On: Will World Government Rot?

[kragen]

The Roman Catholic Church is less than 1700 years old. The Council of Nicea was in 00325 CE, and the bishops derived their authority from their local congregations rather than from a pope until roughly the Council of Chalcedon in 00451. If you believe that it's closer to 2000 years old, you must also believe that its original purpose was to prepare for the end of the world and the Day of Judgment within the lifetimes of the first Christians. More plausibly, its original purpose was to remove the threat Christianity posed to the political stability of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire fell in 01453, almost 600 years ago.

[Mountain_Skies → kragen]

Not a particularly important distinction in this context. Both 2000 and 1700 are greatly larger than "a few centuries".

[kragen → Mountain_Skies]

But it stopped serving its original purpose within a century.

[sofixa → kragen]

> The Roman Empire fell in 01453, almost 600 years ago.

The Eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as Byzantium or the Byzantine empire, fell in 1453. They weren't under the authority of the Catholic church ( great schism and all that).

The Western Roman Empire fell much earlier.

[kragen → sofixa]

The Council of Nicea was convened by Constantine. Guess where his capital was?

[DeathArrow → kragen]

The Roman Empire fell when Constantinople fell. And that fell was in part due to Catholic Church hating the orthodox christians.

The Catholic Church dates since the Great Schism. So it is not 1700 years old.