andrewcriddle

'Persecution' of Gnostics by mainstream Christians in the third century, basically meant condemming Gnostic ideas, excommunicating people advocating such ideas, discouraging mainstream Christians from going to lectures or sermons by Gnostics etc.

Given that Christianity was at that time a more or less illegal organization its capacity to impose sanctions on opponents was limited.

The first use of state sanctions by Christians against opponents may have been when mainstream Christian leaders got the Roman Emperor to enforce their deposition of Paul of Samosata as Bishop of Antioch c 270 CE.

This is all rather different from killing people for their beliefs.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

The point is, when orthodox Christians "did" become able to persecute other groups of people, many of them proved that they (the orthodox Christians) were essentially barbarians.

You are quite mistaken. Consider the following:

Larry Taylor:

"How does this apply to the story of Jesus? Simply that all of the early critics are dead. Skeptical opinions were banned. Christian opinions, other than those of the establishment, were banned. Books were destroyed, and later, heretics were burned."

In his book titled ‘The Religious Quests of the Graeco-Roman World,’ Christian author S. Angus, Ph.D., D.Lit., D.D., says the following:

“No one could have dreamed that the Christians, who had themselves suffered so much from persecution and protested so vehemently against the injustice and futility of persecution, would so quickly have turned persecutors and surpassed their Pagan predecessors in fanatical savagery and efficiency, utterly oblivious of the Beatitude of the Divine Master (Matt. V. 10, 44, 45). It became ominous for subsequent history that the first General Council of the Church was signalized by bitter excommunications and banishments. Christians, having acquired the art of disposing of hostile criticism by searching out and burning the objectionable books of their Pagan adversaries, learned to apply the same method to the works of such groups of Christians as were not in power or in favour for the time; when this method proved unsatisfactory, they found it expedient to burn their bodies. The chained skeleton found in the Mithraic chapel at Sarrebourg testified to the drastic means employed by Christians in making the truth conquer otherwise than by the methods and exemplified by the Founder. The stripping and torture to death with oyster-shells in a Christian church and the subsequent mangling of limb from limb of Hypatia, the noblest representative of Neo-Platonism of her day, by the violent Nitrian monks and servitors of a Christian bishop, and probably with his connivance, were symptomatic and prophetic of the intolerance and fanaticism which Christianity was to direct throughout the centuries upon its disobedient members and troublesome minorities until the day – yet to dawn – when a purer, more convincing because more spiritual, Christianity gains ‘the consent of happier generation, the applause of less superstitious ages.’�

The largest colonial empire in history by far under a single religion was conquered by Christian nations by means of persecution, murder and theft of property. The victors often warred among themselves for the spoils of victory. Few Christians would favor the United States embarking upon colonial conquests at this time, but if every Christian who is alive today had been transported at birth back to 1650 A.D., when colonial conquests were widely accepted by Christians, and had been raised by Christian parents who favored colonization, there should be no doubt whatsoever that the majority of them would have favored
colonial conquests.

For 90% of the time since Christianity was founded, the vast majority of Christians believed in colonization, slavery and the subjugation of women.

The topic of this thread is 'How much persecution did early Christians suffer'? The correct answer is, not much, although a large percentage of Christians falsely claim otherwise. Another good topic question would be 'Once orthodox Christians became able to persecute and/or kill people who disagreed with their religious views, how succesful were they at it'? The correct answer is, quite successful. As Elaine Pagels said, "The victors rewrote history, their way."

andrewcriddle

Replying insofar as this relates to Early Christian History.

If you are claiming that large numbers of people were put to death by Christians for their beliefs before say 500 CE then I think you are mistaken.

I obviously agree that there were some.

Several of the most notorious cases; for example the lynching of Hypatia and the judicial murder of Priscillian, appear to have shocked the majority of Christians at the time.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle

Hypatia

Other parts of this site quote a Xian supporting her murder, someone else comments it was actually an assassination ordered by Cyril.

Pots calling kettles comes to mind!

andrewcriddle

(Reposting an old post of mine to talk.origins)

The Hypatia quotes, along with other admirably liberal
quotes attributed to Hypatia and found frequently on
the web seems to come from the 1928 Hubbard book on
Hypatia.
See http://www.polyamory.org/~howard/Hypatia/Hubbard_1928.html It seems generally agreed that Hubbard made them up.
So little survives of Hypatia's work that any quotes
attributed to her should be regarded with suspicion.

