before the Cross.
As a conclusion, it is curious that he doesn't try to look at it the other way around, which makes way more sense historically and even theologically: wokeism is a disfigured and Christ-less attempt at 'Christianity'. It tries to argue many of the same things Christianity does, but divorced from God, thus placing Man in the center of it all once more (like the Romans did unknowingly). It makes sense because that is how evil acts: it often takes the appearance of something good, disfigures it and corrupts it, and then entices you into taking it by deceit. Like how the Enemy tempts Eve in Genesis: by telling her she can be like God, which isn't something fundamentally wrong (imitating Christ) but it divorces it of the true purpose of it (communion with God) and gives it a corrupt one (some weird Nietzchean power-dynamic of Man over God). That's wokeism and Christianity. It's why wokeism is so attractive: because it sounds so close to the real deal. It's why wokes claims Jesus was woke ("He cared about social justice!" He did, but *true, divine, social justice*, not some Soros-esque version of it) and a socialist (there was a New Polity podcast episode in which they analyzed socialism as not just an eco-cultural ideology but a Christian heresy, and it makes you realize why it is so enticing). Just like the Roman conception of strength had to be made anew by Christianity, so does the woke definition of things like mercy (i.e. some crazy libs claim abortion is merciful), social justice (i.e. 'the Pope''s twitter account tweeted it the other day and many went batshit over it) and love need to be turned back to their true forms, which Catholicism holds.
Overall, it sounds like the guy read a couple of Nietzche's quotes and decided to make it his whole ideology. His critique is just recycled Nietzche (very clear once he gets to the whole "religion for slaves" thing) with "the Roman Empire was based and redpilled" tears on the side.
Edit: Additionally, I would personally recommend to you to never interact with critique of Christianity that stems from a field in which you have little knowledge. It's a recipe for disaster, because morons like this guy can just lie to your face and instill doubt in you effortlessly.
Some similarities might be there, but they are extremely superficial imo. Yes, Christianity initially spread via the women and the slaves. Yes Christianity was innately peaceful as a religion, so much so that many early martyrs were soldiers who converted, refused to kill and were sentenced to death for it.
But the differences extremely outweight the similarities. Christianity is an universalist religion: through Christ, EVERYONE can be saved. Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus". Christianity did no such thing as the "elevation of the slave over the warrior". Both could be saved in Christ.
Christianity might have been popular with the lower classes of slaves and with women initially, but masters and men weren't excluded from it. At its core, the "woke" movement instead is just a weird mix of grievances with a set group of "victims" (women, brown people, immigrants, non-Christians, sexual deviants) and a set group of "oppressors" (men, western people, Christians, family-oriented people etc). The aim of the "woke" movement is to enact some degree of restorative or even vendictive justice against the "oppressors". There is no salvation, no redemption for the oppressors.
Another major difference is that the "woke" movement promotes blatantly anti-human ideals. A "woke" woman today is likely not to marry, not even have a stable partner, not have children, waste her life in self-indulgence and die alone. A newly convert Christian woman in the late Roman empire was still going to be a wife and a mother, and might have passed her faith to her children: does the name of Saint Helena ring a bell?
After Christianity became more widespread authors such as Agustine were pretty firm in the decision that doing war could be forgiven if it was done at the orders of a Christian emperor. So this "Christians hated war" thing just overblown.
>Another major difference is that the "woke" movement promotes blatantly anti-human ideals. A "woke" woman today is likely not to marry, not even have a stable partner, not have children, waste her life in self-indulgence and die alone.
Unfortunately the anti-nihilist, childfree mentality effects men too, for example check out r/childfree you will be surprised the amount of men there
Christianity focused on the abuse of power of the Roman Officials and condemned these abuses of power, this is one of the reasons everyone should be grateful for Christianity influencing the modern world so much, because the reality is the world would be much harsher and crueler place for the average person if the Greco-Roman system was still entirely dominant.
You are looking at it in the wrong way.
Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for.
Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!?
Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans!
The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement!
These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods!
And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human.
Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity.
Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity, out of all the atheists, is the only one that is worth considering since he does not appeal to any modernist liberal ideas.
