Vanarus, Machaka Lion Kings etc

[B0rsuk]

Interesting stuff there, HoneyBadger. Speaking of other sources of slaves, European rulers avoided Arabs on purpose. The reason: religion ! Islam would unite slaves, they could organize and fight for freedom. Even worse, they might be able to spread the religion.

Now that I've read the book I have an interesting observation. It appears the most intolerant, xenophobic religions are the monotheistic ones. Greeks, Romans* simply added gods to their pantheons, at least until they converted to Christianity. The intolerance granted by monotheistic Christianity and Islam made them strong factors in uniting people (often using very brutal or very devious measures, but that's not the point). Now I'm thinking about modeling these things in a game like Civilization or preferably Master Of Magic. They could make interesting, or at least fresh game mechanics. I would include shamanism (belief in minor, local deities rather than a number of strong global ones a.k.a. polytheism) and atheism.

* Romans and Chinese are good examples of major powers who avoided mixing religion and government. Apparently it can be done.

I was absent so I had no chance to read your PM, HoneyBadger. The good news is the time was well spent, and apparently I've seen a badger, who was cool enough to escape the wheels despite maintaining a leisurely pace.

[OmikronWarrior]

Originally Posted by B0rsuk

Interesting stuff there, HoneyBadger. Speaking of other sources of slaves, European rulers avoided Arabs on purpose. The reason: religion ! Islam would unite slaves, they could organize and fight for freedom. Even worse, they might be able to spread the religion.

I do not think this does a good job in describing the origins of slavery in the New World. Long story short, a handful of crops proved to be so profitable that plantations owners did whatever the hell it took to get bodies to work the fields. Sugar was by far the most important of these crops, and something like 80% of all slaves brought to the New World. So why Africans? Because the Portuguese set up a trade network on the African coast, and found buying slaves from other Africans to be more reliable than subjugating the natives on the Canary islands. This precedent set, others followed and it kept proving cheaper and more reliable than any other form of labor. If you want to trace the origins of slavery, economics illuminates the way. I think the dehumanizing racism that followed very quickly (within 50 years in the case of Barbados) is better explained as an after the fact justification for working hundreds of slaves to death to make sugar.

Now that I've read the book I have an interesting observation. It appears the most intolerant, xenophobic religions are the monotheistic ones. Greeks, Romans* simply added gods to their pantheons, at least until they converted to Christianity. The intolerance granted by monotheistic Christianity and Islam made them strong factors in uniting people (often using very brutal or very devious measures, but that's not the point). Now I'm thinking about modeling these things in a game like Civilization or preferably Master Of Magic. They could make interesting, or at least fresh game mechanics. I would include shamanism (belief in minor, local deities rather than a number of strong global ones a.k.a. polytheism) and atheism.

* Romans and Chinese are good examples of major powers who avoided mixing religion and government. Apparently it can be done.

Borsuk, you are all kinds of wrong here. You do know that the Romans persecuted and martyred thousands of Christians? The exact offense was usually refusing to burn an offering to the Emperor. That is neither tolerant, nor seperating governance from religion. And for that matter, "intolerant and xenophobic" are great words to describe the Chinese throughout history. Actually, they probably describe 95% of all human societies. Christianity and Islam are both exceptions that argued all humans could earn divine favor by joining the faith. Well, Islam was harder on women. However, Christianity gave women an enormous amount of equality. If you look at some of the big name converts to Christianity, they often had mothers or wives who converted before them and played a large role in their conversion (Constantine's mother was Christian, for example). I do not think monotheism lends itself to this kind of unity on its own face. Judaism, for example, puts an enormous emphasis on its adherents being "God's chosen," or a special people apart from the rest. They further emphasized these differences with strict labor, dietary, and bodily alteration.

Long story short, history is complicated. Especially when dealing with over 2,000 years of it. Just think about how quickly things have changed in the past 100 years. The ancient world was not any more stable, we modern observers looking back upon it just tend to clump and generalize more.