Andrew Criddle

Johnny Skeptic

Regarding the topic question, the correct answer is not much, although a lot of Christians falsely claim otherwise.

I didn't claim any numbers, but based upon what we "do" know, there are not any good reasons to exclude a reasonable possiblity that orthodox Christians persecuted and/or murdered a significant number of people who disagreed with them. Regarding post 500 A.D., there is no doubt whatsoever that the vast majority of Christians endorsed the utterly detestable practices of colonization, slavery and the subjugation of women.

Christian agenda might have varied dramatically by geographic region. Today, the average Christian in Virginia is much different from the average Christian in California, Oregon or Washington state. California recently legalized same sex marriage. Oregon is the only state where physician assisted suicide is legal. In Washington, the chief pastime on Sunday mornings is sleeping late. I am pretty sure that the crime rate in Washington is lower than
the crime rate in most or all Southern states.

Believe it or not, about a decade ago, a gay couple living is Texas were arrested for having sex in the privacy of their own home.

The couple sued the state of Texas, and eventually the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the gay couple, in the process striking down anti-sodomy laws in Texas and twelve other states, the majority predictably Southern states. Two exceptions were Utah and Idaho, where there are a lot of conservative Christians. Do you approve of the ruling? Such an atrocity could only happen in a state with a high percentage of conservative Christians.

When the Supreme Court ordered busing, one state closed down the public school system so that white children would not have to attend school with black children. Would you like to guess which state is was? It was the state of Virginia, the home state of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell. Only in a Southern state could such an atrocity have happened.

Wherever you go in the world, no matter what the religion, fundamentalists are always trouble.

Lafcadio

I see that most persecution discussion focuses on few Roman emperors and the conclusions derive only from that. Many persecutions claimed to be happened are totally undocumented as numbers (like the persecution of Christians in Gothia in 4th century AD). I don't think that anyone can guess the number of Christian martyrs by judging few Roman persecutions, even only for early Christianity.
As for Roman persecutions, I have no idea how the estimates are made, but I can tell you that some happened on in a vast territory (for instance, I know about a Christian inscriptions mentioning four martyrs in Scythia Minor in the times of Diocletian)

And also it's worth noting that while orthodox christians persecuted their heretics, the situation happened also in reverse. For instance, there are a number of arian persecutions.

And Johnny Skeptic, I think it's pointless to describe how Hypathia or others were tortured/killed as long as you don't show (or have no proof) how christian were tortured/killed. Either show both sides (especially that the topic is started for the latter) of the coin or none. Anything else is just bias.

So did many other societies. What's the point?

Isn't that rather a description of political powers than Christian nations?

Would you apply this saying today? Isn't christian bashing a way of rewriting history? And I have in mind mostly the history that started to be written since 18-19th century (like Juan Antonio Llorente - I read modern books relying on his estimations - and others of his kind which sometimes are taken too serious in anti-christian rants).

Johnny Skeptic

In case you didn't notice, I quoted a CHRISTIAN scholar. He had ample opportunity to show both sides of the coin, but he knew that everyone ALREADY knows that some Christians were persecuted and/or killed. It is in fact that most CHRISTIANS do not show both sides of the coin. I am not biased at all. NO ONE has EVER claimed that some Christians were not persecuted and/or killed. The Britannica 2002 Deluxe Edition says "Clearly in Trajan's time the Roman government did not yet have (and, indeed, was not to have for another century) any policy of persecution of the Christians; official action was based on the need to maintain good order, not on religious hostility." My point is that many Christians were not any different from anybody else.

Authors Barrett and Johnson wrote a large book tilted 'World Christian Trends.' The authors claim that the MAIN reason why the Christian Church prospered and grew is because of Christian martyrs, and they conveniently DID NOT show both sides of the coin. The authors make a number of outlandish, completely uncorrobated claims of the martyrdom of many thousands of Christians in the 1st century alone. A martyr is someone who is given a chance to recant his beliefs, fails to do so, and is persecuted and/or killed as a result. There is no evidence at all that a sizeable number of early Christians were given a chance to recant their beliefs, refused to do so, and were persecuted and/or killed as a result.

The point is that Christians claim that Christianity is the ONLY valid world view, and that the world would be in much worse shape if Christianity hadn't come along. I contest those assumptions. Don't you? Many Christians brag about the character of the Founding Fathers, many of whom were actually Diests, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin being notable examples.