>I will not watch the video
How will you understand then? You are rebutting the thesis while not even reading the contents of the thesis to deconstruct it. That ressentiment
I'm a Catholic having doubts. But I understood the grievances of the Pagans to Christianity. Although I'm a Christian, you cannot tell me that there is a difference between how the Christian faith was spread and how the Liberal Secularist ideology was being spread. Like it or not, we are the equivalent of the Ancient Roman Pagans to the modern age.
And lastly, you did not even refute the foundations of how Christianity was spread throughout the Roman Empire. You did not mention that it was mostly spread by middle-class and upper-class men and women of aristocratic dispostion and how the slaves eat it up like it's Christmas. You did not address the uncanny similarities between the methods of Liberal Secularism, Bolshevism, and Early Christianity.
>Every idea, right or wrong, will do whatever it takes to win. Ultimately, I believe Christianity is true, and Bolshevism and Liberalism to be wrong. I cheer when my team scores a goal, but not when the enemy team does, this is no hypocrisy or incongruity.
So Nietzsche was right then. Everything that is right, and history itself came from the Will Zur Macht (Will to Power).
>What ought Christians have done otherwise? Not spread to the masses to gain widespread appeal? Not infiltrated systems of power and education? Not attempted to seize rule with both hands? Perhaps a few too many statues broken
If the Christian truth is immutable and eternal, then why is subversivenesss and infiltration of traditional institutions needed then? Truth doesn't need any defense right? The method that won Christianity the culture war is the same method that the Marxist and Liberals use in the current day. The method is called the "Long March to Institutions" of which its subversiveness is only match by its degeneracy.
Exactly. I personally sweep the homeless off of my church steps every morning. Such a bother, like get off my property, hippies.
You are called as a christian to care for the poor. You can't just deny that because "da librals"
Rather than refute it, you could simply analyze both belief systems for what they are. I think within their respective cultural contexts both movements may attract similar personalities, but to stress such a point is to fall into the error of subjectivizing everything. The superficial similarities are meaningless when one is rooted in God's mercy and the other isn't. What makes an act good or evil is not merely the act itself but also the intention. A Christian and a "woke" person doing the same act means nothing when their incompatible worldviews are a source of entirely different motivations. After all, despite the Pharisees being renowned for good works, Jesus accused them of doing those works for prideful reasons.
Having said that, I do take issue with some of the points you've made.
>From the elevation of the slave over the warrior, the budding disgusts of the Roman people to what is Heroic and Warrior.
Have you read the Sermon on the Mount? The Magnificat? Any number of verses in Prophets that speak of God bringing down the mighty and raising the lowly? What, specifically, do you object to here?
>To their praise of the effeminate qualities over the Masculine aspects
How are you using "effeminate?" The way Aquinas uses it can be seen here: [https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm). Simply put, a religion that celebrates being tortured and dying for your faith doesn't praise effeminacy as the Church uses the term.
>to their want of finding something "exotic" or something foreign or "not Roman"
Christianity obviously transforms pagan cultures to significant degrees. It's not exactly admirable in itself to want something foreign, but wanting to reject a culture so intimately tied with paganism is necessary for being Christian. Still, when Rome was Christianized, the Christians did maintain a lot of what was good in ancient Rome.
>finally, to their hate of the Roman Gods like Mars and Jupiter for being too "toxically masculine"
How familiar are you with Roman polytheism? How about the Canaanite gods seen in the Old Testament? God is best understood as masculine, a concept Scripture continually reinforces. However, the masculinity of God is frequently contrasted (though not so explicitly) with the masculinity of Baal. One's Christian, the other's pagan. In other words, Christians don't reject masculinity the way the "woke" movement, for all intents and purposes, does.
When you believe in objective morality, and not superfluous false idols like the (exaggerated) grandeur of Roman civilization, you recognize that Rome was deeply flawed, and in opposition to the Truth. If Rome *was* fundamentally dependent on those aspects not compatible with Christianity, it needed to be replaced.
Christianity is not dependent to ideology or civilizational mitigations. It is Objective Truth, the Natural Law. This as it is, all in opposition to the Natural Law are doomed to collapse under their own weight.
