It’s interesting to think of the world religions that could have been, had the scales of power dipped in different directions. Gnosticism is an interesting take on Abrahamic religions, almost like a blend of Christianity and Buddhism.
There were even literal Greek Buddhists before there were Greek Christians. Heck, Christianity as we know it might not have survived without the original Greek drafts of the New Testament. There’s another universe out there where the eastern Greco-Romans were way too busy with the karmic cycle and achieving enlightenment to worry about the execution of some random guy with daddy issues in the desert.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the giant Buddha statue that the Taliban blew up in Afghanistan several years ago was Greek work.
There are also plenty of accounts from (I think) the Abassid empire where Greeks and Buddhists were both present in Baghdad at the same time. I forget why that ended, maybe because of the Seljuks or the Mongols, can’t remember.
And of course, there’s an account in the Buddhist canon of a philosophical debate between a buddhist monk (Nagasena) and a Greek king named Menander (Milinda in Pali), which took place in the first or second century BC.
But damn… thinking about a world where Greco-Buddhism became the religion of the West… what could’ve been, eh?
Who says that was a different universe? You should understand by now how history frequently forgets such peaceful people in favor of the authoritarian de jure.
Turns out, humanity and its ilk hell bent on insisting they’re so important are just cancer. Pure and simple. Terminal cancer we’re all watching take hold.
It’s interesting to think of the world religions that could have been, had the scales of power dipped in different directions. Gnosticism is an interesting take on Abrahamic religions, almost like a blend of Christianity and Buddhism.
There were even literal Greek Buddhists before there were Greek Christians. Heck, Christianity as we know it might not have survived without the original Greek drafts of the New Testament. There’s another universe out there where the eastern Greco-Romans were way too busy with the karmic cycle and achieving enlightenment to worry about the execution of some random guy with daddy issues in the desert.
God that sounds like such a better world.
Yeah I’m pretty sure the giant Buddha statue that the Taliban blew up in Afghanistan several years ago was Greek work.
There are also plenty of accounts from (I think) the Abassid empire where Greeks and Buddhists were both present in Baghdad at the same time. I forget why that ended, maybe because of the Seljuks or the Mongols, can’t remember.
And of course, there’s an account in the Buddhist canon of a philosophical debate between a buddhist monk (Nagasena) and a Greek king named Menander (Milinda in Pali), which took place in the first or second century BC.
But damn… thinking about a world where Greco-Buddhism became the religion of the West… what could’ve been, eh?
Who says that was a different universe? You should understand by now how history frequently forgets such peaceful people in favor of the authoritarian de jure.
Turns out, humanity and its ilk hell bent on insisting they’re so important are just cancer. Pure and simple. Terminal cancer we’re all watching take hold.
🤪