[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.

[B0rsuk]

Originally Posted by OmikronWarrior

I do not think this does a good job in describing the origins of slavery in the New World. Long story short, a handful of crops proved to be so profitable that plantations owners did whatever the hell it took to get bodies to work the fields.

One point stressed by Black Mother is that it was really 3 transactions. First they took cheap manufacture products, fabric etc and bought slaves with them. This was already very profitable. Then they sold the slaves to colonies in the New World. Finally, they sold the spices and stuff back. Year after year after year it provided in over 300% return of investment. Not to say what you said is wrong, just not complete.

Borsuk, you are all kinds of wrong here. You do know that the Romans persecuted and martyred thousands of Christians? The exact offense was usually refusing to burn an offering to the Emperor. That is neither tolerant, nor seperating governance from religion.

True, but I have to wonder why were Christians persecuted ? Why did they grow stronger than most other religions ? I don't know the historic context, but I don't think this is necessarily at odds with what I said earlier. One of most basic Christian dogma is there's only one god. That's inherently intolerant. I wish I knew more of religions of the time. One book I read about Romans said they wouldn't persecute other religions if they were not a threat to the state. I don't rule out that Jesus was indeed a troublemaker. And frankly, some of the stuff attributed to him (like accepting and not defending against any aggression) is plain stupid and immoral in my view.

And for that matter, "intolerant and xenophobic" are great words to describe the Chinese throughout history.

Yet two wrongs don't make a right. The Chinese managed to keep their government free of religion by being more intolerant themselves.

Actually, they probably describe 95% of all human societies. Christianity and Islam are both exceptions that argued all humans could earn divine favor by joining the faith.

Oh, that's the tip of the iceberg. To make people dislike each other, it's enough to artificially divide them into two groups. That's what one scientific paper said anyway.

Do you know how farmers deal with baboons in Africa ? They catch the cheekiest baboon using a bait. Then they paint him white, and set him free. Once the pack sees him, the response ranges between ostracism and murder. A white baboon will never be accepted, yet he can't understand what's wrong with him. This method is illegal.

Another of my hypotheses:
the most popular religions are the most kind ones, in the sense they declare the most kindness to others. Look what happened to Aztecs. Voodoo still exists by some miracle, but as a curiosity.

Well, Islam was harder on women. However, Christianity gave women an enormous amount of equality. If you look at some of the big name converts to Christianity, they often had mothers or wives who converted before them and played a large role in their conversion (Constantine's mother was Christian, for example). I do not think monotheism lends itself to this kind of unity on its own face.

Sounds reasonable. The equality granted to women could be one of the main offending factors (why share if you don't have to ?). No, this isn't caused my monotheism alone, but supports my hypothesis that Christianity was disliked because it threatened the old order. The cult of Priapus would never be seen as a threat.

Judaism, for example, puts an enormous emphasis on its adherents being "God's chosen," or a special people apart from the rest. They further emphasized these differences with strict labor, dietary, and bodily alteration.

In my opinion the only reason why Judaism is no longer one of the warring religions is because they've been kicked so hard. Of course there's Israel/Palestine, but it never came near the scale of crusades or jihad.

The ancient world was not any more stable, we modern observers looking back upon it just tend to clump and generalize more.

Another thing: we know little about the ancient world, it appears simpler due to lack of information.

[LDiCesare]

Originally Posted by B0rsuk

Another of my hypotheses:
the most popular religions are the most kind ones, in the sense they declare the most kindness to others. Look what happened to Aztecs. Voodoo still exists by some miracle, but as a curiosity.