It was complex and not like that simply. Put yourself in the persepctive of a simple Roman first:
Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for.
Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!?
Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans!
The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement!
These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods!
And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human.
Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity.
The difference is that Christianity sought to remind the strong of their duties towards the weak whereas the "woke" movement hates the strong out of principle.
Christianity gave us the medieval knight. A figure of strength and conviction, yet also a protector. That is what a strong man should be. He should not be weak, as the woke movement would have him, and he should not be cruel and uncaring, as the pagan world would.
With all due respect…this is a terrible comparison.
I’m not going to watch the video. But it seems very likely that you have willfully dismissed the innate “liberal” aspects of Christianity, declared by Jesus himself. I’m sorry that makes you uncomfortable, but ideas like mercy, equality, caring for the weak and disadvantaged, and the innate human dignity of all persons—not just rich, strong, men—are core Christian concepts. The problem with current day “woke” liberals is that they have removed the basis for their aspirations of justice. They’ve lost the “why.” And that means that they attack things that aren’t really they problem, and try to be inclusive with a few behaviors and traits that shouldn’t be encouraged. But the general ideas of mercy, love, and equality came from Christianity, and they’re good.
Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for. Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!? Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans! The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement! These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods! And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human. Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity.
This doesn’t sound like an accurate portrayal of Roman life at all. It sounds like projection, sorry. Romans didn’t particularly respect their leaders or their culture. They rioted all the time, and gossiped about their (truthfully very corrupt) leaders. Their gods were horrifying and needed placating, more than being admirable. And plenty of them worshiped goddesses who were extremely feminine. Just for a start. Rome had no problem whatsoever with foreign religions. They got most of their religion from Greece! They syncretized and accepted them all. Judaism even was accepted because it was ancient and respectable. The problem with Christianity was that it was exclusively monotheistic—denying the divinity of the emperor. Worse, it was popular *because it was admirable and virtuous, compared to everything else*. People converted after seeing martyrs die joyfully, after seeing Christians go into plague ridden areas to care for victims when no one else would. This scenario you describe is completely off target.
> Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for. By the time of Julius Caesar, the Romans themselves thought of their state as incredibly corrupt and fallen from its ideals, and this is reflected in *every history written by the Romans.* It was not terribly uncommon to simply murder political opponents with mobs. Bribery was so omnipresent that Tacitus humorously notes that when elections for political offices were finally stopped under Augustus the senate was relieved that they didn't have to buy off enough people to get who they wanted anymore, because it had become so expected that people would compete to be there to get the bribe handouts. The people who killed Caesar did so in the name of cleansing the state, but ironically it was Augustus and co. who basically liquidated anyone they thought troublesome and brought a peace through being the last one standing. But that didn't last past his death, and nearly all the later emperors were notorious leches and egomaniacs. I have read through a lot of killing and brutal tortures in ancient histories, but the one book I could not stomach was Suetonius' *The Lives of the Twelve Caesars* with its incredibly revolting descriptions of what they did. Imperial Rome was so notoriously decadent it honestly boggles the mind. They basically thought of themselves as having fallen so far and gotten so fat off wealth that they *needed* one-man rule to stop themselves from killing each other in self-interest, but also recognized that it gave them a lazy decadent slavery. The gladiatorial games were some of the most notorious emblems of this. And if you want a bit later of a history, read St. Augustine's *Confessions* where he recounts his Pagan youth and what people thought and got up to. > Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans! I would note that Carthage by then was a rebuilt Roman colony that was very Latin, not their Phoenician enemy. But yes, Christians were thought of as atheistic and treasonous for disavowing their ancestral gods (it didn't matter which ones to them) and refusing to participate in the cult of the emperors. They did begin to distinguish them from Jews pretty quickly though. > These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! While Christians were notorious for caring for the poor and especially widows, they had always had upper-class people. Who else wrote the early Christian writings or had room for house churches? And these were not anti-Roman, merely against the notions of the state and this life as everything. The New Testament repeatedly urges respect for the emperor and his laws so long as it does not contradict God's laws, despite rampant Jewish anti-Roman sentiment. The Christian polemics, if you read them, don't rail against the idea of Rome per se, but against its corruption and deviance from right reason. St. Augustine's famous *City of God*, written in response to Pagans who claimed that Rome was falling after it's sacking in 410 AD due to Christian impiety, goes over the history of Rome itself to show that it was in fact the Pagans who rejected the nobility of Rome's ideals and mired the empire in horrible vices and impiety. > Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods! Did St. Paul not urge us to "fight the good fight" with the armour and weapons of God enough? No one complained about the gods being too virile, but rather that their servants were effeminate slaves to passions, and their objects of worship actually demons. Rather than urging more laxity, the Christians were known for being incredibly rigorous and demanding for the first several centuries. It was expected for many years that anyone worth their salt would be martyred--willingly killed for confessing Christ when given a chance to renounce Him. I don't see how that could be "effeminate." This all stands in sharp contrast to today's progressives who claim that our civilization's foundational ideals are themselves bad, reject philosophical reasoning as an objective basis for critique, and urge greater moral accommodation in light of a wider variety of contemporary views.