In my previous post, I proved that even if we consider only the last 75 years, conservative Christians have shown that they are generally utterly destestable people because of their desire to legislate their religious views. Would you prefer to live in a country where most people were followers of Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell? I do not oppose Christianity in general, but I do oppose conservative Christianity in particular.

Not entirely. It is a description that proves that Christians were much better than anyone else at persecuting and/or killing people, and stealing their land. Today, conservative Christians are still much better than anyone else at infringing upon the rights of other groups of people who disagree with their Bible based agenda, i.e. their opposition to homosexuality, same sex marriage, physician assisted suicide, AND YOU, or didn't you know that?

Anti-Christian rants? Now please. Christianity is in fact a rant against ALL non-Christians, INCLUDING YOU. In the NIV, Revelation 14:9-11 say "A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: 'If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.'" Now then, if that is not a rant, then will you please tell me what it is?

Lafcadio

That is correct. But the topic of this thread it's not Hypathia but Christian persecution. I ment that you, as a debater, should not emphasize Hypathia's misery ignoring the latter.

I agree. This is what I'm trying to show spin, too

I also agree that martyrdom was important in the expansion of Early Church. While about intellectual dishonesty, it's relevant to the topic, but it's not a specific Christian phenomenon. But as you above mentioned that you regard Christians as anybody else, I openly agree to talk about it. Yes, they did not show both sides of the coin, that was their way to promote themselves. Usually the decent estimations on Christian martyrs do not consider all the emphasis given by Christian authors.
Talking of this, there's a lot of interesting propaganda in post-Roman societies. A religion like Christianity and the germanic states like those of Goths and Franks struggle to get a new identity in the shadow of Rome. Maybe that's one reason for the perennial conflict between West and East, between Catholics and Orthodox.


While agree about the unsupported claims of martyrdom, as I know there are various informations about martyrs throughout the known world of those times, in various sources. I'm sure a honest researcher could pull out an estimation - and some already did, but unfortunately, as seen in this thread, the subject is very delicate and irritates many.

I agree with you. The Founding Fathers are overrated. There's only one little nuance here. I don't think the world it would necessarily be in a worse shape without Christianity, but I think Christianity played an important role in the intellectual history of this world and some (and I don't mean only the "evil" ones) of our today views are due to it. And I don't focus on our morality but on our philosophy. From the polytheistic worldview to our today's worldview Christianity seems a step.

I think today's Conservative Christians are in a way a byproduct of modern world and politics so I wouldn't take them as representatives for the entire historical Christianity. As for living in other ages, with my mind and education of 20-21 centuries, probably I can't. Being born in those times I can't really say how it would have been. I read, for instance, Huizinga's work about the end of Middle Ages. It's a weird, deeply religious world, but can't say you will see it that way once you're born in it.


I disagree. It's a non sequitur. Can anyone really prove that because of Christian feature of the European culture, the Europeans were succesful in colonizing, enslaving and finally civilizing (this one last point is debateable, I know) this world? As for capacity of persecution or killing I think the Japanese were also very succesful with Chinese or Russian with their own people, and both acted in a non-Christian context.

Can't say they are better than anyone else, and certainly can't extrapolate today's reality to all times.
And I met conservative(!) Christians that could argue with me about very delicate Christian issues without even launching an ad hominem to me. Some just agree to disagree.

Christianity is an ideology with known bias. Little is said about others' bias, because it seems they are, by default, assumed to be objective. What about "The victors rewrote history, their way" applied to other victors?

It is, but why following those steps in a different direction?

Johnny Skeptic

I never said that Christian colonizers were successful "because" they were Christians. They were successful because they were completely by chance better able to have armies and superior weapons by which to carry out their evil tendencies better than anyone else. If the Jews, the Romans, Alexander or Genghis Khan had been so equipped, they would have done the very same thing. My main points are that 1) historically, the majority of Christians have been hypocrites, and have not come anywhere near close to living the kinds of lives that the New Testament tells believers to live, and that 2) even today, the majority of conservative Christians try to usurp the rights of other groups of people who disagree with their Bible based agenda, i.e. their opposition to homosexuality, same sex marriage and physician assisted suicide, and that 3) wherever you go in the world, no matter what the religion, fundamentalists are always trouble.





To get back on topic, the topic question is 'How much persecution did the early Christians suffer'? The best evidence suggests, "not much." Another good topic question would be 'Who represents both sides of the coin regarding persecutions BY Christians, Christians or skeptics'?