Was there tension between people, and debates about it? Were there staunch fundamentalist Zeussians who threatened the wrath of his lightning bolts?
2006-09-28 04:57:44 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
In a polytheist culture, people accept the idea of many gods. (Hence Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, etc.) There are gods with varying different powers or areas of specialty. Gods for your trade, your family, your city, region, and country, your ethnic group, etc. The prevailing tendency, on encountering another god, was to add it to the list of the ones you worship, so as not to offend.
This went so far in first-century Athens that they had an altar to 'the unknown god" lest they sin by omission in not worshipping some important being. (See Acts 17)
Still, folks could get excited if they felt that favored god or gods were being offended. They executed Soctrates for corrupting the youth *and* atheism. In Acts you can read about the riot in Ephesus when people thought (correctly) that the preaching of Christianity gave offense to the city's patron deity. Going further back, there was a big stink in Egypt when Amenhotep IV renamed himself Akenaten and instituted exclusive worship of the sun god Aten. He closed down the worship of other gods, which caused quite a bit of trouble.
2006-09-28 05:25:32 · answer #1 · answered by Nick jr 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When Christianity was becoming a major religion in Europe, first they preached their gospel and converted many of the people. The people were mostly pagans at the time, people who worshipped goddesses, gods and natural things. After enough people converted that the church became a power they lost patience with the people who did not convert, and they burnt them. There were no debates, I guess you could call this tension. It is estimated that 9 mil people were tortured and burned, equating paganism with witchcraft, in about 2 centurys. Considering the population of Europe at the time this was much, much bigger than the holocaust. The old religion became very well hidden, they did not exactly "go out of style"
2006-09-28 05:20:42 · answer #2 · answered by irongrama 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Christianity started as a cult then gained respectability when the Emperor Constantine made it the state religion of Rome. am certain when there were changes being made there was conflict among the population. whenever changes in religions are made there always be stress and strain among the population.
2006-09-28 05:31:24 · answer #3 · answered by Marvin R 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nah they just got chained to a pole to appease the crackon.
2006-09-28 05:01:33 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Dude... it's in the bible. Just read "acts", it's about how christianity spread to the greeks, roman, others.
2006-09-28 05:00:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