jameslewis on Nostr: Along the time scale of centuries, yeah, the Roman empire began to decline awhile ...

Along the time scale of centuries, yeah, the Roman empire began to decline awhile after Christianity became "mainstream," but that's not to say that Christianity isn't responsible for the peak of the good that was accomplished in culture via the Roman empire. Before the Roman decline, Christianity spread throughout Europe, to French and Germanic lands first, and started a centuries long process of increasing cultural and academic boom that climaxed in the Renaissance. Only after the protestant revolt and during the French revolution, which were rejections of Traditional Authority and Christianity respectively, did the West really struggle. The Muslim invasions of the Middle East and the West were a definite hiccup in Western culture, but that's why we had Crusades.

Not to say corruption didn't seep into things time to time, but by and large, it is thanks to Christianity that we have our culture today, even the parts that were not robbed of us by modernists.