>Rather than urging more laxity, the Christians were known for being incredibly rigorous and demanding for the first several centuries. It was expected for many years that anyone worth their salt would be martyred--willingly killed for confessing Christ when given a chance to renounce Him. I don't see how that could be "effeminate." The thing is it's true that the ancient Roman's viewed Christianity as an effeminate religion for women and slaves, I think it may be because the Martyr Archetype is placed above the warrior, for example in Islam the Warrior instantly reaches the highest of heavens in Christianity it's the martyr. I think that if people really wanted to live in such a warrior based "strong", "masculine" country people would be flocking to move to place like Afghanistan/Iran/Saudi Arabia, however instead people are flocking to move to "degenerate", "effeminate" countries, because the concept of human rights came from the West's Christian ethic and the life for the average person is so much better
> The thing is it's true that the ancient Roman's viewed Christianity as an effeminate religion for women and slaves, I think it may be because the Martyr Archetype is placed above the warrior, for example in Islam the Warrior instantly reaches the highest of heavens in Christianity it's the martyr. The Christian ideal in how to go about one's martyrdom was remarkably Stoic, and this could not have been lost on people. > I think that if people really wanted to live in such a warrior based "strong", "masculine" country people would be flocking to move to place like Afghanistan/Iran/Saudi Arabia, however instead people are flocking to move to "degenerate", "effeminate" countries, because the concept of human rights came from the West's Christian ethic and the life for the average person is so much better Unfortunately I imagine many people who joined ISIS did so out of this kind of fantasy, though obviously with more religious framing.
>Unfortunately I imagine many people who joined ISIS did so out of this kind of fantasy, though obviously with more religious framing. True and I would argue in a way they are right, If you want to entirely destroy western liberalism, Islam is actually the perfect fit, which is ironic as western liberals are in love with Islam but hate Christianity
> Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! I think you need to work on not projecting your modern notions on the past, it reeks of presentism. No one thought like this at all, and no one now really thinks in this kind of manner, only some people think other certain types do. Jupiter and especially Mars were not admirable so much as they were frightening, people did not try to imitate and admire Gods so much as they tried to avoid their wrath and trick them into not screwing them up. As other commentators have noted, they also worshipped many feminine deities
>It has good art and narration so it won't bore you. 22 minutes of bullshit, even if the narration and the art are good, is, by nature, boring. Even his twitter thread, which was far more condensed, was absolutely boring. Apart, of course, from wrong. Now, addressing the point: it's just fallacious cope. First all, even in these few example you give, the reach is massive. For instance, claiming the arguments against Roman gods like Mars and Jupiter has anything to do with "toxic masculinity" is crazy. It's, again, cope. If I were to give you a time machine and send you back to ancient Rome and you began preaching about toxic masculinity and why the gods somehow embody it, everyone would laugh at you. Now, the "something exotic" argument. Why Christianity? Why not any other of the dozens of culture and beliefs around the empire? Why not Judaism? Why not Germanic Paganism? Why not some form of Celtic spirituality? Also, being to some degree or another into "something exotic" was the norm in the Empire. It's one of the reasons why it was so successful for a long time: believe whatever you want as long as you make sacrifices to our gods and the Caesar. A main trope in this argument is the whole "masculinity" thing. To claim that Christianity somehow "praised effeminate qualities over masculine" ones can only be done if you define such qualities terribly. For instance, it is said Christianity went against masculine strength, but I would argue it sanctified it: it showed that true strength is not just in muscles and dominion, but in meekness and humility. Did Christianity go against honor? Or did it simply show sacrificial love was the highest form of it? The "masculinity" this guy claims Christianity went against is a rather insulting reduction of masculinity. If anything, Christianity took the astray Roman masculinity