What are your Homebrew Infinite Worlds... worlds?

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by patchwork

As to being out of character for the Church, Melittus' expedition was the first in our history that wasn't predicated on conversion through violence,

From Saint Paul onward for the first several centuries of the Christian Era, Christian missionaries sought to convert pagans by persuasion, first and foremost. They often suffered violence, but that's another matter.

Yes, force was employed to compel people to accept Christianity after the Empire adopted Christianity as the state religion under Constantine. The actual application of force had much more to do with closing temples and schools than with mass killings. Often enough, the Christian authorities were harder on other Christians seen as heretics than on the unconverted pagans. This has a lot to do with imperial politics, as well as major disputes about the nature of Christ and other important religious matters.
EDIT-

Did you mean something other than OTL ecclesiastical history by 'our history' or something peculiar by 'expedition'? Near as I can tell you seem to be saying that the first six hundred years of Christianity were characterized by relentless series of military conquests and forced conversions of pagans, with no serious attempts to spread the faith by peaceful means. This strikes me as a wildly inaccurate view of the record. But perhaps I am misreading your comments?

-CM

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by Michele

Tsar
Tsar

and

Pope-1
Pope-1

Those are some fascinating and well-developed worldlines!

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

I remembered a couple of others:

Magdalene: Mary Magdalene takes the place of Peter and women provide the priesthood of the Roman Church. This leads to scholarship being regarded as a feminine (and lesser) thing and most civil service jobs end up being occupied by women as well. Technology advances more slowly after the 15th century so that by 1939, they're in the middle of their own industrial revolution. Despite this, Teutonia still has a new and aggressive dictator, and Angland and Franke are in a nervous alliance against him with the (much smaller) Anglish Free State in the New World wanting to stay out of the approaching war.

Magus: Simon Magus takes the place of Peter, and it becomes standard for people with magic aptitude to be taken into the Church and trained by them. Christian religion is more politically powerful in 1939, but not because they have a stronger grip on people's belief. The Reformation having been crushed, Protestant churches don't exist as a thing and the Church is quite corrupt, but there's an underground of "witches" in alliance with a revolutionary movement who are about to throw the world into war against an alliance of Church-backed rulers.

Interesting concepts. WWII seems to have done SOMETHING to the time-stream for so many worlds to be in a position to have had, are in the middle of, or are destined to someday suffer, the second world war...

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Interesting concepts. WWII seems to have done SOMETHING to the time-stream for so many worlds to be in a position to have had, are in the middle of, or are destined to someday suffer, the second world war...

Those particular two alternates were thought up as connected parallels to a Weird War II campaign. That's why they were both set in 1939, and both on the verge of a global war.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Those particular two alternates were thought up as connected parallels to a Weird War II campaign. That's why they were both set in 1939, and both on the verge of a global war.

I like that you used radically alternate religious developments, with very early points of divergence, to create the alternate world history. That's cool stuff.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by patchwork

We agree more than we disagree. The muscle is provided by Aethelbehrt of Kent and Saebehrt of East Anglia, and the idea is to level the pagan temples and kill the pagan "clergy" while leaving the common people alone (mostly). Tactical success, strategic failure (those damned Kents burned our temple! But, Christianity is now pretty much the only game in town...still, if we must be Christian, we can at least be Ionan and not Roman...)

Makes sense.

I take it the minor differences in OTL between the so called 'Celtic' tradition the rest of the Church have grown larger with time in this ATL.

Are the Ionans merely schismatics, or are they actually heretics?

What's the current year?

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

I like that you used radically alternate religious developments, with very early points of divergence, to create the alternate world history. That's cool stuff.

Alternate physical/human laws and results, really.
I've been reading up on plagues and commonality of nearly extinct diseases of the past.

Imagine if certain people died or were more physically affected by their infections than in our timeline.

Andrew Jackson, and George Washington suffered small pox and recovered quite well long before their more memorable actions.
No trail of tears, massive Executive branch creep and possibly a delayed or even reduced civil war if the evil Jackson didn't become president.

Edit: I think that despite posters' wide diversity of backgrounds, we can all agree that Jackson was a nasty murderous human being.

[Phantasm]

Pia Dea: On this timeline, the early Hebrew religious texts were never rewritten during the exile to Babylonia removing Asherah as the wife of Yahweh, so that her worship continued, giving women a larger role in the priesthood (it is accepted by the Jews of this timeline that Moses's sister Miriam was a priestess of Asherah, whereas Moses and Aaron were priests of Yahweh).

The local year is around 200 AD, during the decline of the Roman Empire when Christianity is still an underground, albeit widespread, religion. Homeline scholars are looking for a "later echo" to see how this affected the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

[combatmedic]

As much as I remain dubious about the legacy of Old Hickory, 'evil' seems a strong term. Stronger than I'd use, at any rate. I wouldn't even call Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR 'evil' men, just misguided and overzealous. Jackson is far from my most admired PotUS, though. He bungled the dismantling of the national bank, pursued Removal even of some of our Indian allies, and handled the Nullification Crisis in such as way as to risk a civil war.

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Pia Dea: On this timeline, the early Hebrew religious texts were never rewritten during the exile to Babylonia removing Asherah as the wife of Yahweh, so that her worship continued, giving women a larger role in the priesthood (it is accepted by the Jews of this timeline that Moses's sister Miriam was a priestess of Asherah, whereas Moses and Aaron were priests of Yahweh).

The local year is around 300 AD, during the decline of the Roman Empire when Christianity is still an underground, albeit widespread, religion. Homeline scholars are looking for a "later echo" to see how this affected the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Ah, cool!

Did the acceptance of a second deity alongside Yahweh mean that the Hebrews, and later the Jews, were more tolerant of polytheist cults? After all, they aren't monotheists on this timeline.
How has that affected assimilation/resistance to Hellenistic and Roman cultures?

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by combatmedic

Ah, cool!

Did the acceptance of a second deity alongside Yahweh mean that the Hebrews, and later the Jews, were more tolerant of polytheist cults? After all, they aren't monotheists on this timeline.
How has that affected assimilation/resistance to Hellenistic and Roman cultures?

Considering I just came up with this as I was writing the entry, I haven't thought that far out yet! :)

(Also note that I changed the date to 200 AD after doing a bit of timeline research, as by around 300 some Christian leaders were taking pains to stifle sects they didn't agree with, e.g. the Gnostics, and folks high up in the Empire like Constantine were converting.)