Jesus Camp

Wow,perhaps i have been taking my own country for granted after hearing how hard it is in your respective countries for people to get along.

 

I'm not saying all Christians naturally hate everyone else. What I am saying is that only monotheistic religions can be a reason for people to "distrust, loathe and hate" each other. Other types of religion are not based on the assumption that all other religions are false.

 

every place the romans conquered and occupied they allowed the locals to continue with their own religion . they insisted roman religious events were all so observed by the locals ..ie you can still pray to baal but you need to pray to jupiter ect as well...the jews were the only people who refused this edict ,telling the romans they could not worship false idols...this of course did not please the romans much...but good example of roels monotheism and intolerance post..

 

Um, isn't that also intolerance on the part of the Romans, expecting everybody to pray to their gods or else?

 

Apparently it wasn't percieved as intolerance, only monotheistic groups took offence and refused (Christians more obviously than Jews). After all, no one was telling them to believe anything or to deny their own beliefs in favour of those of somebody else. Other religions were tolerated as long as those who took part in them also respected the Roman gods and their official festivities.

 

Supposed a group in Holland suddenly issue an edict endorsed by the government for every dutch,whether jews,christians,buddhists etc etc to worship their gods too....What kind of tolerance would there be?

 

It's not about worshipping the gods, it's about joining in the celebrations for other gods out of respect for other religions. And we already do that. Regardless of one's religion, Christmas and Easter are national holidays here in the Netherlands. This is not an intolerant thing to do, is it?

As you can see, both polytheistic and monotheistic religions do this in countries where their particular type of religion has become endorsed by the state. The difference lies not in such policies but in the basic concept of the religions.

 

I think i get what you mean.Being Christian i can see why the jews acted in such a way. but yea...i shall not defend their actions since i myself live in a society where we celebrate four races' holidays

 

the romans seemed pretty liberal to me compared to early christian leaders in the new world who insisted the indians stop worshiping their old gods on pain of death....

 

But for you that simply means you have time off work / university. It does not mean that you have to go into a church and worship God. The Roman deal was that you could worshipped who you liked as long as you worshipped the Roman gods too.