> so why did they lose out? there are two ways of looking at it. the first is the materialist perspective. the materialist will list a bunch of factors like the economy, geography, race, or technology. this view assumes that religion is all just a bunch of bullshit and that it's fortunes are determined by purely mechanisms forces. the second view is that religion is real and so the question could be rephrased as "why did we lose god's favor? why are we being punished?" the eastern roman empire and the "orthodox" fell to muslim domination because the middle east was the wellspring of heretics for the first 1000 years of christendom (iconoclasm, nestorianism, monophystism, etc). the protestant reformation was allowed to happen because of the corruption in the venice dominated church of borga and medicci families. catholic countries (france, spain, hre) were still the dominant force in the world up until 1700 or so. the king of france was given a choice by the prophecy at lasallete, do the consecration and recieve an unparalleled period of peace and prosperity of refuse and be punished. the king of france chose not to and so the world was punished with the political dominance of masonic democracies. now the pope was given a choice by the fatima apparitions--do the consecration or be punished. they also choose not to do the consecration, thus the world is being punished with globohomo and the church heirarchy is in free fall collapse. periods of turning away from god are always followed by chastisement.
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