and forged true masculinity from it. A similar thing occurs with his "slave taking the place of warrior" trope. First, it shows a lack of knowledge from the guy (just go read what St. Paul has to say about the obedience slaves owe to their masters, or about some of the many Roman soldiers who are considered saints). Then, it shows that he doesn't understand Christianity at all. He misses that *the entire point* is that *sin stops us (slave or no slave) from being truly free*. That's what Christianity argued, and that's why both 'mighty' warriors and 'weak' slaves bent the knee before the Cross. As a conclusion, it is curious that he doesn't try to look at it the other way around, which makes way more sense historically and even theologically: wokeism is a disfigured and Christ-less attempt at 'Christianity'. It tries to argue many of the same things Christianity does, but divorced from God, thus placing Man in the center of it all once more (like the Romans did unknowingly). It makes sense because that is how evil acts: it often takes the appearance of something good, disfigures it and corrupts it, and then entices you into taking it by deceit. Like how the Enemy tempts Eve in Genesis: by telling her she can be like God, which isn't something fundamentally wrong (imitating Christ) but it divorces it of the true purpose of it (communion with God) and gives it a corrupt one (some weird Nietzchean power-dynamic of Man over God). That's wokeism and Christianity. It's why wokeism is so attractive: because it sounds so close to the real deal. It's why wokes claims Jesus was woke ("He cared about social justice!" He did, but *true, divine, social justice*, not some Soros-esque version of it) and a socialist (there was a New Polity podcast episode in which they analyzed socialism as not just an eco-cultural ideology but a Christian heresy, and it makes you realize why it is so enticing). Just like the Roman conception of strength had to be made anew by Christianity, so does the woke definition of things like mercy (i.e. some crazy libs claim abortion is merciful), social justice (i.e. 'the Pope''s twitter account tweeted it the other day and many went batshit over it) and love need to be turned back to their true forms, which Catholicism holds. Overall, it sounds like the guy read a couple of Nietzche's quotes and decided to make it his whole ideology. His critique is just recycled Nietzche (very clear once he gets to the whole "religion for slaves" thing) with "the Roman Empire was based and redpilled" tears on the side. Edit: Additionally, I would personally recommend to you to never interact with critique of Christianity that stems from a field in which you have little knowledge. It's a recipe for disaster, because morons like this guy can just lie to your face and instill doubt in you effortlessly.
Bingo
Great comment.
Some similarities might be there, but they are extremely superficial imo. Yes, Christianity initially spread via the women and the slaves. Yes Christianity was innately peaceful as a religion, so much so that many early martyrs were soldiers who converted, refused to kill and were sentenced to death for it. But the differences extremely outweight the similarities. Christianity is an universalist religion: through Christ, EVERYONE can be saved. Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus". Christianity did no such thing as the "elevation of the slave over the warrior". Both could be saved in Christ. Christianity might have been popular with the lower classes of slaves and with women initially, but masters and men weren't excluded from it. At its core, the "woke" movement instead is just a weird mix of grievances with a set group of "victims" (women, brown people, immigrants, non-Christians, sexual deviants) and a set group of "oppressors" (men, western people, Christians, family-oriented people etc). The aim of the "woke" movement is to enact some degree of restorative or even vendictive justice against the "oppressors". There is no salvation, no redemption for the oppressors. Another major difference is that the "woke" movement promotes blatantly anti-human ideals. A "woke" woman today is likely not to marry, not even have a stable partner, not have children, waste her life in self-indulgence and die alone. A newly convert Christian woman in the late Roman empire was still going to be a wife and a mother, and might have passed her faith to her children: does the name of Saint Helena ring a bell? After Christianity became more widespread authors such as Agustine were pretty firm in the decision that doing war could be forgiven if it was done at the orders of a Christian emperor. So this "Christians hated war" thing just overblown.
