[Sca-cooks] An Apology (was A challenge to Duke Cariadoc)

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Stefan li Rous wrote:

> The catch is the "for a time". There were other places where the three
> lived together peaceably for a period of time. Unfortunately, these
> periods didn't always last long. Sometimes it was the Moslems that
> broke things up, more usual the Christians. Palestine was another place
> where the three religions lived more or less peacefully together for
> a while. However, one religion was always supreme and making the rules.
> The Moslems just seemed to be a bit more tolerant of others than the
> Christians. However, until the late Roman period, the Romans did a
> much better job of this than any of the other religions mentioned here.


Oh, yeah, big time. The Romans were interested in keeping the peace, collecting their tax money, and building whatever they needed to integrate a place into their Empire. While they would build temples for their own use and invite the locals to practice their faith, they had little or no interest in forcing their religious beliefs on others, for the most part. I will always remember the first time I encountered Jesus as a theoretically historical figure as seen through the eyes of Rome. "We have here a race of notoriously argumentative troublemakers, and they're complaining about this guy who is so much of a troublemaker that even _they_ can't stand him. Better be on the safe side and execute him; we can fit him in on Friday. Oh, look, now that he's been executed he's _still_ posing a threat to our authority. Better execute his followers, too."


It's interesting to note that both the Roman religion and, as far as I
know, Judaism, contain no strictly built-in imperative to, um, propagate
the faith, while Christianity and Islam do. At least I'm assuming Islam
does.

Adamantius
--
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com

"It was so blatant that Roger threw at him.  Clemens gets away with
things that get other people thrown out of games.  As long as they
let him get away with it, it's going  to continue." -- Joe Torre, 9/98