[Squirrelloid]

I think he was making a different point.

Example: the problems Romans had with Christianity was not that it introduced a new god, its that they denied the other gods. As long as everyone was pantheistic, Rome could care less who *else* you worshipped. But first you had to render unto caesar what was caesar's. Christians refused to worship other gods, hence the problem. Its a totally different kind of intolerance, since its hardly afraid of what's different. What its afraid of is exclusivity.

Where monotheism tends towards xenophobia follows immediately from your 'everyone could earn divine favor by joining the faith' - namely, if you didn't join the faith, you were an unperson.

Also, I don't think i'd hold up Christianity with being notably pro-woman. Women arguably were at least as well off in Roman society pre-Christianity as post. And the church has been remarkably hostile to women even into the present day. (I know the catholic church doesn't permit women to be priests, and i'm pretty sure the orthodox church is the same. Protestantism is a mere 400+ years old, and its more liberal treatment of women has everything to do with attitudes during the reformation and age of enlightenment, not christianity per se.) And lets not forget that woman is blamed for 'original sin' in Christianity, which is arguably worse from a social attitude standpoint than anything in Islam.