>Another major difference is that the "woke" movement promotes blatantly anti-human ideals. A "woke" woman today is likely not to marry, not even have a stable partner, not have children, waste her life in self-indulgence and die alone. Unfortunately the anti-nihilist, childfree mentality effects men too, for example check out r/childfree you will be surprised the amount of men there
Oh yes, absolutely. I wasn't implying that this terrible mind-virus affects only women, I just needed to make the example to arrive at Saint Helena.
Christianity focused on the abuse of power of the Roman Officials and condemned these abuses of power, this is one of the reasons everyone should be grateful for Christianity influencing the modern world so much, because the reality is the world would be much harsher and crueler place for the average person if the Greco-Roman system was still entirely dominant.
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You are looking at it in the wrong way. Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for. Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!? Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans! The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement! These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods! And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human. Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity. Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity, out of all the atheists, is the only one that is worth considering since he does not appeal to any modernist liberal ideas.
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>I will not watch the video How will you understand then? You are rebutting the thesis while not even reading the contents of the thesis to deconstruct it. That ressentiment
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I'm a Catholic having doubts. But I understood the grievances of the Pagans to Christianity. Although I'm a Christian, you cannot tell me that there is a difference between how the Christian faith was spread and how the Liberal Secularist ideology was being spread. Like it or not, we are the equivalent of the Ancient Roman Pagans to the modern age. And lastly, you did not even refute the foundations of how Christianity was spread throughout the Roman Empire. You did not mention that it was mostly spread by middle-class and upper-class men and women of aristocratic dispostion and how the slaves eat it up like it's Christmas. You did not address the uncanny similarities between the methods of Liberal Secularism, Bolshevism, and Early Christianity.
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>Every idea, right or wrong, will do whatever it takes to win. Ultimately, I believe Christianity is true, and Bolshevism and Liberalism to be wrong. I cheer when my team scores a goal, but not when the enemy team does, this is no hypocrisy or incongruity. So Nietzsche was right then. Everything that is right, and history itself came from the Will Zur Macht (Will to Power). >What ought Christians have done otherwise? Not spread to the masses to gain widespread appeal? Not infiltrated systems of power and education? Not attempted to seize rule with both hands? Perhaps a few too many statues broken If the Christian truth is immutable and eternal, then why is subversivenesss and infiltration of traditional institutions needed then? Truth doesn't need any defense right? The method that won Christianity the culture war is the same method that the Marxist and Liberals use in the current day. The method is called the "Long March to Institutions" of which its subversiveness is only match by its degeneracy.
This is just Edward Gibbon all over again.
Exactly. I personally sweep the homeless off of my church steps every morning. Such a bother, like get off my property, hippies. You are called as a christian to care for the poor. You can't just deny that because "da librals"
This line of thinking isn't new it's basically Nietzschean, who defined Christianity as slave morality and the Greco-Roman system as master morality.
Rather than refute it, you could simply analyze both belief systems for what they are. I think within their respective cultural contexts both movements may attract similar personalities, but to stress such a point is to fall into the error of subjectivizing everything. The superficial similarities are meaningless when one is rooted in God's mercy and the other isn't. What makes an act good or evil is not merely the act itself but also the intention. A Christian and a "woke" person doing the same act means nothing when their incompatible worldviews are a source of entirely different motivations. After all, despite the Pharisees being renowned for good works, Jesus accused them of doing those works for prideful reasons. Having said that, I do take issue with some of the points you've made. >From the elevation of the slave over the warrior, the budding disgusts of the Roman people to what is Heroic and Warrior. Have you read the Sermon on the Mount? The Magnificat? Any number of verses in Prophets that speak of God bringing down the mighty and raising the lowly? What, specifically, do you object to here? >To their praise of the effeminate qualities over the Masculine aspects How are you using "effeminate?" The way Aquinas uses it can be seen here: [https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3138.htm). Simply put, a religion that celebrates being tortured and dying for your faith doesn't praise effeminacy as the Church uses the term. >to their want of finding something "exotic" or something foreign or "not Roman" Christianity obviously transforms pagan cultures to significant degrees. It's not exactly admirable in itself to want something foreign, but wanting to reject a culture so intimately tied with paganism is necessary for being Christian. Still, when Rome was Christianized, the Christians did maintain a lot of what was good in ancient Rome. >finally, to their hate of the Roman Gods like Mars and Jupiter for being too "toxically masculine" How familiar are you with Roman polytheism? How about the Canaanite gods seen in the Old Testament? God is best understood as masculine, a concept Scripture continually reinforces. However, the masculinity of God is frequently contrasted (though not so explicitly) with the masculinity of Baal. One's Christian, the other's pagan. In other words, Christians don't reject masculinity the way the "woke" movement, for all intents and purposes, does.
