>So do you think Christianity was a good force in Europe ?
Islam despises pagans most of all, or at least now in days, as its the one thing they can be open about.
Europa, unlike India, was not unified behind a single pagan religion, but was broken up into Greco-Roman, Celtic, Germanic, Iberian, Thracian, Slavic, and these are just the main ones who are very different from each other(well Thracian was close to Greco-Roman near its end).
Christianity at least unified Europe, somewhat, which lead to such events as the Poles coming to the Austrians rescue, where if there was no Christianity in Europe, they would have no reason to abandon their entire nation to help out some Austrians.
It also lead to the Christmas truce during WWI, which worked for all, but(now wait for it) the fucking moslems. Orthodox, Protestants, and Catholics all enjoyed it, they tried it with the muzzies, and bang! dead soldier, and the war was back on.
Had the nations not got buthurt(allies, as always) and ordered the soldier with the tree shot, WWI would have ended early, less dead Europeans, and chances are, no WWII, no Nazis, and thus no chucked Europe, oh, and the Empires might still be standing today.
Ill say this, as a Christian, it did not have to be Christianity that did this, it could have been Buddhism, had the Greeks spread it with more passion, yet they did not, and the Romans did not unify their religion well enough for a Pagan Europe to survive the coming storm that was the crescent.
So yes, if for no other reason, it gave common grounds, grounds that stood for something, till roughly the 60's.