I don't think so. The most popular religions include christianism, which was forced upon people by burning them alive if they wouldn't convert, Islam, which was spread by jihad, buddhism, which although peaceful was spread in not-so-peaceful ways by f.e. Asoka in Inida, Hinduism, which is not very nice to a lot of Hindus...
The most popular religions were spread by religious or secular leaders in a warlike way.
Christianism may have supplanted Roman and other polytheisms out of kindness, but it's probably more due to the fact it offered a heaven after death that's much more appealing than that of the Greeks: In the Odyssey, the ghosts all regret their former lives, even if they are in the Elysean fields, whereas Paradise is the top best place to live in, and you can hope to be happy in the afterlife. Kindness may not matter much here.
Then crhistianism became dominant by becoming intolerant and outlawing other religions, and by forcefully converting whoever they met.

I also think polytheism isn't jsut about adding gods, but assimilating them. Herodotus for instance will talk of Ares when he describes the god of war of another nation. Does it mean he uses a familiar name to help his readers understand, or does he think it's the same god his readers know? I don't know.

[NooBliss]

Originally Posted by LDiCesare

The most popular religions were spread by religious or secular leaders in a warlike way.
Christianism may have supplanted Roman and other polytheisms out of kindness, but it's probably more due to the fact it offered a heaven after death that's much more appealing than that of the Greeks.

That, and scaring the hell out of these who dont worship their God. Islam does the same, of course.
- Jesus loves you! Love him back or burn in Hell!

[LDiCesare]

Actually, there's a hell you don't want to go to in most religions. Tartarus for the Greeks, Hel for the Norse... The Hindus have one too. Christians, and muslims afterwards, offered a paradise to everyone. Hell was more of a tool of the church to force teh faithful to act according to the church wishes.

[NooBliss]

Let me respectfully disagree.
While there's some bad place in most religions, there are different conditions for going there. For example, Hel was reserved for these who didnt die in combat, afaik. No matter what, you go to Hel if you didnt die in combat, and you go to Valhalla if you were a brave warrior and died with a weapon in your hand. Greek Tartarus was for these who sinned heavily (not just your everyday greed and lust). For example, you were a pretender god who denied the previous Pantocrator. Etc etc.

And only Christians/Muslim 'send' to their Hell these who didnt convert to their God. AFAIK, if they are to be believed, even the most rightous nonbelievers will be tortured for all the eternity just because they didnt accept the one and true Faith and didnt pray to the one and true God 4-5 times per day on their knees.
Thats some punishment if you ask me. It probably has something to do with these religions success - maybe as much as the swords of their adepts. Fear is a powerful factor.
(What a joke must be to choose one of these religions only to find out that you guessed wrong and thus go to hell.)

[Squirrelloid]

Islam is slightly more conflicted on the 'non-believers' part than Christianity. There's at least one Sura which claims that 'people of the book' (Christians and Jews) can achieve paradise, because they do worship the true god. Of course, there are also passages which imply the converse, so as I said, conflicted. Christianity, by comparison, is very much 'believe or fry'.

(Actually, this gets to the heart of a difference between the religions. Islam is not about belief in the way Christianity is. Its about submission to God and refusing the path of hubris - that you can get along without God. Orthopraxy is far more important than orthodoxy.)

[RadicalTurnip]

The Romans were tolerant of *old* religions, in which they practiced Syncretism. Christianity really had problems once the Jewish nation convinced the authorities that Christianity wasn't a "Jewish" movement, it was a new religion.

Christianity was very pro-women for its time. Not necessarily in practice, but in doctrine, women being the first to find the empty tomb was a very big deal back then, because if you wanted something believed, then a man had to say it was true. Ephesians 5:22 (so often quoted in Christian weddings saying "wives submit to your husbands") was actually revolutionary because wives did that anyway, but to tell men that they had to be loving and caring to their wife was exceptional, as a Roman man could divorce his wife for any reason.

I think you'll find that almost every "category" of person has some skeletons if they've been around for a few hundred years, much less a few thousand. Sure Christians and Muslims did some not-so-nice things, but so have atheists, scientists, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Ottomans, etc etc etc.