Saints was just a way to appeal to polytheists back when everyone hadnt moved on from multiple gods.
That fertility goddess? She was a person, and now she’s a saint and a road to jeebus. Some chief whose corpse you’ve been carrying around for 100 years? Perfectly cool, lots of Christian churches did the same thing.
Especially for Catholics, praying to a saint is like calling God’s secretary, that’s why they all have their own fields like “gaming”.
Locals got a way to continue existing rites and festivals, the local leader got to tell the church they were converted, and no invasion “had” to happen.
It was the franchizification of millennia old religions that are practically extinct today.
It’s also because some people find monotheism more satisfying, others find polytheism more satisfying, and still others like dualism. Catholicism lets you pick. The monotheists just pray to the big guy, the polytheists get to call in their more human specialist, and the dualists can blame the devil that they stubbed their toe or can’t stop drinking.
Ironically fertility deities are an area catholicism sucked at replicating. That said us pagans could use an equivalent to St Anthony, every grandparent’s most called saint.
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Saints was just a way to appeal to polytheists back when everyone hadnt moved on from multiple gods.
That fertility goddess? She was a person, and now she’s a saint and a road to jeebus. Some chief whose corpse you’ve been carrying around for 100 years? Perfectly cool, lots of Christian churches did the same thing.
Especially for Catholics, praying to a saint is like calling God’s secretary, that’s why they all have their own fields like “gaming”.
Locals got a way to continue existing rites and festivals, the local leader got to tell the church they were converted, and no invasion “had” to happen.
It was the franchizification of millennia old religions that are practically extinct today.
It’s also because some people find monotheism more satisfying, others find polytheism more satisfying, and still others like dualism. Catholicism lets you pick. The monotheists just pray to the big guy, the polytheists get to call in their more human specialist, and the dualists can blame the devil that they stubbed their toe or can’t stop drinking.
Ironically fertility deities are an area catholicism sucked at replicating. That said us pagans could use an equivalent to St Anthony, every grandparent’s most called saint.