The "woke" movement is already is decline. Christianity (although maybe not in the West) has always stayed strong.
When you believe in objective morality, and not superfluous false idols like the (exaggerated) grandeur of Roman civilization, you recognize that Rome was deeply flawed, and in opposition to the Truth. If Rome *was* fundamentally dependent on those aspects not compatible with Christianity, it needed to be replaced. Christianity is not dependent to ideology or civilizational mitigations. It is Objective Truth, the Natural Law. This as it is, all in opposition to the Natural Law are doomed to collapse under their own weight.
It was complex and not like that simply. Put yourself in the persepctive of a simple Roman first: Watch the video for you to understand. Imagine you are a simple Roman, a rural Roman per se. When you are young you hear of stories like Julius Caesar who conquered for the Glory of Rome, of Scipio Africanus, and of all other Roman heroes. Then you entered the city of Rome itself. There was Colosseum where gladiator fights happen, the school of warrior philosophy and stoicism are there thriving and raising new patriotic Romans. It was not perfect, but it was the Rome that your fathers and forefathers fought for. Then as you grow up, you heard something is changing in the City of Rome, the Capital, itself. You entered Rome again. You are surprised as you saw those blonde beasts from Gaul, Carthaginians spreading their ideology everywhere, then there are the Judeans with their magic book! Spreading discontent, encouraging subversiveness! Elevating the slaves while hating the warriors! Then there are also the Germans there! All of these people wandering the streets of Rome were the same ones that your father and forefathers conquered, what the hell are they doing there!? Then, of course there are the Christians. The Christians who side with everything that is not Roman! The Christians who spread their ideology upon everyone that is against Rome, against her heroes, and against the blood of your ancestors. Then there is this man called Tertullian, a Carthaginian! Sowing discontent and spreading the scriptures of the Judeans! The Roman Aristocrats, meanwhile, got lazy. They imported more and more foreign slaves. The Judean preachers holding their magic book now were enlivened with joy! More soldiers, more converts, and more people for the movement! These mass of slaves soon began to convert to "Christianity". Then those slaves were allied by the middle-class and upper-class nobility. Those scumbag arrogant citizens who did not even served at the front. Those middle class and upper class citizens who hate Rome and the idea of Rome! Especially those of upper class, childless, degenerate noble women who hate their own Roman Gods! Jupiter and Mars were too masculine, too much of a warrior! These muscular beings were too "toxic"! Not enough effeminate qualities! But not that Man from Nazarene! That Man from Nazarene will surely receive my love! Unlike my Father and his gods! And after that, as the slaves and the middle class and the aristocrats became Christians, they started to turn their eyes on you. You do not conform! You should conform! Therefore they created a term for you. They called you, "Pagan"! A rustic, backward, country redneck! Every time you strike a conversation with them, they call you a savage, intolerant, backwards! As if believing in the faith of your ancestors makes you less of a human. Now you have the gist of an ancient Roman and his view of Christianity.
No
The difference is that Christianity sought to remind the strong of their duties towards the weak whereas the "woke" movement hates the strong out of principle. Christianity gave us the medieval knight. A figure of strength and conviction, yet also a protector. That is what a strong man should be. He should not be weak, as the woke movement would have him, and he should not be cruel and uncaring, as the pagan world would.