[gusty]

The argument was that the old Roman religion was more martial in outlook. More emphasize on warfare. Similar arguments were made in the mid 20th Century by Fascists and Nazis who admired the old Roman and Germanic religions for the same reason. Roman religion was also completely tied to the state. One showed loyalty to the state by following Roman religious practices. It is why Christians were persecuted at times during the Roman Empire before Constantine. The Romans did not object to the dogma so much, they really did not care, they objected to the refusal of Christians bowing down to Roman deities. To the Romans, it was a sign of disloyalty to the Roman state. The Roman view of religion was you could do whatever you want in privacy, but you must show loyalty to the Empire in public, and that included participating in Roman religious ceremonies.

[tinyowl]

Thanks for the further explanation. I agree with the explanation, if I accept certain premises and assumptions, but I still disagree with the premise and assumptions. It’s like saying that a healthy dose of Christianity in the US would further, rather than help hold back, the consequences of our Economic, Moral, Spending, Over Reach ... ‘sins’ ... because we’d be LESS likely to defend the borders or prosecute a war on ISIS with actual resolve.

I’m not a Christian apologist by any means, but I think it’s a moronic argument to actual make, even if the logic holds up if one’s already accepted a number of bogus assumptions.

So ... my issue is not with you ... or the internal coherence of the argument, rather ... the context in which the the argument would have to exist in order to be anything but a hypothesis whose form holds up only as long as one doesn’t note that it’s appearance requires an absolute suspension of context. Like saying ‘a section of air shaped like a deer is a deer’ ... which is fine, except that when you observe that section in the context of the air around it, it disappears without a trace.

Something like that :-)