Ahhh, I'm not sure you really want to go there. The early Christians did things to the pagans that were at least as despicable as the Mohammedans did and are doing to their competitors:
It was not just the Christian emperors and lay Christians who persecuted the pagans. Their theologians and prominent ecclesiastics joined in the orgy of hatred. One such example is St. Ambrose (c339-397), Bishop of Milan. When Gratian (359-383) became Roman emperor in 375, Ambrose, who was one of his educators, persuaded him to further suppress paganism. The emperor willingly obliged: he confiscated the properties of the pagan temples; seized the properties of the vestal virgins and the pagan priests, and removed the statue of the Goddess of Victory from the Roman Senate. [2]
When Gratian delegated the government of the eastern half of the empire to Theodosius (c346-395) in 379, the situation became worse for the pagans. Theodosius prohibited all forms of pagan worship and permitted the temples to be robbed, plundered and destroyed by "monks and other enterprising Christians." [3]
A good example of how the early Christians treated the pagans is the case of the philosopher Hypathia of Alexandria. Hypathia was the daughter of the mathematician Theon. She was certainly one of the most learned individual of her time. She taught and elucidated Greek mathematics and philosophy. She lectured widely in Athens and Alexandria. But her popularity and her intelligence, coupled with her lack of interest in Christianity, irritated the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril (d.444). Acting in the interest of their patriarch, the Alexandrian monks murdered Hypathia in the year 415. [4] The cruelty of the method of her murder can be seen by the description of it by Gibbon:
[modesty prevents me from posting the gory details in a family forum. Those of you with strong stomachs can click the link -jp]
It should be mentioned that, for his relentless defence of orthodoxy and, as an obvious corollary, his zealous destruction of heretics and infidels (such as Hypathia), Cyril is considered a saint by the Christian church.
In the year 416, a law was passed to bar pagans from public employment. [6] All this was done to coerce pagans to convert to Christianity. Paganism therefore disappeared from the world for two reasons: the relentless persecution by Christians and the assimilation of pagan ideas into Christianity. [a]
In Economics, this is called "Communism". Remember Communists? They were always railing against the "anarchy of the marketplace" in favor of rational design of industries & economies by highly trained soviets armed with 5-year plans. They were convinced that this ID approach would create lasting prosperity the likes of which... anarchistic, evolutionary Capitalism---could never hope to approach.
12 posted on 6/7/02 12:24 PM Pacific by jennyp
Capitalism/science/history via evolution!
Looney logic...history---political science too!
You don't think all the human sacrafice, cannibalism, headhunting, and debauchery and what not had anything to do with the demise of paganism??
I mean, you can read about pagan rituals in the old testament till the cows come home and it's all the same and, if anything, they'd gotten worse by Christian times. Consider:
I mean, what kind of a rotten SOB is gonna burn his kids alive for the benefit of some stupid stone or wooden idol? Better yet, how is somebody doing that kind of #### gonna be worse off for being converted to Christianity?