Didn't Nero launch Christianity?

[Pat Mustard]

Really, where would christianity be without Nero?
Back in the ancient Rome pagans found Christians to be as irritating as people today consider scientologists to be irritating, but once Nero started persecuting Christians for burning Rome (whether they really started the fire or not) pagans started feeling sorry for them and, needless to say, Christians exploited it beyond any measure creating whole culture of a "persecuted Christian" with myriads of invented martyr saints and other myths like catacombs where Christians would go down to worship during periods of persecution. Which still goes on in the minds of many Christians even today - they feel persecuted by communists, Jews, muslims, atheists, aliens, scientists - you name it.

So if there wasn't that period where Christians were persecuted pagans wouldn't feel that allure of forbidden religion do you think that christianity would just die long time ago?

Nero's older than christianity by at least fifty years. There may have been some ultra-orthodox jewish sects around which later became the genesis for christianity later on, but christianity itself was non existent.

You've got to remember that the stories about Nero persecuting christians come from later (i.e. 4th century on) commentators who wanted to do two things 1) denigrate Nero and 2) build up the myth of martyrdom within the christian church.

If you want a Roman emperor to blame for creating christianity, look no further back than Constantine. Before him, thousands of bickering sects with few followers and less power, after him an empire spanning monolithic religion with masses of power.

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Nor is it evident that Christians exploited any such sympathies. Also, the virtue of being martyr didn’t originate later in the Christian movement, but a part of its very beginning, with the very idea of a crucified messiah.

The earliest christian teachings didn't even have a corporeal god, never mind a one who faked his own death for three days to get off work.

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No, the gospels are all dated prior to Nero, not to mention the rest the of NT, Paul's writing etc,

Yeah, not so much.  Very little of the NT is dated prior to Nero's reign, and only (most) of the Pauline Epistles, Mark, and James are potentially dated to Nero's lifetime.

Boru

Most of the "Pauline" epistles are forgeries. Remember you've got four biblical authors called Paul, only one of whom can even be tenuously identified as the real Saul of Tarsus.