• PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
    49·
    2 months ago

    Explanation: Romans, like followers of many ancient polytheistic faiths, were far from averse from taking in new gods into their pantheon. While there was certainly precedence and extra gravity afforded to proper, ROMAN gods, the worship of foreign cult gods, such as Isis from Egypt, or Mithra from Persia, was common, acceptable, and widespread alongside worship of indigenous gods.

    The Romans furthermore regarded most foreign gods as simply their own gods under different names - though DOUBTLESSLY Mars has a special love for Rome, the god of war probably does not care overmuch if he’s worshipped under some foreign, barbarian name, or in a good, Latin tongue! As such, Romans generally found little reason to interfere with the faiths of those they conquered, who they regarded as following essentially the same basic thinking and theology, just in strange ways.

    Christians ended up a bit more contentious. Belief, and belief in the correct thing, is important to salvation of the soul in Christianity, and as such, Christians, and especially early Christians, end up with more… heated divisions between sects and faiths.

    • variants@possumpat.ioEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      I was just listening to a podcast about Genghis Kahn and how they would just throw in every religion of places they took into the meta

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
        91·
        2 months ago

        If memory serves, under Ogedei Khan they even had a debate with judges and scoring between major religions, lmao

    • Akasazh@feddit.nlEnglish
      2·
      2 months ago

      Christian faith was initially allowed in Rome, just like Mithraism, however the allure proved to great for Constantine and it became the de facto faith.

      However Christianity absorbed a lot of rituals of pagan religions in order to gain foothold in the North.

    • Hegar@fedia.io
      11·
      2 months ago

      My high school girlfriend’s parents were catholic and they used to say: The only thing worse than a heretic is a protestant all the time. They meant it in jest, but the joke was that plenty of others didn’t say it and did mean it.

  • Seraph@fedia.io
    301·
    2 months ago

    Every religious figure ever: “Everyone love everybody!”

    Every religious person ever: “Wow fuck that guy over there!”